Sunday, March 8, 2009

Magnificent Mauritius

Before I write a blog about India, I want to write a quick one about Mauritius.  It will be fairly short because we were only there for 12 hours.  First of all... where is Mauritius?  It is in the Indian Ocean, about 500 miles east of Madagascar.  Most of the people there are of Indian descent and there is a large French influence, including the language.  We got there 4 days after leaving South Africa, and 5 days before getting to India, so it was a nice break from life at sea.

I was getting over my cold at this point, and I had a nice relaxing day.  I was going on a snorkel trip to a tiny island a quarter mile off the southeast coast of Mauritius called Ils de Deux.  We had about a 45 minute bus ride from Port Louis.  Then we had to take water taxis for about 3 minutes to the tiny island.  It was absolutely beautiful and luxurious.  There were tents with white couches and tons of lawn chairs.  The water was a perfect temperature and it was about 85 and sunny.  

In the morning we just played in the ater, and walked around the island a bit.  Then we had a wonderful barbeque for lunch with really good sea food and other yummy things.  After lunch we went snorkling near by.  The boats would take us a bit off the coast and watch us because the currents were pretty strong.  We were on a huge coral reef so it was really cool to see all the different coral and sea life.  

Eventually it was time to head back and get on the ship to leave.  I didn't end up taking too many pictures because it was such a quick trip, but I think the one that sums it up is below.  You can also see that I'm starting to grow some hair back, and it is even a bit longer now.



I also just thought I would put a couple more pictures of things on the ship.  My friends and I eat dinner everyday at 5:30 and then afterwards and a few of us go and sit on the back deck and relax and watch the sun go down.  Sometimes there is napping.  It's a rough life.  These are my friends Conor, Matt, and Ben.


We also have awesome sunsets almost every night, many like this:

Right now I'm in India.  We leave tomorrow evening.  It has been awesome, and I will post a blog about it in the next few days.  Until then...

2 comments:

Elvie said...

Ok, since i've made it through all of the posts at long last i can finally say:

SOOOO JEALOUS!

Good call on this semester at sea thing. It looks like you're having the time of your life and once in a lifetime opportunity type thing.
Very very jealous...

If you stop in Australia, can you bring me back a nice boy... or girl for that matter, anyone with an accent!

Miss you much!!

Anonymous said...

Hahaha, you look nice with peach fuzz, you should shave your head more often. Have a porcupine head yet? By the way, you have some makeup waiting for you at home- I decided I had too much. Just some lipsticks, and eye shadow. So what are you, half-way around the world now?