Mauritius

A lots gone on in the last 7 weeks since we arrived in Mauritius. I am now back in Aus and captain Hooly has taken the helm on Sunflower on a mooring in Grand Baie.

We arrived in Port Louis and it couldn't have been easier with the officials, after half hour we were cleared in and had a 3 month visa with no cost at all and very friendly officials. We then made our way over the other side of the harbour to the marina. For $12 a day you have water, power and hot showers right in the middle of the town, it's great. It had been nearly 6 months since we had had a proper hot shower and to say Julie was very excited would be an understatement! Sunflower thoroughly enjoyed a freshwater scrub also. We stayed for 3 nights and had a look about the town and ticked of a few jobs also. The main job was meeting up with Julien from MU Sails to repair the head sail. The sail was pretty trashed and the fabric very old so we ended up deciding to go with having a new one made. He gave us a very competitive price and the sail is now ready to pick up from his loft as soon as I get back which will be very exciting (amongst other things:)

Port Louis was a bit of a shock also to us after life being so quiet, it is bloody busy! With the main population of Indian descant it can get pretty hectic in the markets but still relaxed compared with India. The vege markets are great with everything you could ask for and the prices are pretty good also.

 After a few days of doing that and our washing we had had enough though and were looking forward to being on anchor again so we headed up to Grand Baie up the top of the island and anchored in  front of the yacht club. There was a regatta on that day and Julien the sailmaker was racing on his dad Phillips boat so we went for a few beers at the clubhouse when they got in. Was great, there must have been about a dozen boats racing and most of the crew involved were reasonably young and the club had a really good vibe and we made a few new friends very easily. And that was it, we slipped into the Mauritian lifestyle very easily, Julieta more so as she is still there enjoying herself and making more friends. Other cruisers we had met previously were also there and coming and going which was great so there is always someone about. The World Cup on the big screen in town took up quite a few good nights with a few beers also which was good fun with our friends from Holland, Brazil and France and obviously Julie's from Argentina and very passionate about football so it was a good laugh.

We hired cars and motorbikes on different occasions normally to do boat jobs but we did do a little sight seeing but have still got to go for a proper look down south for a couple of days were it's meant to be really nice. 

It was quite a shock though how modern Mauritius is, I didn't imagine massive shopping Malls and the biggest supermarkets I have ever been in! Big duel lane motorways with really good roads but the driving is pretty ordinary to say the least, I think they definitely brought their skills from India.

We managed to get a few boat jobs done like re galvanise the anchor chain, service sewing machine, big service on outboard, some stainless work, finally finishing the cockpit table and the most important job of all was having a new burner fabricated for the BBQ. 

Julie is still really busy ticking of loads of jobs as I write this now! The star that she is, busy varnishing, painting and got lots of sewing projects on the go. Through a friend she managed to find in town a fella selling Sunbrella canvas for the bargain price of $13 a metre for the charcoal grey we wanted. So there's grey popping up everywhere, new liferaft cover, BBQ cover, winch covers, covers for covers and even talk of a new cover for the mainsail!

When she's not busy with jobs she has been having a fine time with friends she has made. A young Mauritian couple we met, Sebastian and Dian have been really good. Dian always inviting her out for lunch or to parties and introducing Julie to a lot of new people so she even had the opportunity to go diving the other day which she really enjoyed. The Mauritian people couldn't be friendlier, it's great. 

Phillip, Julian's dad has leant us his cyclone mooring which was also a really great thing. Just before I left we had a couple of 30knot days and since then Julie has had quite a few more. It's quite some job for her raising and lowering the dingy alone when it's blowing so some days she is confined to the boat but so far she hasn't gone too crazy :)

If it wasn't for the cyclones that sometimes make their way there it would be a great place to make a base for a year and see some of the islands around there. But it would be too hard for me to leave the boat to come back to work and not have somewhere safe to keep her so we plan to move on when I get back hopefully to South Africa via Madagascar but it is also subject to change with work!

