Mauritius

August 20, 2006

Immigration
Flying over the turquoise waters of the South Western Indian Ocean, we soon spotted the majestic volcanic mountains of Reunion Island. Our destination took us 200 km north east to the independent island nation of Mauritius.

As we approached Mauritius the view below revealed picture perfect reef passes backed by volcanic peaks eroded down to megalithic sentinels. As we soared over the center of the island, the turquoise ocean was replaced by an endless sea of sugarcane, appearing to cover the entire island.


"Good morning sir."
The immigration officer didn’t return my greeting or smile. With a poker face and a serious glare he replied, "Passport Please."
I slid it across the counter.
"Where is your outbound ticket?" The officer of Indian decent gave me a very uncomfortable glare.
"Here you are sir," I replied in my best Eddie Haskle tone.
Having forgotten to remove the previous ticket (Madagascar to Mauritius) he looked at me with a sour face and demanded my outbound ticket, now convinced I was trying to pull the wool over his eyes. After fumbling through my papers, now breaking a sweat, I found my outbound ticket to Jakarta and quickly handed it over. Suspiciously he studied my document, glancing from the ticket to my face and back again. Finally convinced I wasn’t a South African or a starving Aussie intent on illegal immigration, he stamped my passport with the Republic of Mauritius seal.

Quick History of Mauritius

Ile Maurice, once upon a time, was uninhabited. Colonized by the Dutch, French, and finally the British, the native Dodo birds were hunted to extinction, and sugar cane was planted. Sugarcane would shape the rest of the islands history.


Colonizers imported cheap labor from India and slaves from Africa to work on the plantations. With French, African, and Indian cultures suddenly thrown together, a pigeon language developed to enable a common form of communication. Once the next generation learned the pigeon as their first language, and a written form was created, the pigeon became a Creole language. Today every Mauritian speaks Creole as their first language. It is the one thing that bonds all Mauritians together. Mauritians also speak French and English as second and third languages respectively. Mauritius boasts one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

Quick Stats

Population: 1.2 Million People

Ethnic Breakdown:
Indian: 70%
Creole (African/mixed decent): 25%
Chinese: 3%
Franco Mauritian (white): 2%


Soullac

Our first destination was a small village located on the southern most tip of the island. The only information we had to go on was that there was a consistent left located at a river mouth near a park. We left our luggage at a hotel in a small sea side town near the airport, grabbed one surfboard each, and jumped on a public bus headed south.
Most of the people on the bus were Indian, women dressed in traditional clothing, school children in their uniforms. We reached the small town of Soullac and headed down to a small harbor located just inside a river mouth reef pass. There before our eyes was a grinding six foot left spinning down a point on the east end of the river mouth. It looked perfect, but why wasn't there anyone out?? Was it surfable? Was there sharks?

Danny, Gato, and Sedric fish
the rough southern waters for
lobster at dawn.
Up floated a young Creole kid by the name of Danny. He was cleaning out his boat after a morning of fishing when we asked for his help. He kindly walked us to the other side of town, to a park located right in front of the wave. For 2 hours we surfed head high lefts to ourselves, not another surfer in site. When we got out of the water, Danny and his two friends were waiting for us. We asked them if they new about any place to stay in town, and they went out of there way to help us. They walked us all around town until we found a small guest house located at the rear of a restaurant owned by a friendly Indian family. We then payed Danny's friend to drive us back to our hotel to fetch our baggage.

Returning back to Soullac, we blazed through sugarcane fields at breakneck speed listening to the reggae sounds of Kaya (Kaya was a local reggae legend who was beat to death by police after openly smoking Marijuana at a legalization rally. Creoles took to the streets and riots occurred throughout the island). We pulled over and our new friend Sedric broke off a stalk of sugarcane, offering us each a piece of the sweet grass.



We posted up at Hotel Rochester, Basically a restuarant with a small apartment in the real. It was quite nice except for the fact it was located right on the road. Busses and sugarcane trucks would pass by day and night, belching exhaust. The woman who ran the hotel was quite interesting. She loved George W. Bush, but was also some kind of closet communist, having the largest collection of communist literature I have ever seen, works on Mao Tse Tung, Kim Il Sung, Lenin, Caecescu, Marx....you name it she had it.




During the day we would surf the river mouth by ourselves, and at night we would hang out with Danny, his family, and our new friends, drinking rum (called 'Gromaio' in Creole). Rarely did they see foreigners on this side of the island, and they took great pleasure in our company. Us being complete strangers, I was blown away by here hospitality. They took us in and treated us like family from day one, never asking or expecting a thing in return.




Our good luck with light morning winds ended and the trade winds returned with a vengeance. It was time for us to move on to greener pastures. We took a day trip out to Le Mourne peninsula on the south west corner of the island.
The centerpiece of this beautiful peninsula is a 1000 foot tall monolithic mountain peak. Surrounded by sheer cliff, legend has it that escaped African slaves jumped to their death rather than face recapture (hence the name "the mourning'). Today the peninsula is a European windsurfing Mecca complete with five star resorts right on the beach, giving it a Hawaiian holiday feel. Most of the Mauritian locals you see here are working at the hotel, except for the well off Franco-Mauritians who can afford leisure time at the beach.

