1 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
I removed the stanchion that we bent on the passage to Rodrigues and went up the mast to remove the intermediate shroud, which has a broken wire. Glenys went off to buy a SIM card and hire a car for three days. Meanwhile, I walked a mile around to the other side of the port to where all the marine businesses are based. Unfortunately, they were all closed because it’s a Saturday - ancient France…
I called at the marina office and met the manager, Jerome, who speaks excellent English. He gave me some pointers on where to get various repairs done and then spent 30 minutes giving me some good information on places to hike.
Back at the boat, I spent the afternoon researching into hikes - using an excellent website (http://www.randopitons.re/randonnees/carte ). There are so many options, but we decided to go up to Cilaos for two nights. Glenys booked us into self-catering house, which has three bedrooms, but seems to be the cheapest accommodation available at €40 per night.
2 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
Being a Sunday, everywhere was shut up tight, so we had another day on board, preparing to leave the boat. I pickled water-maker, checked the ropes and removed everything from the deck that may be a temptation to passers-by. We spent the afternoon researching hiking and buying a few more things to pick up in the UK.
3 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
We picked up the hire car. It was from a dodgy looking place and was a bit of a wreck, but we had no choice. Before heading off into the mountains, we did some running about and dropped our intermediate shroud off at a rigger, who will get us a quote. He will be ordering it from France and couldn’t guarantee the delivery time - holidays in France and strikes, so deliveries are apparently intermittent, which doesn’t sound good.
On the other side of the fishing port, we found a stainless steel fabricator to repair our bent stanchion. He will cut out the bent bit and weld in a new piece. After a quick stop at a supermarket, we managed to get on our way by eleven o’clock, taking the motorway heading south. We had lunch at a road side eatery near one of the many sea-side towns and then headed up the fantastic winding road to Celios.
Reunion is a volcanic island and has three, huge, ancient volcanic craters called Cirques, which form the mountainous centre of the island. The Cirques are called Salazie, Cilaos and Mafate and it’s possible to walk from one to the next. The Cirque de Cilaos is about five miles in diameter with the crater rim stretching up to an impressive 3,000 metres with very steep sides. The inside of the crater is covered by dense vegetation and there are a plethora of marked trails both inside and grinding up to the crater rim.
Glenys had booked us a three bedroom house, which was much cheaper than staying in a Gite or Bed & Breakfast. The house is a bit basic, but it’s clean and self-catering, so we can chose where to eat in the evening. Best of all it has a log fire, which we lit later in the afternoon, when it started to get cold.
We walked around the small town, which has some quaint, old-fashioned general stores. In the evening, we went out for a meal and had traditional mountain food - Pork Chop and Duck with Vanilla, both served with rice and lentils which are locally grown speciality. The meals were huge and very tasty.
4 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
It absolutely threw it down last night and the sky was very grey in the morning, so we donned our waterproofs and walked down to the car park next to the church. The trails are all well marked and we elected to walk on a route that circles the town. From the car park, we descended through pleasant forest going down to a waterfall called Cascade du Bras Rouge.
The waterfall that we could see from the path was unimpressive and the rocks were incredibly slippery, so didn’t explore. The rest of the 5½ hour hike went up and down the sides of steep ravines and ended on a path over the top of Celios town. There are a few impressive views, but most of the hike was in the rain forest, so we were a little disappointed - we like exposed ridges and walking up to peaks.
We made it back to the house by 14:30, time for a beer, a Tarte de Pomme and then a quick nap. In the evening went out for another traditional meal - again served with lentils.
5 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
We woke to a beautiful blue sky day. Unfortunately, Glenys injured her knee yesterday and didn’t feel up to a long hike, so we drove up to a look-out point called La Fenetra, which is on the upper edge of the volcano rim. There was a fabulous view across the Cirque to the town of Celios. We were glad that we headed up there early because by 11:00, the cloud had rolled in and the view was gone.
After a short hike and lunch sitting on a rock admiring the view, we drove down to the coast road and stopped off at a couple of places, but it was too damn hot, so we headed back to the boat and ran some errands before dropping the car back. The rigger hadn’t obtained a quote, so I took our broken intermediate stay back and order two new ones to be made when we get back to the UK.
We tried to arrange a taxi to take us to the airport at St Denis, but there aren’t many taxi firms around and the cost is astronomical - €60 for the one way trip. While chatting to some of the local boat owners in the marina, I found a young guy who works in Le Port, but lives in St Denis. He’s willing to drop us off at the airport for €20, which we gladly accepted.
6 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
I was up early to go around to SS Fabricator to pick up our stanchion. They’ve done a reasonable job, but haven’t polished it because they don’t have the buffing gear, so I’m going to have to do it before I fit it back on the boat.