I've got a couple of weeks left of work and thoroughly enjoying it after having so much time off. Making the most of the chef cooked meals and freezer full of ice cream makes it even easier to deal with and the cash injection hasn't hurt either.

Whale of a time!

The breeze died a little yesterday afternoon and we were left rolling around in lumpy seas doing 4-5knots. Julieta and I chatting away in the cockpit I decided to go down and make a toasted sandwich. With the wind behind us like this the mainsail sometimes bangs around, making a cracking noise and sending a shudder through the boat. Just as I got down the steps a noise like this only with a lot more momentum and almost a crunching noise I thought maybe we had a problem with a piece of the rigging?? Julie then yells out we have hit something..... A whale! I race outside and it is just passing down the starboard side of the stern. Sunflower got pushed aside and it was definitely a whale. There was a lot of blood, the poor fella didn't look too good at all. As bad as I felt for it the fear for the boat was much worse. Only a few days ago we were speaking with a Frenchman on a 55 foot Amel, a quality, very expensive boat. He was heading down the coast of Argentina when he also hit one but also put a big hole in the stern but luckily he had watertight doors so he made his way into Buenos Aries for repairs. Anyway with all this going through my brain quickly checking bilges but we were fine(I think so anyway). The chances of this happening are super slim but luckily we have a super strong boat that seemed to just shrug it off!
Anyway the breeze has just picked up a little now and we are still on track to make Port Louise tomorrow morning.

Rodrigues, thank you it was great!

The last 2 and a half weeks at this place has been great, it's a very special unique kind of place. Just can't get over how friendly everyone is and nothing is a problem at all. The last couple of weeks we had been getting pretty bloody lazy though but it was great. A few walks, lunches with a few beers, couple of boat jobs, go back to the bakery, walk around the town or just go and chat with another yachtie and have another beer.
Its a pity we can't speak French. Even though most people speak a little English you still can't have a proper conversation which is something we really miss out on. I think if we stayed a while we would slowly start picking up the language alright though and that would be fun but it's now time to go. A few yachts the last couple of days came in that we only got a brief chance to meet but hopefully we will catch them further down the line.
We left yesterday(Monday) lunch time with a good forecast for the next few days with all the wind supposably behind us at 15-20knots which is perfect. So far it is about right. Mauritius is only about 350miles from Rodrigues but is just that tiny bit too much to do in 2 days so we are just cruising and planning to arrive in Port Louise daylight on Thursday morning making it a 3 day trip. It's a little rolly at the moment but not too bad, still managed to do a roast chicken with veges for dinner last night. The weather is a little chilly, we have to put on long pants and a jumper at night which really is just not on! Already looking forward to getting back to the tropics.

Rodrigues

Arriving mid Friday afternoon was just too easy. There were 5 other yachts there, 4 of which we knew from Chagos. As Rob from "Inish" grabbed our bow line humming a wedding tune I couldn't help smile but completely puzzled as we hadn't said anything to these guys here??? Turns out our good friends on Gaia and Divanty who were sailing for India had spread the word around on the SSB Radio to the whole of the Indian Ocean! Well we cracked up anyhow.

Then there were the officials also helping with our lines.... What a great surprise. We didn't expect at all to come here so hadn't done any research really and what we found was really special. Was like what I imagined it would be arriving in the carribean. The locals here are 97% African decent and all talk Creole which is pretty well French. All really laid back, smiling, just no problem at all. They all came onboard and the paperwork was done in less than an hour. We had the "junior" health inspector Serge who was a super cool smiling sort of fella and the only one we had to pay. Because he was a junior employee the fee was also half! Fantastic, after paying big bucks for Maldives and Chagos the fee here is $30 for a 2 month stay. It was a full moon the night before we arrived so spring tides. We arrived at the top of the tide so it was a bit bumpy alongside so after talking to Gilbert the harbour master (also a champion) we decided to anchor in the dredged harbour. For us it's much nicer at anchor and there is plenty of room there for a  half dozen or more yachts and good holding in mud.