Lucky for us a reef pass refracted the swells as to face into the trade winds creating a quality left known as "One Eyes". One Eye was very consistent, and would be our staple surf spot for the rest of our stay. At 3-4 feet it was a perfect hollow left offering generous barrel time. At 6 foot it turned beastly, shifting around and breaking along a shallow coral shelf- a little to close for comfort.


Tamarin Bay

We were little reluctant, at first, to post up in Tamarin Bay. Based on the sketchy literature we had read and rumors, it sounded like a rare and fickle spot. More importantly, it had a reputation of localism. Supposedly a heavy local crew regulated the line-up with an iron fist, and visiting surfers were not well tolerated. Well you don't know till you go, so off we went.






We stayed with a Franco-Mauritian by the name of Jacque Legaine. Jacque was quite a character, a local icon of the surf community, musician, and all around good guy. After Jacque's father passed away, Jaque took over running his hotel.

Jaque turned the hotel into a "housing project" for traveling surfers from around the world. The housing project was located smack in the middle of a densely populated Creole neighborhood, having sort of a Caribbean feel.

Art and music (especially Reggae)

are a big part of the Creole culture.
One day we took the public bus out to Le Mourne. The Problem was that the bus dropped us at an intersection three miles from the surf spot, so we started to hoof it. After about 10 minutes a car slowly passed with three dark figures inside, seemingly sizing us up, surfboards strapped to their roof. They slowed, turned around, and came back. "Oh shit," we thought, "some heavy locals are going to hassle us." Rolling down the window with a big smile the driver asked, "Where you guys from? You need a ride?" (I was a little taken aback; this would never happen to a pair of traveling surfers walking along highway 1 north of Santa Cruz). We jumped in with Kizmo the Indian body boarder and his two Creole friends Patrick and Ponce'. We hung with these guys for the rest of our trip, catching rides out to Le Mourne, and drinking Phoenix beer at Jacque’s housing project, waiting for the sleeping beauty to awake.


The Sleeping Beauty

Even on a one foot day you can see the potential of this dream like set up. The reef system slowly bends perfectly into a tropical bay, ending at a long, sandy beach. In the center of the bay lies the river mouth that created the reef pass itself. A volcanic, shark-fin mountain peak looms in the distance, like a sentinel watching over the bay.





Fishing boats moored in the inner lagoon (just inside the surf zone), Creole fishermen tending their nets, kids playing French Bocce ball (sorry, forgot its name) in the narrow streets.
Every morning we would stroll down from Jacque's housing project and check the surf. And every morning we would see it breaking perfectly, but only one foot.

One morning, after verifying that T-bay was indeed flat, we jumped on the bus and headed out to Le Mourne. Out at One Eyes the swell suddenly built 6-8 foot.....we knew it was time to return to Tamarin. We pulled up to see solid four footers winding down the point, with the crowd being quite light due to the low tide.

Low tide was so shallow but so perfect, and definitely makeable. Not a flat reef by any means, more like peaks and valleys. In the flats you would navigate around coral heads covered with maybe a foot of water and a boil to boot. If you fall or have to straighten out, aim for a deep hole and hope for the best.

The outside peak was ruled by a pack of old, fat, Franco- Mauritians, with a clear pecking order taking place. Yet they yielded to Patrick (a very talented Creole surfer from Rodrigues island) who got his pick of the best waves. I sat right inside the pack and a little wide, blending in with two other apparent outsiders using a similar approach, with hopes of picking off a wide swinger. And there it was.

The pack was too deep and it was all me. The grumpiest of the locals pulled back reluctantly with a grumble. With an ear to ear grin I drove my backside bottom turn and then proceeded to release my built up surf tension on her perfect face and lip, inside rail buried nose to tail, buckets of spray spewing over the wave's back, the groms sitting wide-eyed in the channel. I continued a good 150 yards, surfing like it might be our last dance together. More or less it was, but incredibly that single wave, more specifically that one turn, satisfied my T-bay experience. Hit it and quit it they say. Easier said then done.

"But wait, the swell of the winter is on its way and it'll be better than sloppy seconds. The swell models are showing 8-10 foot surf, it's going to be the stuff of legends!! We leave Monday, but it looks like Sunday will be on!"

But as we got closer to the swell event, we realized that it wasn't going to hit until Monday, the day we had leave. "No problem, we'll just push our flight back." No such luck due to lack of availability.

I thought that I could hit it and quit it, that one day would have been enough. I was an international player after all. On the plane it hit me; I was crushed. It was like being with the most beautiful women of your life, and then all of a sudden she tells you to hit the road. And on top of that, she's soon to be with another surfer.

Adam saw me struggling and laid it out like this; "Look man, I know she's incredible, but there's other waves in the sea. Listen, we're on our way to Indonesia, think about all of the possibilities just waiting for us."
I stared out the window.
"Answer me this Karl, are you a player??"
"Ya,” I replied, not sounding so sure of myself.
"Are you a SURFER!?"
"Yes," I replied with renewed confidence.
"Then snap out of it and let her go!" He shook his head and buried his face into his book.

As we approached the barren landscape of the Middle East, the sun began to rise. I wasn't thinking about the war in Iraq, or Bush for that mater. No, I had more important things to ponder. I kicked my feet up in my business class seat (first time ever, oh the luxury!), sipping my Glen Fidich on the rocks and I thought about the surfers entering her line-up at that very moment. I smiled as I let go of my envy. I might never see or experience her again, but I was happy for them. Besides, I was on my way to INDONESIA!!!!