April 2nd, 2024

Well our luck finally ended and instead of our usual beautiful day we had rain and clouds which is to bad since today we were heading to a beach. We docked bright and early and opened the curtains to rainy weather.

It was actively raining when we docked but the rain set up some but no sun.

Mauritius claim to fame is that it was home to the Dodo bird. The last bird was killed in the 1500’s but it is still their symbol and they ahve a lot of paraphernalia with the Dodo bird on it. Today it is famous for its beaches and coral reefs. It also has a relatively new thriving industry in banking and technology. Most of their new high rise buildings were built in the last 15 years. It also grows a lot of sugar cane and tea.

One of the newer bank buildings in town

The blue dot shows where in the world we are. Mauritius is also very close to Reunion Island

Our tour today was to a private island which has beautiful beaches and good snorkeling. There were not a lot of tours and they canceled the submarine tour that was offered and before we left they canceled the catamaran tour due to the weather. Our tour continued and we took a 45 minutes bus ride to the other side of the island to take a boat ride to a very small island called Ilot Des Deus Cocos. There is a villa on the island that was built by the Governor years ago and you can stay the night but most folks are day trippers.

Ilot Des Deus Cocos.in the distance

It is very easy to walk around the island and it is very beautiful.

The walk around the island, very green and lush.

They had glass bottom boats that they took you on tours with and they were also supposed to take you snorkeling off the boat but they said the weather was too bad for the snorkeling boat.

It is very shallow going over the the island and there are lots of break waters with really strong currents and waves crashing.

Kathy with the waves crashing in the back ground

You can see the water color and we can only imagine in the sun it would be beautiful.

Since there was no sun the water was a little chilly but several of us still went snorkeling but you had to go pretty far out to see anything. I will look at my pictures tomorrow and if I have anything I will post it during the next 3 sea days coming up.

They had a great barbecue lunch and served fish, beef, chicken and prawns along with several sides. They really did a nice job. Plus they had an open bar so Kathy enjoyed the local beer.

Lunch including a chicken sandwich which was like a chicken mini! Kathy with Linda and Micheal who did the excursion with us.

I snorkeled before and after lunch and it was a good workout. They had nice facilities on the island. On our ride back it started raining again.

Sugar cane fields Fertile volcanic land waiting for planting

We also saw this local feeding raw meat to a bunch of dogs that have no real homes on the island. They are “owned” by the neighborhood but not controlled in anyway.

You can see the plate of raw meat that the guy is using to feed them. There were a lot more.

We made it back to the boat around 4:15 and the crew was waiting to greet us with great music playing and dancing.

This is one of our favorite things that Viking does and this is the first time they have done it this cruise but it is also the first cooler day we have had. It was more for the folks getting back on the boat after their 5 nights in India but it was still fun.

We sailed away around 6pm and currently on our way to Richards Bay, South Africa. We have 3 days at sea and currently we have large swells and the boat is really rocking. We also gain another hour tonight so now only 7 hours ahead of the East Coast.