With the majority of work done on the boat at Taylor Smith boat yard and Le Caudan marina, we were ready to be away from a concrete wharf and anchor out… just to chill out and relax. So we decided to head north to Grand Baie, a short 15 miles trip.
However, we had taken a bus to Grand Baie before taking our boat up to hang out with our friends on SY Ruby Ruby, Keith and Betrix, who we had met in the Maldives earlier this year. They have always been just ahead of us and we were so excited to see them again after almost 2 months!
They got involved with the local Hash House Harriers: A drinking club with a running problem….. why haven’t we heard about this before?….oh right…there is running involved (LOL)! If you haven’t heard of this organizations….you should check it out. There are organized “hashes” all over the world and it’s a great way to meet “like-minded” locals in a flash. Trust me…I wish I would of heard about this group years ago…they even let you walk the trail!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_House_Harriers
Being Keith and Betrix, kind hearted and incredibly fun, had invited some of the local “hashers” a board SY Ruby Ruby and asked if we wanted to join…of course…it was one of our best memories here in Mauritius!
Taking the bus is always fun and cheap way to see the island. We had just arrived in Mauritius when we first bussed to Grand Baie to see Keith and Betrix. 
There are 2 buses that run to Grand Baie, an express and a non-express. We paid an equivalent to $1 usd for the 30 minutes bus ride. 
The bus station is a 5-7 minute walk from the marina, but is very confusing which bus takes you where. However, everyone witnessed us randomly searching and would stop to ask us if we needed help. We finally found the “bus stop” for Grand Baie, Route # 215 
SY Ruby Ruby at anchor in Grand Baie. 
Captain Keith is from Australia and partner/crew, Betrix is from Singapore. We have been asked if we were “sisters”…the short answer…”YES” (LOL)! 
There was no shortage of food or drink as everyone brought a dish to share. Keith and Betrix cooked up sausages and chicken for EVERYONE! 
Keith’s friend, Dave, getting some “Love”. Dave was visiting from Australia for the short passage from Mauritius to Reunion a aboard SY Ruby Ruby. He is refitting his own boat currently and was keen to ask lots of questions. Let’s just say everyone had a BLAST! 
Betrix at the helm…taking a short “gander” out of the bay…. 
Keith and Betrix purchased SY Ruby Ruby t-shirts for everyone….What a fantastic crew! 
After everyone was dinghied back to shrore, we hung out a bit longer and decided to go to dinner at this very popular Italian joint. Unfortunately, I lost our credit card that night. We called the restaurant and spoke to the owner who searched our table and parking lot….he even called the cab driver he ordered for us to search his car. After all that, no such luck but the effort put in was above and beyond…
Getting to Grand Baie is a short 15 miles, upwind sail. The difficult part is the pass into the bay. We had heard there are a few rocks in the middle of the pass (marked) and deep draft sailboats can’t get in. With a high tide it shouldn’t be a problem right?!…we came in an hour before low tide (silly us) and saw 8 feet under the keel…plenty of depth for us. The wind races over the flat landscape up here and is much stronger than protected Port Louis with mountains all around. We experienced 15-20 knots of wind with gusts up to 25 knots. We didn’t worry, the holding was great in fine sand and mud. The only concern would be another boat on a mooring, which there are MANY, would break free or drag.
We stayed for about 12 days…being pretty lazy and hanging out on the boat. It was nice to be on the hook again.
Our approximate path through the pass…maybe you can see some dark patches where coral is. Also, can you see the amount of moorings present. We were told to anchor just behind the moorings near the GBYC. Depth inside the bay was between 20-17 feet. Tidal swing is just under 2.5 feet 
The bottom was fine sand and mud…back down and we didn’t lose a wink of sleep! 
Super cute YC, clean, hot showers, garbage disposal, diesel and petrol (jerry jugs), parking for your rental car, and….. 
a fabulous bar and restaurant. They are only open for lunches but if there are enough cruisers or customers, they will have pizza night on Fridays!!!! 
Which we partook in for Bruce’s 67th birthday!!!! Happy Birthday “Albert” (LOL)! 
