Wednesday 25th October 2017
With the stiff headwind we have been experiencing along with significant swell, the ship creaks and sways and sometimes wakes me up at night. Last night was worse than other nights. I woke up a few times, dragged from my deep sleep with the creaking and shuddering of the vessel. Sometimes, it felt like the turbulence of a plane – other times the swaying motion of a train and amidst all that movement, early in the morning, came the clanking and clanging of sun-beds being put up! Such is the nature of ship travel. It is the most marvellous way to go from Europe to Africa and again I feel so grateful that I have had this opportunity.
The best way of viewing the pending arrival at a port is from the gym. It has the best view. I went up there and instead of just standing around, I got on a bike. It is very difficult to not be impressed by working out at the ship gym. You actually feel you are contributing to the performance of the boat! I remember running down the Suez Canal and today, I cycled into Mauritius. It felt my pedal power was helping the engines!
This is the view of Mauritius from the gym….
In due course we arrived…
One of the things that’s really hard to find on the internet, is how to get from where the ship docks to the town. There is a new deep-sea docking station in Mauritius and from there it is about 2.5km to town. You simply follow the road out of Port and turn right at the Port entrance. The best thing to do is to walk straight down that road until you get to a strange-looking temple on the left. Turn left after it and you will be on the pathway that takes you to the Waterfront. From there, you can either explore the shops in that vicinity or take the stairs underground and go and explore the town centre. We did both. Traffic is horrific so watch out!
We went to the market which was busy and demanding, but the prices were good.
We visited the park with these ridiculously high Banyan (kind of fig) trees…
At the new Waterfront there is a very picturesque umbrella display…
We found the supermarket and got some shopping and we found a great coffee shop and had cappuccino!
#457 of my 1000 thanks – we got toothpaste!
Then we wandered back to the ship and captured this great view of it with Mike pointing to our cabin….
After we got back to the ship, we had a swim and a soak in the Jacuzzi and spent the rest of the evening relaxing. We enjoyed watching as the ship was unhooked from the Pier and started setting out for our next stop which is Reunion (St. Denis in the map below)…
We are not sure what we are going to do there!
As we cruised out of Mauritius, Mike and I stood on the balcony and admired the amazing creation around us.
Psalm 95:4
He holds in His hands the depths of the earth and the mightiest mountains.
These are the days!
Keep the smile going!
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