Then into town and off to dinner we went with the crew from La Luna Denise and Etienne. Music everywhere, big mamas all dressed in colours, super cool fellas just hanging out, absolutely no stress whatsoever and almost everyone we passed saying "bonjour", love this place! Is a complete culture shock after being in a Muslim place for so long. Arriving at the restaurant was also a pleasant surprise with the Finnish boats KasteHelmi and Ever After also there. Smiles all around and then the Finnish surprised us with Champagne for a toast to Julie and I! Great night. Also the steak and sausages weren't too bad either!

Saturday we discovered the Bakery or "Pattisserie" as the French say and also the fresh markets. Was heaven... The super fresh vegetables just made us drool, all beautifully displayed and also fresh Meats. The prices are reasonable for most, just some of the imported fruits a little expensive.

 We also went to the "night club" Sunday afternoon for local music. Didn't know what to expect,thought it might be pretty upbeat. Arriving we could could here the music, especially the squeeze box and a drum. Turns out all the old folk after leaving church come here. All the old mamas come to dance and shake their Booty dressed in their best and brightest outfits. The dance I suppose is a Waltz sped up, all moving about in the dance floor with perfect timing. Unfortunately not enough beers could get me up there with my goofy feet!

Since then we have been around the island on a motorbike also seeing the tourist attraction with giant tortoises. Massive things they are, Julieta in heaven. Is well worth the visit, set in a canyon with hundreds of these big things wandering around the place. There is also a cave on the grounds that you get a guided tour of and I would say it is the best cave I have seen. It goes for 500m and is really impressive. 

Yesterday we went by bus to the other side of the island and did a couple of hour walk along the beaches and hills. We took fresh baguettes, cheese and a bottle of red and just hung out on a beach all to ourselves was really nice. Spectacular limestone coast. A little windswept but green with these very small pine trees growing. Loads of goats and sheep wandering around happy out. The bus goes over the small mountain and is a pretty spectacular trip also. Once a bit higher than sea level there are big eucalyptus trees that remind me of home. 

Then we must have timed it about right. The quiet bus ride soon changed. School was out and about a hundred pint sized little African Creole grommets jumped on and it was hilarious. All really well behaved, smiling happy sitting on top of each other or standing and messing about. Julie also  pointed out that they are only about 6 years old and get on the bus themselves with no problem or worries that you would have in most other countries.

We haven't been out fishing yet but plan to go today, I think it is going to be good.

Chagos-Rodrigues

The forecast was good so we had to leave Chagos unfortunately. We had a 12-15kt SE breeze and had beautiful sailing heading down the west side of Chagos bank with another boat "Ever After". That was until the 2nd night out when it went to custard and the wind came almost from the south with lots of rain and a big swell running and the breeze up to 25kts. We made slow progress then, we really had to nurse our Headsails as we didn't want another casualty! The next day it eased but still a lot of rain about the place but went back to the SE at least and then the following day started to come around to the East and then we had great sailing once again for the next 3 days heading south the last under Spinnaker. The seas were calm and we made good speed but unfortunately we were just a tad behind the most of the breeze that was just a little further south than us and then as we got a couple of days out from Rodrigues the wind died altogether and went NE which was directly behind us so on went the engine. The trip took us 8 days for the 1000 mile journey and we arrived fully rested and ready to go which was a great surprise. Geez, Julie even made a cheese cake towards the end of the passage the weather was that good! I really don't think there are many weather windows that you don't get smashed about and break lots of things on this passage from all the stories we heard and blogs we read, maybe we are just lucky??! Sunflower went great once again and we really enjoyed sailing with the Yankee And Staysail as a proper Cutter rig as we don't normally do when we have the Genoa.  Julie also got very busy trimming sails and playing around which was great to see! 

