Thank you Mauritius!

Flying back to Mauritius after being away for 7 weeks I was very surprised to see Julieta at the airport as I was about to look for a taxi! Very nice surprise indeed as Sebastian had offered to come and pick me up. I had a great 5 week swing at work and a really good catch up with family and friends in Perth but it was so nice to be home with Julie and back on Sunflower. Arriving back to the mooring Sunflower was looking pretty sexy with her new charcoal grey boom cover (Julie was also). She had gone a little crazy while I had been away and bought out a shop  in town off all their canvas. There were grey covers everywhere!! BBQ, winches, Chartplotter, liferaft and of course the boom cover! Yep, Julie had been busy. The varnish was all looking perfect once again inside and out and everything very well organised and clean, but not for long :)

I brought back a new solar panel to add to the collection so got busy with that over the next few days having Gadel the Stainless steel guy get started on a new frame to mount it alongside the others, he did a perfect job at a great price. Now we have 350w of solar and it seems to be just enough to keep us going without having to run the engine.

Julien from MU Sails also came down and fitted the new headsail. They did a great job on it and we are very happy indeed and glad that we made the choice of having them make it. Sunflower is hopefully bulletproof once again! We hired a motorbike and finished storing up with all the goods ready for Reunion and Madagascar. Grand Baie is a super easy place to do this with a couple of really good supermarkets all close to the boat.

Our good friends Diane and Sebastian offered to take us away for the weekend on their 30ft Wharram Tiki. Was great! We had a blast, weather was perfect and we went around the top of the island to an island off the east coast. Their friend Ben who also has a Wharram joined us as well, was great to see the 2 boats anchored in the little cove. Julie and I camped on the beach in a tent they had leant us. We lit a fire and had a BBQ and a few beers. The next day we went for a bit of a "Tiki" tour around the island and through some mangroves in Bens boat. Great little 26 foot fibreglass Wharram he bought in Thailand and sailed back to Mauritius, just like a big Hobbie Cat!

Great place to live Mauritius, and we were very lucky to get to meet a few of the locals and make really good friends. Is great to see inside and see how the people really are and not just from a tourist perspective. Such friendly chilled out people the Mauritiuns! Nothing seems to really phase them.

After being back 10 days Sj Sunflower was ready to go once again. The forecast was good for a fast sail to Reunion Island. We said our goodbyes to all the great people we had met here and made our way to Port Louis just 12 miles away to check out. Was a great sail with our friends Michael and Sheila on Kantala. The headsail was perfect and we had 20kts on the beam and Sunflower was doing 7-8kts in the flat water. We tied up alongside the customs wall for the night to check out first thing in the morning for the 140nm sail to Reunion. The easiest check out possible with no cost at all and we were off by 10am with a fair breeze, life is good!