Picture - place against the "wall"
We had an uneventful sail from Mauritius. We actually managed to sail most of it and with only about 4 hours of really uncomfortable seas. We arrived in the morning and managed to find a space against the “wall”. It is a long alleyway that leads to the marina. It is actually quite wide as we managed to turn around. We knew that the marina was full of local boats so we figured this would do us. Just as we finished tying up, the marina manager came down and said there was a spot closer to the marina. It was just adjacent to the fuel dock and looked closed to the amenities so we decided to move. Over all it was a better spot as we didn’t have to take the dinghy as far. We decided to use the dinghy to get to the other side of the fairway as it was a long way to walk around. By taking the dinghy across the fairway, it probably saved us about 15 minutes of walking time. It was so close by water that it took us less than 3 minutes just to row it. Pierre, the Marina Manager, arranged check in for us. He gave us 3 forms to fill in and then we were to go to his office when we were done with form filling and tying up the boat. When we arrived at his office, he called customs and they eventually came down to the marina to visit with us. 4 of them came as a team with their little suitcase and all of them packing side arms. They were very friendly and informed us they do the job of all the officials and give us our visas, etc. When we asked how long can we stay, they said how long do we want to stay. It seemed that we can stay as long as we want. When I looked at the visa stamp in the passports, it had no expiry date. This had to be the easiest place to check in so far. 3 forms of minimal information to fill in, and never mind that I left our last port clearance on the boat, they were so easy going that nothing really mattered. All we need to do was give then 2 to 3 days before we wanted to clear out and they would come down and give us our clearance paper. Life was going to be good for a while. Pierre was very helpful and used his limited best English to help us. Apparently we were the first boat of the season and we were the only foreign cruisers in the marina. We ran into several locals who were very helpful and willing to help us out if we needed it. French is the official language here and I was struggling a little as I brushed up on what little I knew from the past. Out come the dictionary, and if needed, we had a translation program on the ipad. Our first chore was to get Sim cards for phone and wifi. We found a local provider in the town but the only data they had on prepay was at 19 euro for 6 hours. This was not going to work for us and seemed really expensive. We decided to try another provider and were given directions. We ended up back at the boat again as we were quite tired after the overnight sail and will try again in the morning. The next morning, while in the marina office asking about buses, a local boat owner offered to give us a ride to the cell provider Orange at the local big mall. We took him up on his offer, even though his English was limited. We finally ended up with a sim card but it still didn’t work. I guess back to the Orange office tomorrow. We shopped at the supermarket and awed at the prices here. They use the Euro so everything seems so expensive compared to the places we have been in recently. We had Pierre call a rental car company and decided to rent a car for a week to get out and about to see the inland areas. We did manage to get a little information on the bus system so will store that away for when we don’t have a car.