Saturday, August 20, 2016

Aug 19th 2016 - Mauritius - day 3


Mauritius.  It has begun.  Today I started working on set goals for Mauritius.   I have a few categories that I put into a Excel spreadsheet to actually give myself a visible goal and feedback system.  It includes such things as producing music, exercise, and writing on a daily basis.  For writing I put down 30 minutes daily as a goal, but have decided for the first 10 days to set that back to 15 minutes just to get the ball rolling.  Hopefully this works out as planned.

Mauritius is amazingly beautiful.  It’s much cooler than anywhere else we have been this year, as Asia is incredibly hot.  It is winter in Mauritius, but to us still feels like summer in the PNW.  The ocean is literally across the street.  You can see the panorama pics of the first afternoon and sunset we experienced.  

We live right next to the Brabant heritage site.  It is the mountain on the right of the pictures.  During the slaving times, escaped slaves had a hiding community up on the plateau of the top of the mountain.  There is also a cave system that they lived in. It was only accessible by a V shaped canyon, so it was also easily defended.  There is a 4km hike that goes up to the top ( I think) so one of these days I will have to try for the summit.



Wind seems to be every day, virtually all day.  Yesterday we hiked from our house in Le Morne Village to the kite spot in Le Morne.  We were hoping for some restaurants over there after quite a long hike, but there wasn’t anything really.  Just big resorts that are closed to the public.  Bummer.  That being said, the kiting is epic here.  A huge flat water bay, sheltered by the reef system the chop is tiny.  Smaller waves than pretty much anywhere I have been.  It rivals Boracay for flat water.  However, on the reef is world class waves.  One Eye is the most famous, as it is the largest.  But there are lefts and rights of different sizes depending on the spot…and the wind will blow you down the break to the left…totally bad ass.  It seems to be silky smooth 9-10m conditions.

While the kiting is epic, the shopping is dismal.  There are about 5 kite shops with the standard gear and apparel, but that’s about it.  One big grocery store and a handful of restaurants at best in La Gaulette.  Outside of that, in Le Morne Village we have a few tiny restaurants and corner stores.  So yeah, get your shopping done in Asia.  Get your kiting in Mauritius.

At some point though we will travel to Port Luis and check it out, as it is the major city.  We will also need to renew our Visa, as we were given 60 days but plan to be here until Nov 7th, when we will leave for Mui Ne, Vietnam.  We will kite there and see Ho Chi Min.  We are also considering going into Cambodia and taking a train to Angkor Wat.

Right now in Le More Village, we are struggling with getting good internet and SIM card service. Becky bought a Emtel SIM card, which works in La Gaulette but doesn’t get service at our house. Wha Wha Whaa…..

It gorgeous outside.  Sun is shining, but its a cool 75+ degrees.  It feels great to us.

Avy is happy.  We have a large flat screen TV that she and her babies settled down to watch movies from our flash drives on.  Also, across the street is a kids playground between the road and the ocean.  It's a great setup for me to watch Avy play and Becky kite at the same time.




Today I plan to walk 10 minutes from our place to check out the low tide launching spot for kiting.  I can launch and kite directly in front of our place when its high tide…but low tide will take some figuring out.

Since I got sleeved in Bali, I am still waiting a few more days for my tattoo to finish healing before getting in the water to kite.  So, the break is giving me some time to explore anyway.

Until tomorrow I leave you with a panorama picture of this evenings sunset from our place. - Ryan




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