Mauritius

It's not often we read a newspaper these days. Stuff is either on the TV, on-line or on mobile. On-paper is a bit quaint. It's not often you get to the 'saga' page where they advertise trousers with elastic waist bands and multi pocketed khaki waistcoats either. One rainy afternoon in January 2013, we did both and found what we thought was a deal we had to investigate. 

A few hours Googleying later and we pulled the trigger. Seven months on and we landed in Mauritius. You can get there with two six hour flights via Dubai or from Paris direct. It's here by the way and I didn't know either until I checked.

Relevant facts .. Ex British, Ex French, now Independent. About two hour's drive north to south. They are so civilized that they drive on the left. Everyone drives at 50 mph with few exceptions. It feels more Caribbean than Indian - although I have never been to the Caribbean (or India). The people are helpful, friendly and genuine, it's a refreshing change and was very good value :-) 

Take .. Sun cream, Kindle, shorts, flops, diving kit, er that's it. 

Home for two weeks was the Pearle Beach resort in Flic en Flac and it comes highly recommended. Relatively few residents and (mainly) a-la-carte meals added to the all-inclusive luxury. 

It was winter in Mauritius and the locals had dug out various fleeces and hats to ward off the chill (26 degrees). Needless to say we had very few issues with the weather. Summer only serves up about 34 degrees in Mauritius anyway, so all we English have to do when we visit is avoid the rain and we're happy any time.  

The itinerary was brutal.

We intended to do little from the outset but did investigate the local diving via the reps at the hotel and ended up taking a few relaxed dives at some of the local sites.  The highlight was the Cathedral dive site. 

Situated a few minutes outside the reef, it comprises a convenient larger-than-Fred sized hole in the rock, leading to an underwater cave about 15m long with a sandy floored exit about 4m lower than the entrance. You can do up, down, left and right and generally explore the crevices for all sorts of sea life. Next to this is another cave with a small'ish entrance right at the bottom, into which you can fin and then slowly drift up about 4m into water that it about the same temperature as your bath at home. A bit claustrophobic with three of us in there though ! The third feature is a slanted chimney carved into the reef, about a metre wide, that allows you to drift up and then drop through a hole into another small cave. 

Note-able spots were leaf fish and stone fish - both very hard to see. And this 'little' chap .. 

A 1.5m lone Barracuda, grinning inanely, looking for trouble and cruising just a little too close for comfort. 

Lovely break with only one downside, I missed all three British Lions tests. But we won :-)