The island itself is quite striking with high volcanic peaks reminding us of the islands of French Polynesia. The population is predominantly Indian in origin with others originating from Africa and its various European owners over time, Dutch, French and British. A typical Mauritian would be either Indian or mixed race, speaking either french or their particular brand of creole. We’ve had a reasonably easy time speaking English.
Port Louis, ( confusingly pronounced ‘Lwee’) is also a strange mix of first world opulence with expensive boutique shops, and third world poverty, often quite intermingled or just a street or two apart. The Caudan Marina is part of the Caudan waterfront development and convenient to shops and the markets. The interesting thing is that it isn’t run by a typical marina office, but rather Caudan Security. These guys are helpful, but their role is security and they know very little about boats. They treat it as a parking lot and move boats around or raft them up ie tied side by side to each other, to fit in as many as they can. But the wifi is free and sometimes better than other places we’ve been. What we can’t get over is the number of people who walk around here, day and night, and in particular the number who pose and take pictures in front of Wind Wanderer. It’s actually become too much attention and some climb right onto the boat to pose for their pictures. We’ve had to chase them off. One was actually right up on the bowsprit posing as though he was reading a book while his buddy took pictures, including the “I’m the king of the world” shot from Titanic!
Our envied status of most photographed boat in the place faltered for a few days when Argo came in. She’s a beautiful 150ft schooner based in the Virgin Islands and takes around 25 university students on long voyages. She has 7 full time crew and they study and do oceanographic research as they go. What a great time they were having.
When we arrived we found many boats and crews we knew from the Cocos Islands and it was like a homecoming. Not only did we socialize on each others’ boats in the evenings but had an instant information pool for life in Mauritius. We talked boats and sailing passages with sailors from all over the globe; one couple had even sailed around Cape Horn and found the coast of Patagonia to be the best place they’d been. Makes you think...
If we need anything we can’t find on the cheap there is was always Rashid, or Rasheed??? An enterprising old Indian taxi driver who has made it his business to provide all services to the sailing commumity. His services aren’t cheap and sometimes not worth the time it takes while he drives you where he thinks you want to go. But we used him to buy 600 litres of diesel, all brought to the boat in jerrycans and to fill up our gas bottles.
When we came to Mauritius our biggest boat concerns were the heat exchanger (think radiator) leaking salt water into the main engine’s fresh water cooling system, and a persistent leak from our water supply that couldn’t be located but was becoming worse. Both these items needed to be repaired before going on, and then there was our beloved generator of course. Dead as a Dodo since just after leaving Darwin.
Talking of Dodos, this is where they lived and died. They were here on Mauritius and Reunion, a 150 mile sail from here. They weighd 20 kg, tasted like pidgeon and were flightless. By 1710 when the last Dutch sailors left they were extinct. The mystery is how they came to be here in the first place.
A few phonecalls established that we probably weren’t going to be able to get our work done unless we used one of the major ship yards. These guys are big corporations working on big ships and are never cheap. Taylor Smith was recommended and I gave them a call. They put me through to a Capt. Beutel and I explained our predicament. He said he’s send out one of his engineers to take a look and the next day a wizened little marine engineer with very little English turned up.
We got on well enough and soon he had a grasp of our problem. He thought it particularly funny when I told him we had salt water cooling our engine. He opened the cap, stuck his finger in, tasted it, looked at me quizzically and said ‘No, fresh’! I did the same. It was fresh. It had been salt a few days before and I showed him the salt deposit at the end of the overflow pipe. Suddenly the penny dropped and I realized where our fresh water was going. The hot water system is heated by engine hot water, and our invisible leak had to be inside the water heater, putting our drinking water back into the engine, which I guess was good for the engine.
Jon disconnected the HWS and satisfied himself we had a heat exchanger problem and seeing as I had the tools on board, got stuck into removing it with a promise that he would have it back and in by the end of the day.
Late in the afternoon their yellow work boat returned him sans heat exchanger. He made me understand there were more leaks at the other end and insisted they pick me up the following day to show me. He obviously didn’t want me thinking they were claiming to do more work than it needed.
The next morning they picked me up and we made our way across the harbour and into the shipyard and workshop. The work they’d done was obvious and they were doing the additional work.
I could see the bill escalating and asked the foreman how much I was up for so far. He said “You’d better come and talk to Capt. Cherry/Terry”. I followed him through the yard and eventually into a beautiful wood panelled office, Jon close behind.
Terry greeted me with the biggest smile and handshake and insisted I have coffee with him. I agreed, mentally wondering how much it was adding to the bill. We sat at his meeting table and then he noticed Jon there and insisted he join us. Jon looked like he’d been invited through the pearly gates. In came the espresso in fine china and this was no Nescafe.
We talked boats, sailing, climate change, families etc. He showed me the German bulk carrier on the wall that was his last command. In fact John was his engineer for the last 8 years and had been the engineer on ships under his father’s command. He had a painting on the wall of a boat his father had built in Mauritius for the 1975 Cape to Rio yacht race and he’d kept track of the boat and its subsequent history, including a circumnavigation. Somewhere in the middle of it all his secretary came in with an armload of Taylor Smith caps, polo shirts and 2015 diaries for Sandy and me.
