Last night we had a spectacular night of Mauritian food, dancing, music, and colors right here in the harbor. The people here put on a wonderful spread of traditional food, music, and dance. It was one of the nicest celebrations that we have enjoyed on our World ARC trip. One of the producers of rum on the island, Rhumerie Des Mascareignes, donated the rum for the night. That seemed to insure that all of us would be relaxed enough to participate in the festivities and the dancing. Paul and Suzana had a wonderful ceremony giving out fun prizes to all the boats who participated in this leg. We all agree that Paul and Suzana have done a wonderful job of keeping the fleet under control and informed the entire trip. We liken their task as comparable to herding wild cats- almost impossible!
One of the most lovely things that has happened on this island is that Bev's parents, Stewart and Barbara Ann came from England to give her a surprise. Bev's boyfriend Moe, helped insure that their arrival was a surprise. She was just telling me how much she missed her family and that they wouldn't be able to visit with her in South Africa. So their entrance was highly dramatic! Bev has properly introduced them to the entire fleet and now we know why she is such a lovely young woman! Moe and Bev are the crew on the boat Tucannon. Stewart says that he has enjoyed following all the blogs from the World ARC and that is how he has felt connected and in touch with his daughter and Moe. Stewart seems to have enjoyed getting to meet all the folks he has been reading about in the blogs.
This is our last full day here on Mauritius. We have had such an exciting time seeing the island, meeting the people, and just relaxing after our long voyage from Cocos. The family that I talked about that had the cat Stealaway from S. Africa has been here relaxing too. We have met them and enjoyed getting to know Alan and his wife and two daughters. They did have some damage to their boat as they got slammed down a wave and almost pitchpoled. They had extensive cracking to their inside built in furniture and all got throw pretty badly out of bunks.They are all well physically however and ready to leave Mauritius as is the World ARC fleet. That was the part of the trip that we all dealt with the wild confused seas. The winds were up to 40kts at that time and some waves up to 20ft. They have a good attitude and are ready to get back home to S. Africa. So you can imagine that we all had a great time here just relaxing and letting our hair down as sailors have been known to do in the past.
So now, I think we are about ready to get on with our journey. Some of us have some provisioning to do. Mauritius is the model boat building center so we will take a ride up north to where they hand make all the models in natural wood products. Bill is talking of having a model made of Crazy Horse
so we will see the estimate. That will certainly be a good memory of this trip.
After the one last trip up the island, the last of the provisioning, cleaning, and stowing away and we will be ready for our next leg.
Rosemary, Bill and Matt