While dealing with the locals, I’ve found that many don’t speak English and are rather intolerant of people struggling with their language. I had a classic conversation with a guy at the local chandlers - he spoke no English and my French is very limited.
I said, “Je voudrais un filter de l'eau”. (“Filter” pronounced with a northern English accent)
Totally blank look.
I try again, “Un fil-ter”.
Frenchman shakes head.
“Un Fil-ture?”
“Non.”
“Un Filteur?
“Ah, un filtre”….
Give me strength…
We spent the afternoon doing some final jobs before leaving for UK.
7 to 28 July 2017 Trip to UK
After spending the day packing our bags and hanging about, our man turned up at 17:00 and dropped us off at the airport an hour later. We were at the airport five hours before the flight departed, but we were grateful to be there. St Denis airport is very small with hardly any facilities, so we had a very boring wait.
The 11 hour flight to Paris was OK, with good movies to entertain ourselves. We arrived at Orly airport in the morning and then had another five hour wait for our short 1 hour flight to London. It didn’t take long to pick up our hire car, so we arrived at our son Brett’s house at 19:00 just in time to relax with a few cold beers and a barbeque.
Our three week stay in the UK was the normal blur of driving around, visiting family and friends that we hadn’t seen for over a year. Of course, we spent a fair amount of time shopping for parts for the boat and the weight of our luggage went up from 8 Kgs each to 20kgs each.
On the last weekend of the holiday, we rented a small cottage in the Cotswolds with our two sons and their partners, where we had a lovely relaxed time chilling out and even had a traditional British Sunday lunch.
On our journey back to Reunion, we had a 2 night stop-over in Paris. Thirty seven years ago, we went to Paris on our honeymoon, so we stayed in a similar budget hotel in the Montmartre area. It was a nice break in the trip and we had a pleasant time walking around being tourists and eating good food. The only problem was the hordes of people queuing at all of the tourist spots which prevented us going into some of the attractions.
The flight back to La Reunion was on time and boring. At St Denis airport, we caught a bus to St Paul, which only cost €5. There’s a bus from St Paul to Le Port, but it doesn’t stop anywhere near the marina and we didn’t fancy lugging 20Kg bags a kilometre across town. We were hoping that there would be a taxi rank at the St Paul bus station, but no joy. After buying a new SIM card, we were able to ring a taxi firm, who whisked us back to the boat for €15.
We were relieved to get back to the boat and doubly relieved that it was still floating.
29 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
We had a recovery day. Glenys motivated herself enough to clean out the fridges after three weeks being turned off and then played with the hosepipe to wash all the dust off the deck. I dropped the dinghy into the water and ran the outboard. We spent the rest of the day messing about and unpacking.
30 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
I felt more dynamic today and started jobs with the parts that I’d bought in the UK. We’d had two new intermediate shrouds made by All Spars in Southampton and they’d noticed that the old swaged T-toggle fitted in 2012 in the USA was not exactly the correct part. I went up the mast and found that the old T-toggle was jamming in the slot in the mast. This meant that the wire was being bent at an angle to the swage and over time the stress on the upper wires had broken one wire.
All Spars had fitted the correct T-toggle and when I fitted the new intermediate shrouds, I confirmed that there was free movement of the toggle and no strain on the wire. Dave from “Jackster” lent me a Loos Gauge, which I used to set the tension of the rigging.
I set the back stay to 15% of breaking load and the new intermediate (D2) stays to 15%. I couldn’t measure the cap shrouds because they are 12mm wire which is too large for the Loos gauge, but I know that they only become slack at over 20 degrees heel. The mast looks straight laterally (up the sail slot) and I have about a mast width (260mm) of pre-bend that starts at the lower spreader.
The lower (D1) shrouds were slightly out of balance, but a couple of single turns on two of the bottle screws soon sorted that out and they are now evenly at 15% tension. I feel much happier with the rigging now.
We’re planning to go for a three day hike into the Cirque de Mafate, so we spent the remainder of the afternoon and all evening working out a reasonable route with three, 5 hour hikes.
31 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
We finalised our route in Mafate and Glenys booked accommodation for two nights. We’re going to get a bus up to Dos d’Ane, then walk to Aurore which should take six hours. The second day will be a five hour hike to Ilet des Latinniers and the third day we’ll walk out of the Cirque along an impressive looking exposed trail called the Canalization de Orangers.
We’re looking forward to spending time in the Cirque de Mafate because there are no roads. Everything is brought into the valley by foot or by helicopter. There are a number of small villages dotted around the slopes of the ancient crater, so it will be interesting to see how the villagers lifestyle compares to the hustle and bustle of the coastal towns.
I replaced the two windlass switches with new ones bought in the UK and the day was over.
There are more photos in our Photo Album section.