Us chiiling out at the GBYC…Trevor likes that we are upside down : ) 
We walked through town quite a bit to get off the boat and go food shopping…. 
Lots of tourist activites offered all along the streets…ever seen this before?!…I hadn’t…. 
Horse racing is serious business here. They race on Saturday’s near Port Louis. 
OMG…we found a self-service laundry mat. These are hard to find in Port Louis proper. We did all the big stuff that desperately needed to happen! 
But basically we just hung out on the boat…..I think I got a little bored and I started to do the cooking… 
…seriously this is unheard of! 
One morning we committed to watching movies all day and get day drunk with “mimosas” and vodka and juice….we tried watermelon juice…I would’t recommend it. 
Our view from the anchorage.
Unfortunately, a few days into our stay here our dinghy motor just stalled and wouldn’t start. Trevor was convinced it was the carburetor again so he tried to clean it himself…no such luck. If you remember, we had a Mercury dealer, Espace, perform a few items on the motor so we called them up to see if they could see what the NEW issue was. We needed to rent a car as they were not able to pick up/deliver in Grand Baie so off to get a rental car for a few days.
Trevor tried to fix the dinghy motor in the dinghy in 25 knots of wind…that was not fun. So we hoisted the motor and he took off the carburetor. Looked good to us. Time to call in the professionals.. 
Yup, after towing our dinghy with Bruce on SV Neptune’s Highway, we loaded the motor into the back of this tiny rental car. 
We found a car rental place that was significantly cheaper than the international car rental brands. We figured out why….Remember last post personal use license plates were white and black? well we had 1 white and 1 yellow…and got pulled over. The officer was very nice and let us on our way. He was checking for license and registration. We had heard that “white” people rarely get ticketed….glad Trevor is with me (haha) 
Picking up the motor at Espace, it was working fine now. The culprit was a clogged carburetor. It got a “dip” in some special solution. It’s still a bit sticky but is running fine…enough (LOL)
After a little research, we decided we should do a large provision here in Mauritius as generally food prices is cheaper here than in Reunion. So when we had to rent the car, it made sense to make some large runs to the grocery store. We loaded up with all the essentials….that includes CHEESE!!!
Lots of activity in the bay, mostly charter catamarans coming and going…but a regatta? Of course Slow Flight was anchored right at the starting line…we didn’t know and it was too late to move the boat.
We also didn’t know that 2019 was the year the Indian Ocean Island Games were being held. In French, the games are called “Jeux des îles de l’océan Indien” so for short it’s just “JIOI“. JIOI is like an Indian Ocean Olympics and happens every 4 years and different countries/islands host the games. The participating islands are Mauritius, Seychelles, Comoros, Madagascar, Mayotte, Reunion and the Maldives. In spite of the fact that Sri Lanka is a noteworthy island of Indian Ocean, it has never partaken in this competition. The event is slowly getting popular across the globe and this event brings lots of positive impacts among these nations who are spending money to improve the standard of the event. Being major tourist destinations, these island nations can also able to improve their sports economy through these types of events.
A list of events are:
- Athletics
- Badminton
- Basketball
- Boxing
- Cycling
- Football
- Handball
- Judo
- Karate
- Petanque
- Rugby
- Sailing
- Swimming
- Tennis
- Volleyball
Check out their website: https://jeuxdesiles2019.com/
July 19-28th, 2019 the games were being hosted by Mauritius and of course Grand Baie was the location of the laser races…we should of known with all the laser sailing we saw around our boat.
As the games got closer, we were told we had to move our boat when we the games began. We didn’t want to be a bother so we lifted anchor a few days before the games started and anchored near other moored boats. The day before the races, we were approached by the Coast Guard to move once again…ok we were a little put off by this as there were all the other boats moored very close to us and didn’t understand at the time they were moving EVERYONE….moreover, we really didn’t understand how big a deal the games were …our stupidity! This time we made the Coast Guard escort us to where they wanted us…all better : )
It felt really good to be here but it was time to head back to Port Louis to wait for a weather window to sail to Reunion island…..but we can’t help mentioning our new crew for the trip to Grand Baie and back to Port Louis…
Next Up…Meet our Mauritius family!