Magnificent Mauritius Finished!

Finished off my Mauritius sketchbook page and with the chilly temperatures outside, I'd love to be there now! 

As our first holiday there was over three weeks long, we met some lovely locals and we often sat chatting on the beach and drinking the local Phoenix beer which came in honking two litre bottles, which came from a local store.

Of course water sports played a huge part in this holiday, snorkelling and scuba diving, and I had my first meeting with not one, but six bull sharks! Believe me, I was terrified, especially as it was one of my first dives in the sea after doing my license in Germany, all I wanted to see were wee coloured fish, and suddenly there they were, huge bloody sharks! The other divers in the group were delighted, my husband loves sharks (the bigger the better!), I couldn’t wait to get out of there, however the sea was extremely rough and after the dive it was tricky to get into the boat, the words of the dive guide were ringing in my ears '' bull sharks are aggressive and love anything that splashes about on the surface'', super. 

The beautiful Nautilus shell I found while strolling along the beach one morning, it had obviously been sawn at the front and as this was over 30 years ago (before you weren’t allowed to remove shells, sand or anything else from the sea) and has graced my coffee table since then, a lovely souvenir from Poseidon, who came to our assistance several times. My husband lost his heirloom signet ring while playing Frisbee in the sea, we searched for it everywhere and suddenly there it was glittering on the beach, I lost a gold earring on the beach too and it reappeared too.

Although we toured with a mini-van (driven by the local chief of police) we also did a trip to Port Louis with the local bus, something I love to do on holiday! The driver decided to race a couple of colleagues on the way, so it was pretty hair raising but very fast. 

Although we stayed at a family run wee hotel which was lovely, we also spent a couple of days at the luxurious Belle Mare Plage where Michael Schumacher nearly drowned while scuba diving. And then there was the canoe … my husband has since refused to get in one with me (we did try once again but we just don’t work as a team) anyway back to the story. We borrowed a canoe, my husband, daughter and I headed out to the edge of the lagoon, the waves were breaking there at the start of the reef, my husband said paddle right, I paddled left and we were then parallel to the reef; a wave hit us and we capsized. My daughter (4 at the time) and I grabbed the hull of the canoe and started screaming (not sure why because we both could swim), to be fair the beach did look far off, so I continued with my drama Queen performance but through my cries I eventually heard my husband saying for goodness sake Kerry, stand up the water's only 50cm deep. Sheepishly, I stood up and watched the waves lapping around my knees, sigh! My ''Open Water'' drama was over.