I am so proud of our ship and its crew. As you may recall, we left Cape Town a full 12 hours after we were scheduled to. Our itinerary dictatd us staying in Mauritius for only 12 hours, so we all expected the worse: We would not be stopping in Mauritius.
Captain J, however, had different plans. This baby has been gunned all the way up to 27 knots for the past 4 days, now…an amazingly fast speed for a ship its size. We’ve been humming across the water, and have definitely been feeling it…tonight’s been a pretty rough ride, but well worth it…because:
We will be arriving in Port Louis, Mauritius, tomorrow…1 hour ahead of schedule. Awesome.
Most of you…myself included before the voyage…have no idea Mauritius even existed on this planet. That’s fair, it’s a tiny island, less than 800 square miles that sits in the Indian ocean, to the east of Madagascar. I’ve never been there, but the common idea that is being promulgated to us is that it’s paradise.
Mark Twain, in his 1897 book “Following the Equator,”wrote, “You gather the idea that Mauritius was made first and then heaven, and that heaven was copied after Mauritius.”I think that’s amazing.
Mauritius was stumbled upon by Portuguese sailors in 1507, established a quick visiting base, and then took off. Nearly 90 years later, 3 Dutch ships got caught in a storm and ran into the island, and named it after Prince Maurice of Nassau…Maurice…Mauritius. That’s how the island got its name. The island was held until 1715, when the French seized control. The island remained until captured by the British in the 1800s during the Napoleonic wars. It wasn’t until 1968 that Mauritius declared independence as an independent commonwealth.
All throughout, each of these cultures, including masses of Indonesian and Chinese immigrants left their mark on the island, which now stands as a mosaic of past cultures. According to our professors on board, food is a blend of Indian, Chinese and European staples, and tourism is the largest industry on the island (behind sugar cane harvesting).
At our Logistical Pre-Port briefing tonight, Luke “The Voice”Jones played a great joke on us. When he got to the part of his presentation about the weather, he said “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but BBC weather has Mauritius listed tomorrow as rainy all day with a high of 60.”It was like somebody died in there, everybody, including myself was depressed. Then with the click of a button, the slide changed to a big “Mr. Sun”wearing sunglasses, calling for 85 degrees and sunny all day!
Tomorrow, my plans are to go with an SAS trip to “Adventure Park Mauritius,”but it’s not like any normal roller-coaster-filled park. Instead, it’s a huge national park filled with high-ropes and zip-lines. The description of the trip says it’s a wonderful experience as we get to hang out hundreds of feet above the ground for the better part of the day. After that, it’s off to town and the beaches to enjoy the afternoon and some dinner before boarding the ship off to INDIA!
I should also mention that tomorrow is the opening ceremonies of the SEA OLYMPICS…one of SAS’longest running traditions. It’s pretty much like color war at Camp Tall Timbers (so I plan on dominating), and we get the entire day off to compete for our sea. My sea is the Caribbean Sea, and is the 3rd Deck Aft Starboard (got all that?) part of the ship. I am slated to participate in the cheer, the Olympic relay, host the Spelling Bee, play dodgeball and…the grand finale of them all…take part in our synchronized swimming team. It should be a lot of fun. The winner of the Olympics gets the high privilege of disembarking first in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in May. The losers, however, get to remain on the ship until the very end…even after the textbooks disembark. Either way, it’ll be great.
Will write tomorrow, freshly back from Island paradise!
G.
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