And some other news is that I popped the question just before we left and the answer was yes, Happy Days!!

     

Fish Paradise

29/4/14
I new this place was going to be very special but it still really doesn't get you ready for it. People say how many fish there are and how easy they are to catch but it still doesn't get you prepared. We had 5 nights over at Peros Banhos Atoll and the fish and marine life there is amazing. Snorkelling in a couple of metres or less with loads of coral trout, big groupers, snappers, trevallys, you name it plus all the colourful tropical reef fish. Then there's the sharks.... Loads of them too. Yea they're well fed?? Sure but it still makes me very nervous with 5 or more of them swimming around you. They're just reef sharks but there are others around that luckily we haven't come across yet.
So the days are gone were it's a bit of an effort to catch a fish for the daily BBQ. Now we seem to have too much time on our hands once the daily fish is caught! And the other problem is the size of the trout, massive. We are now at Solomon Atoll and yesterday went outside the reef towing a lure and hooked onto a trout and could see what looked like a shark about to take it as it was being hauled in. Nope, the shadow was 4 big trout following it up! There must be so many of them down there! So we catch 2 and fillet them up and give some to our friends for their lunch and dinner and BBQ the rest ourselves. Is funny because there are 7 other boats here and hardly anybody goes out fishing?? Maybe they don't like fish or fishing as much as we do I'm not sure. We have had a couple of BBQ's on the beach with all the cruisers which has been fun. There's a couple of American boats, 1 Canadian, 1 English,2 Dutch, 1 French and a couple of Finnish boats over the other side we haven't met yet.
Yesterday BIOT, British Indian Ocean Territory came to check our permits. They are from Diego Garcia an atoll further south of here that's an American Naval Base. They were really friendly guys, mainly interested in seeing if we had seen any illegal fisherman on the way here. Also told us the best places to snorkel and where not to snorkel with the sharks. I chanced my arm and tried to buy some beer as our supply is getting alarmingly low, but to no luck:)
7/5/14
The Last week has been much of the same, BBQs and fishing. The weather hasn't been to great until yesterday when the sun came out. The weather changed very quickly from south westerly winds to south easterlies marking the new season. With that came lots of rain and squalls but also filled up all our water tanks and washed the boat so it wasn't all bad. Out of about a dozen boats that were here there are just 4 of us left now, they have all been leaving the last week for Madagascar, India, Rodrigues and Mauritius.
Our good friends Jim and Hellen on Gaia and Antony and Davina on Divanty both left a couple of days ago for India which was quite sad. Gaia was leaving for Madagascar but then changed there minds last minute as Divanty has been to India several times and loved it so much that Gaia decided to stay another season in the Indian Ocean.
We were planning to stay another week or 2 but may even leave ourselves tomorrow if the predicted forecast stays the same. As tempting as it is to stay here in this Paradise the forecast is looking too good to resist. The next passage to Mauritius or Rodrigues has a pretty bad reputation for weather so the tempting prospect of a good one is too hard to ignore. The later the season gets the stronger the winds get. So we will see what the forecast says tomorrow.
Everything else onboard is going very well, Julie included:)

Time to go

Well it's been an interesting time the last 2 weeks. We left Villigili on a forecast that wasn't too bad, but not looking that great either. We only had a 90mile sail to get to Gan. We crossed the equator at about 3 am with rainy squally conditions around but nothing to bad but then just after daybreak the weather touched up a notch and we copped a big squall that took us a little by surprise. The headsail is on a furler which rolls it up and the top of the sail or the head has webbing on it that attaches a shackle to the top of the furler. Anyway the webbing gave way and the partially furled sail dropped down from the top and as I tried to get it furled it formed what looks like a wineglass in the middle aswell as the bottom of the sail wrapped around the furler drum and couldn't get all the sail tightly wrapped. So in 30+ something knots of wind and rain the sail managed to flog itself to death. Wasn't a pretty sight so we retreated to an island only 5 miles away that lays by itself in the middle of the equatorial channel called Foammulah to sort it out. In the lee of the island it is 100metres deep so anchoring is out of the question so we made our way into the fishing harbour with google earth. It was spring tides and we were right on the bottom of the tide going in, luckily the breeze was dead against us and we could just inch ourselves in and the shallowest we saw under the keel was 60 cm but then once in most of the boats alongside have anchors holding them off with floating ropes so it was an obstacle course by itself, all still pissing with rain!

