Sunday, 17th October 2010
Skipper remained in the bunk, while Aileen, Collette and Terry toddled off to Mass. There they met the priest who publically welcomed them to Mauritius and the Church from the Alter.
10.00hrs Skipper joined the other 3 for breakfast in the Hotel, Neil was still off with the others on the east coast. The food was only so,so, mind you there was a lot of food, but the eggs were like rubber, and the bacon was as hard as nails, the toast was good, so we had lots of that.
13.00hrs Aileen, Terry and Collette wandered off in the car to the beach, while Skipper remained on board to rest his wounds. Irene from Tucanon came over to A Lady to wish a speedy recovery to the skipper, which was nice, and appreciated. Skipper had lots of emails wishing him well and most commented on the timing. How lucky we were to be in a civilized place when all this happened... Well we all know how important timing is, its everything really, or being in the right place at the right time. Thanks to all the well wishers.
18.00hrs All the travelers returned to the boat. Neil gave his account of the great time they had at Silver beach, and described the Villa in great detail. We were amazed at the security on the villa, bars over all the windows, and they were warned to make sure that all windows and doors were properly and secured at all times. Then Neil proceeded to tell us about some of the younger folk, who went into the town centre a few nights ago for a couple of scoops and got the stuffing beaten out of them by some local thugs. Sooooo, the place is not totally perfect.
At the hospital, skipper was continually asked if we encountered any Pirates on our way here. It seems that there is a lot of Piracy around, despite all the vigilance of the Navy. In some ways its funny... As they say, history repeats itself and this place had lots of Pirates back around the 1700's. So, what's new! They are just reinventing themselves.
Did you ever hear of the Dodo bird, well this Island was the only place that this flightless bird existed and did very well until
the place was invaded by the white man. Its not clear if the bird was hunted to extinction, or if it became extinct because of the dogs, rats and cats that were introduced to the Island by our ancestors. In any event, it is now extinct, but they do have lots of models of the bird all over the Island.
Collette cooked the dinner, this was a chicken curry and rice, all made with her own spices and was very tasty.
We had many callers, just chatting etc,
That's all for now.
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)