Reunion!   Monday, 28/10/2024

In the last post I clearly tempted fate, saying that the short passage from Mauritius to Reunion should be easy. On leaving, I had what appears to be satellite connection problems, with the result that the autopilot wouldn’t work because of course it relies on having positioning and directional data. By backing the foresail, I managed to roughly balance the sails, but with a 20 knot wind this didn’t work very well. The result was sailing quite a bit off course. Strangely, at 6am the following morning, the autopilot started working, so I successfully completed the trip. This suggests a faulty connection. The result: it took about 27 hours, rather than what would have been perhaps 22-23 hours. Not a disaster, and at least I was in about 45 minutes before 15:00 – important, because you can only enter the harbour at Le Port between 08:00 and 15:00. Under direction, I tied up to a concrete dock near the harbour entrance and awaited the authorities. 

Customs came, but the Health woman never showed up. The marina dockmaster had said I should stay where I was overnight, which was fine. Although I hadn’t been cleared by Health, and was therefore still subject to quarantine, I walked into town in the evening for something to eat anyway – correctly, I took the view that Health was not coming at all. The following morning I moved into the smaller of two marinas, which is closest to town. 

My first priority was to try to find an electronics expert. Not easy, but I went to a shop that sells marine electronic equipment. The old man in there – speaking mainly French – told me he no longer does repairs, but sent me on to a company that does. A Dutchman there said he could come on Monday (although at 15:00 on Monday this has now become Tuesday). I had intended to leave on Sunday, but no choice really – I need to know that everything will work.

So once more: technical troubles. I do feel that I’ve had my fair share! But there again, the saying among yachtspeople is “If it can break, it will break”.

On Friday morning I hired a car. This wasn’t so easy: car hire companies don’t want to rent a car for only a day or two. I found a company in town that would rent me a car for three days. The car was an old Toyota Aygo, a one-litre engine it seems, very under-powered, plus it had done 167,000 kilometres (comfortably over 100,000 miles) and it’s bodywork was scratched and damaged. But it drove ok, and enabled me to see the island! 

Reunion has stunning scenery. It is a lot more mountainous than Mauritius: where the highest peak in Mauritius is about 700 metres, here it’s 3,000 metres. The centre of the island is volcanic, with one live volcano: the Piton de la Fournaise (the Peak of the Furnace in English). It is one of the five most active volcanoes in the world and has erupted five times since 2006, the most recent occasion being September 2022. 

There is extraordinary scenery up there – you can drive up, on a road full of hairpin bends which goes up to about 2,400 metres above sea level. The poor old car managed to get up there on Saturday (on occasion I was down to first gear). The weather was good – sunny up there, although several degrees cooler than down at the coast. One problem up at that altitude is that the view is partly obscured by cloud – to have a chance of it being clear, you have to be there before 10 in the morning. But no matter – I certainly saw enough. 

Afterwards, I drove down to the beach in St Pierre. Reunion is renowned for shark attacks: the highest rate per length of coastline in the world (what that means in practice is 30 attacks in the 10 years from 2010 to 2020). There are a only a few places on the island where you can legally swim, and St Pierre is one, the large bathing area being completely surrounded by a reef which keeps sharks out. On Friday, I had swum at another beach, l’Hermitage, which is similarly reef-protected.

Reunion, at 2,500 square kilometres (1,000 square miles), is 25% larger than Mauritius, but has less people: 886,000 compared to 1.4 million in Mauritius. However, the geography means that much more of the island is inhabitable, so population density is similarly high along the coast. Reunion is legally part of France, sending 7 members to the National Assembly. Just over 100,000 of the population was born in European France; the rest are mainly mixed race creoles: French with African, Indian, Chinese, etc. It certainly has a strong French atmosphere. Although it ranks as one of the poorest regions of France, it has twice the average income of Mauritius (which, in turn, is the most prosperous African country). Generally a first world atmosphere – decent roads, including a highway down the west coast, and everything seems to work pretty well. 

I visited the capital, St Denis, which is at the top of the island, on Friday evening. Ate Korean food there! On Sunday, I drove down the west coast again to the Conservatoire botanique National de Mascarin, a botanical gardens, beautifully situated 500 metres above the Indian Ocean in St Leu.

It has certainly been a great visit, and very interesting to be able to compare Mauritius and Reunion, given that the two islands are relatively close neighbours. Mauritius is poorer; it has great people and good food. Generally, it’s aimed more at general tourism – a place in the sun. Reunion is more rugged, while being more formal, and more expensive – it’s a strange little part of France in the Indian Ocean. It would appeal to those wanting an active holiday: there are over 1,000 kilometres of trails up in the mountains, giving great access to the island’s special terrain.