Thursday March 29th 2012 - at sea 
Laps:6 Steps:85

The sea has been very calm so far this cruise... but we are promised a change in the weather soon.

Su is a bit crook - a cold coming on?? I dine alone with our other four dinner companions.

Have I mentioned the Bose Soundlink wireless portable speaker?  I had bought some Bose sound cancelling earphones (SC3's) from  Meyers in the city, and when picking them up, I had asked idly if  Bose had a portable speaker through which I could play music from  the iPod built into my iPhone.

I was amazed at the quality of this little stereo speaker. Not that  little - 10"x5"x2" (250mm x 125mm x 50mm) and weighing a couple of  pounds (1.5kgs)

It hooks up to the iPhone wirelessly via bluetooth,  and with a rechargeable battery that last from 3-8 hours between  charges, (depending on volume), there are no trailing wires. And  excellent build quality.

It uses some of the typical Bose acoustic tricks - you set it up a  short distance from a wall and it back projects the bass frequencies  from a speaker in the rear of the unit. The treble comes from stereo  speakers in the front. An amazing sound.

So I bought one. At dusk, over a G&T or two, we have been listening  to Earl Klugh's jazz/fusion album called "Cool" with Bob James on  piano. Top stuff. This is one of the best musical bits of kit I own.  

Friday March 30th 2012 - at sea 
Laps:6 Steps:85x2

Another formal night. We have an alcohol free day and a dining-room  free day. Clocks go back one hour.

Saturday March 31st 2012 - at sea 
Laps:6 Steps:85

A pre-dinner drinks party this evening in the cabin of one of our  dinner table couples. We take some gin and the Bose portable  speaker.   Good fun. We resolve to hold another soon.

Sunday April 1st 2012 - at sea 
Laps:6 Steps:85
Clocks go back one hour.

Monday April 2st 2012 - Mauritius Isle 
Laps:6 Steps:85

We rarely take up the ship's organised tours, because they (a) cost  a lot, (b) take one to shopping centres, and (c) flood the area your  visiting, with lots of old, slow moving pensioners (us!)

The previous night, our dinner party members suggested we collectively hire a local taxi and do the sights independently. This  is the strategy Su and I nomally employ, so we gladly went along  with the idea.
One of our intrepid members duly went ashore this morning and  negotiated the hire of a local taxi for 4 hours.  We headed off towards the south of the island.

(L-R) Su, Rod, Elaine, Jack, Barbara, Robin

First port of call  was a small extinct volcano calderra, with a lookout over the  island.  Next was a diamond showroom. Groan! None of was really interested in  buying stuff, so we then banned any more shops. This raise his  eyebrows a bit, but he went along with it.





We then stopped at a hand made glass factory - very interesting. The  workers were wearing almost  no personal protective equipment (PPE) at all!!  They will all go blind and deaf without PPE.

We then stopped at a model ship factory/showroom. Despite some  initial doubts, this turned out to be a real winner. 
                       
A personalised  tour of the workshop, foundry, lathe room, assembly area, and  finally the show room, was fascinating. Check it out!!  www.mauritiusshipmodels.com


Then a drive down to the south to see the "coloured sands" - a  nature park featuring different coloured clays. Yes....

Finally, a  quick stop at a supermarket to stock up on tonic water, then the  race back to catch the ship, fighting through peak hour traffic to  get back in time.  


Tuesday April 3st 2012 - Reunion Isle 
Laps:0 Steps:0

Su's got this lurgi this morning, so I head off alone to catch the  shuttle bus, which takes us to St Gilles area, where I get some  badly needed currency out of an ATM. This island is a French  protectorate, so it uses the Euro currency, which will suit my  purposes when I get to Europe. One minor problem with visiting many  different countries, is the clutch of small notes and coins that one  ends up with at the end of the visit. I've been avoiding changing my  diminishing pile of Australian/US dollars to the point where I had  to borrow $USD10 from the taxi driver yesterday!

Anyway, in the little seaside village, I struggle to make my  intentions clear in my almost non-existent French; conversations  which ends up being part English, part schoolboy French but mostly  Italian.  Asking one shop owner the whereabouts of an internet cafe, I am  misunderstood, and am served a very good espresso coffee. With a  Gallic shrug of acceptance, I drink the coffee, and we talk about  the different ways to "correct" coffee. He then points me in the  (correct) direction of a cybercafe - "a droit!"  It was a nice, gentle, little adventure.

Finally back in digital land, where I speak the language fluently, I sit down at the computer screen, to download the latest economist!

Sacre bleu! The keyboard is French! The QWERTY keyboard is missing!  The keys are all in different places!

I have to single-finger hunt-and-peck to find the right keys to press to log on. And all the system messages, (and all the menus),  are all in French.

Lucky the Proprietor speaks excellent English, and he teaches me where the "@" sign is. You have to press a  combination of three keys to get it. I think the French have  reassigned the keyboard to fit in all those funny umlauts, graves,  ecute's etc.  So much for digital fluency.

I buy some postcards, some cheap French wine, and head back to the  ship. Good fun. Clocks go back tonight. We are now eight hours behind Melbourne  time. Su is still feeling less than 100%, so we skip dinner and have  an early night.

Wednesday April 4th 2012 - at sea
Laps:6 Steps:85

Bad weather - rain, wind, a swell, the ship is displaying a lot of movement. Not many people on the Promenade deck this morning.  I sit in the cafe and write this nonsense up….