Crossing the Indian Ocean….   Tuesday, 15/10/2024

A successful trip across the Indian Ocean! This passage is well known for being unpleasant, but in reality it wasn’t as bad as expected. There were two brief periods of strong winds and reasonably high waves, the first lasting about 30 hours and the second covering the last three days of the voyage. In both the wind blew at about 25 knots, occasionally a bit more. Nothing extraordinary, just relatively uncomfortable. In between conditions were pleasant, albeit with a rolling motion as waves came across the stern. We made good time, 21 days from Christmas Island to cover 2,880 nautical miles. 

For most of the way it was very quiet out in the Indian Ocean. For the first 16 days I did not see a single ship. It was the odd bird and flying fish, otherwise surrounded by empty water. Then we cut across a major shipping channel which runs up from the Cape of Good Hope, east of Mauritius and on to Singapore, Malaysia and China. Saw perhaps a dozen ships in about 36 hours, a couple of them passing quite close.

It was quite a relief to get in to Port Louis in Mauritius. I was up at 5am, changing course to head down the 20-odd miles of the west coast. It was pretty rough outside, with wind up to 25 knots, but this calmed as we entered the harbour, which has some protection from the mountains inland. It was not easy finding the Customs Steps where one has to tie up to clear in – Harbour Radio was not particularly helpful. Eventually, searching the inner harbour, I realised that I was right in front of them. A French sailor helped me tie up, and kindly gave me various useful information, and then it was just a matter of getting clearance…

Which took ages. A Health woman came after about an hour; after almost two hours, the Immigration man came, but he had forgotten his stamp, so he disappeared again (with my passport). When he returned, he seemed inordinately proud of the stamp he had put in my passport. Customs seemed fairly efficient. Before leaving, I thought I’d get a SIM card for my phone. Easier said than done. At the Mauritius Telecom shop, they wanted passport and proof of address in Mauritius: it’s a new law. I managed to persuade them to accept my customs clearance, because obviously I am not staying in a hotel. And then the computer would not accept my passport details. This was because it was directly connected to the authorities, and the Immigration man had not put my details into a computer. They suggested I go to the Department of Immigration. For some reason, I was feeling bloody-minded, so I decided I needed to get this fixed, and off I went. By stridently harassing several officials in different offices, I finally got a man who made a phone call to my Immigration man, who promised to put the details into the system by the next morning. I said not good enough. So he was phoned again and promised to do it right away. Back to the Telecom office, and he clearly hadn’t done it.

So I decided to stay the night and tackle it again in the morning. It is not permitted to stay at the Customs jetty, but I loudly told everybody – Customs and Harbour Security – that I refused to move. To their credit, everyone was very understanding – people here all seem to be very pleasant!. Let’s face it: the downside of third world countries is that things don’t work very well. The upside though is that one can break rules and get away with it – something you could never do in Australia, for instance: you’d get arrested. 

I’d already noticed that the location was good: only a couple of minutes’ walk to multiple restaurants. So to compensate for my troubles, I did at least get to sit at a pleasant bar/restaurant, which had Wi-Fi, where I had an excellent burger and a large (English pint sized) beer. The world always looks a better place when you have a large beer sitting in front of you. One of the few absolute truths in this life. I was tired: I went to bed at 9:30pm and slept heavily until 7am.

This morning I tried Mauritius Telecom again. My details still didn’t come up on the system, so I had to abandon hope of getting a SIM card. I left Port Louis and motored 15 miles up the coast, which took three hours into wind and waves. My destination was Grand Bay, which sits on the north coast. It is popular with visiting yachts – it’s a good anchorage, with plenty of facilities, largely tourist orientated. It’s pretty, with multiple small beaches around it. Went ashore mid-afternoon and got some food – there’s a large French supermarket which is extremely well-stocked (you can tell it’s French because there was a massive wine section and a huge selection of cheeses!). I got everything I wanted and prices were cheap. I tried another telecom provider which has a shop there, but unfortunately they were also connected to the government site and my details still did not show up, and therefore they couldn’t give me a SIM card. This is totally impossible! 

Am sitting at a Greek restaurant loading this comment. Just had very nice souvlaki…