Paradise

13 June 2013

This morning at first dawn, we had the other end of Mauritius in sight. We motor sailed around the south point of the island, after sailing beautifully along the west coast yesterday afternoon and evening, with the ‘Europa’ by our side. On the southeast side of the island, is Old Grand Port. This is the place where the VOC ships arrived to fill up their stores with fresh fruit and vegetables.  For us, with all modern gear on board, it is hard to imagine that they used to sail into an atoll just like that… It would have been very challenging to be a first mate, climbing up the mast to try and find the shallow waters and avoid them.
Once inside the first reefs, the sea was very calm and we found a nice anchor spot next to Île de la Passe. This is a sort of fort-island, which was being fought over by the British, Dutch and French. They fought over this island, because they believed that whoever owned the island, had the only entrance to the south side of Mauritius. We have visited the ruins of the fort yesterday and went for a swim in the clear blue sea (26 degrees Celsius water temperature). After lunch we continued sailing in between the reefs, which was a great experience, with sometimes a passage area of only two ships’ length wide. Many residents came towards us with boats to have a look at this special invasion of historical sailing ships. We are now anchored just in front of the original landing place of the VOC ships. Most of our (guest) crew are climbing Lion Hill now.