Eventually we got talking about Wind Wanderer and at the right moment I expressed my concerns about the mounting cost. All he’d say was, “let’s get the job right, you won’t get a bad shock.” I pressed a little harder and he and Jon jabbered away in Creole for a moment. Then he said, “How about $200 for everything so far?”
I told him I thought he was being extremely generous but he waved it aside and told Jon to get the water heater sorted out too. We went back and this time 4 men came along and while Jon was replacing the heat exchanger the others got the water out.
The next day the job was done and I asked Jon what the final bill was. He said Capt Terry wanted me to phone him, which we did right away.
“How does $300 for the lot sound to you?” I couldn’t believe our good fortune. I said we’d like to get him something as a thank you, would rum or whiskey be his preference? But he refused anything. “I set aside 5 minutes to have a chat with you, and we talked for 45. That was your gift to me. It made my day.”
What can you say to that? General manager of the whole shooting match and all he wanted was to chat with a sailor again. The sea is a strange brotherhood.
But Jon was not done with us. He was determined to have a go at our generator, separate from Taylor Smith. He had already taken me through his son’s engineering company where they cut steel cogs and do various kinds of steel work with high pressure water jet technology. It’s a big established business. I guess I felt I knew enough about him and his work ethic to trust him. Over the next few days he brought a couple of electrician buddies and they got the generator running, but not generating.
He said there was a company his son uses all the time that could repair or rewind the ‘alternator’, and they’d discovered that was where the fault lay. We slaved away and eventually got the thing out. It must weigh 50 kilos at least, a solid mass of copper wire.
Well it came back yesterday and was half reinstalled. The electrician failed to show up but Jon is bringing him sometime today and is confident we will have a working generator, again at a fraction of the cost in Australia or South Africa. Fingers crossed.
Apart from that we’ve had three large Indian naval ships here. Very smart and probably their best as their prime minister was paying an official visit. It was great except for Riveille on a dodgy trumpet at 5 am! His visit coincided with a big festival here and I nearly embarrassed myself because it happened to be on the same day as Halloween. When I asked what the festival was we were told it was "The Festival of the Dead". That seemed to be taking Halloween very seriously and I thought it was a joke. Fortunately they went on to explain that they don't mourn when someone dies, but once a year they have this big festival to celebrate their life.
The harbour is very active with all kinds of boats coming and going. There are ships that have the front half for cargo complete with a couple of cranes, and the back half with 5 decks of cabins like a mini cruise liner. There are also the inevitable chinese fishing boats we see out on the ocean quite regularly. They have a high square back which is the living area and lower front decks for handling nets or lines. They always look as though they won’t make it to the next port, but they do, no doubt due to the deafening string of fire crackers they light as they leave, first at the bow and then at the stern. Even in daylight they look like they're about to go down in a blaze of electrical short circuits.
One morning Sandy noticed an upturned large rubber duckie type launch tied to the side of one of the coastguard ships. It had its outboard motors sticking straight up in the air and we couldn’t for the life of us work out how that could happen on in a harbour that has no more than an annoying swell. Later in the day Jon came and we found out a tug had hit a customs boat during the night killing the two officers. It happened virtually outside our porthole and we never heard a thing.
Sandy’s arm and hand have been showing no signs of improving so we took a cab to the hospital. Within an hour she’d had x-rays and an appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon. No bone damage but the hard lumps she identified as ganglions and the pain due to tendonitis. She prescribed a bunch of pills to take and told Sandy she’d need minor surgery at some point to unbundle the nerves. She also told her to rest it and to take some of the pills at night because they could make her drowsy. They really don’t understand life on a boat with movement requiring hanging on and overnight watches every 4 or 5 hours.
We considered taking on crew but Sandy hates the idea and would stress over meals, safety etc. So we’ll just take each day as it comes. It’s worked out for us so far.
We will be relieved once we get to South Africa. The Indian Ocean has been harsh, but we’re 2/3s the way across now, so not much more to go. This last stretch is the one everyone gets anxious about because it includes passing the bottom of Madagascar, notorious for bad weather, and crossing the powerful Agulhas current with the very real possibility of a low coming up from the south. This creates very big seas and potential gale force winds. Our strategy is to keep a close eye on the weather and heave to before the current if conditions look bad. We'll then make the dash before the next low. It should take less than a day to cross the current itself.
Incidentally, the trip here crossed the halfway round point for us, taking St Martin in the Caribbean as the starting point. In nautical miles I think we’ve sailed the equivalent of a circumnavigation already. It’s been a busy couple of years!
We’re hoping in the next day or so to be able to get out of Port Louis and up to Grande Bay, about 10 miles from here. We’re sick of harbour smells and dirty water and have a bit to do under the boat. I’m not going under in here!
We’ll have to sail back here to clear out and pick up our speargun (no spear fishing in Mauritius) but that will only be a few hours and then we’ll leave for Reunion, just over a day away.
We’ve taken a few walks up to the market and in spite of the crush and squalor came away with very good fruit and vegies at very cheap prices. The best we’ve found since Ecuador. Sandy is quickly learning all about haggling with Indian vendors!
Mauritius has been a very interesting mixture of experiences.
Until next time...