 We got the sail down and then got an hour sleep before the harbourmaster came knocking. He said we had to pay 50$ for the privilege! 50$ is a lot of money to us here so there was no way we were going to pay for that but with the waves crashing over the breakwater we didn't really fancy heading back out either. So he took me to the office and ended up letting us staying for free on the grounds we came in for repairs which was great. He also gave me a guided tour of the island and took me to his house to pick us mangos and passion fruit! And then insisted we go out for dinner with him and his wife, really nice people. 

So we got an old spare headsail on and left for Gan in the morning and still had a steady 22kts on the beam and had a great sail. There were 3 boats already here waiting to leave for chagos and another 3 arrived the same day we did. The first 3 had a good forecast for chagos and left over a week ago and the other 2 left yesterday. The weather isn't great but doesn't look like improving as the SW winds start to crank up and then we won't make the coarse so easily to chagos.  Looks like we are leaving tomorrow on a forecast that isn't great but hopefully we won't have to motor too much and we won't get too much rain. We have been waiting for our Satphone which arrived in Malè nearly 3 weeks ago and with all the beaurocracy here got majorly delayed. I wouldn't advise anyone to have stuff sent to Maldives unless you have to! Maybe there's an easier way I'm not sure but it sure seemed to turn out to be a massive ordeal for something so simple. Anyway we have it now and can download weather grib files and send emails, even should be able to upload blog in Chagos! So we are happy with it and it's time to leave so we will push on.

For anyone that is sailing here, here's some info. Gan harbour is not a bad place for a yacht but you wouldn't want to be here too long either, a few days is enough. It is very tight anchoring especially with 7 boats which we did have for a short time. There is a bombie which one boat did hit. Once

you have gone through the channel into harbour and it's a little to port about 20mtrs in. The water is very murky so hard to see unless low tide. The town isn't very busy, was expecting more people for some reason. The shops have most things you need but the vegetables are pretty poor, not a lot of choice and most look like it's there 2nd lap around the Indian Ocean! There is a guy in a little tourist shop called causeway just near the anchorage and he gets you veges within 2 days from Malè. This is what some other boats have done and also what we did.

Our agent in Uligamu, Asad asadhu16@hotmail.com was a champion and we would recommend him if your checking in up there. He then organises the agent in Malè that you need and also an agent in Gan to check out. We used Muzhid from Realseahawks in Malè and a fella in Gan called Marty which we don't have his detail but is the only agent here anyway. We haven't got the final bill yet but it is about $1000-1100 for the 3 months visit total. Not cheap at all but we think deffently worth it and would have hated to miss it. Once here basic food supplies are very reasonably cheap. There is hardly any restaurants and deffently no bars to spend your money unless you go to the resorts. We didn't go to any resorts as it's not really our thing and just hung out at isolated places were you can easily catch yourself a fish and meet a few locals. I think there are better anchorages up north and should have spent more time up there but it makes it hard when you have to renew your 1 month visa in Malè. Water is a bit of a problem here but we always seemed to meet some super friendly local that would give us some of there rainwater. Until Gan we had hardly seen another yacht which is quite strange, to think only half a dozen yachts cruised here this season! Very crazy and the price puts people of but I think if you're here for anything over 2 months you get value out of it for sure.

Anyway all the jobs are done and hopefully the 3 old headsails we have left will get us to Mauritius without to many dramas! We are excited for the next adventures that lay ahead in the next couple of months until we get to Mauritius, so Chagos here we come!