Mauritius, Indian Ocean - Sep/Oct 2008
We were pleased to find that the marina fees in Port Louis, Mauritius were very reasonable compared to most places we had been so far. We met a retired Frenchman who had a yacht and Nigel designed some self-steering gear for him, and in return he paid for our new mainsail. We had until then been surviving on various second-hand mainsails and looked forward to our first full-size one, to be collected in South Africa. So we spent five weeks in Mauritius and got to know some of the island. The population is 68% Indian, 27% Creole (mix of African/European), 3% Chinese, and 1% whites. Although the language is officially English, actually the spoken language is a French creole, with French taught as the next language, and then English. So an interesting place!