A lot of my friends think I’m brain damaged, actually sometimes I think I’m brain damaged. I’ve spent most of my free time and all of my money over the past two years trying to get Illusion up to cruising specs. Wednesday night movie? Nope….sanding. Disc golf? Nope….sanding. Why do I put myself through all this?
Yesterday I was searching through my email for some old pictures of Illusion, hoping to find some good “before” pictures and I put in “Illusion” into my Gmail search bar. I found a poem I sent Lara while I was doing the Indian Ocean crossing aboard Sea Fever. I got a little nostalgic and started looking through my pictures from Rodrigues.
The Indian Ocean crossing is pretty long, approximately 7000 miles give or take based on your route. We did the southern route through Chrismas Island, Cocos Keeling (I’ll post pictures from there one day…..wow), then around 2000 miles to Rodrigues. Look at that map of Rodrigues at the top of the post, zoom out…..then keep on zooming out…..and then zoom out some more until you find some more land. That is a seriously remote place, but after 2000+ miles from Cocos seeing those green hillsides was a welcome site.
We arrived the night before the big weekly market and around 3am the screaming started; blood curdling, hair on the back of your neck screaming. I’m from an island where the main industry is tourism, people aren’t even allowed to control the color of their houses much less have livestock. Seriously, when I was a kid you’d have to get your friends to call you in a pass to get into their “plantation.” Read into plantation however you like, it’s the term on Hilton Head and through a lot of the Low Country for neighborhood…..with a gate. Anyway, that screaming came from the pigs getting slaughtered for market that morning….mmmm…fresh bacon.
Rodrigues was settled mostly as an after thought. It was a stopping point in the Indian Ocean, a place to rest and pick up stores. The island had thousands of giant tortoises that made for easy storage on the high seas. They don’t move around as much as pigs, cows or chickens and are quite nutritious — a cure for scurvy no less. The tortoise of Rodrigues also must have been delicious because they’ve been extinct since 1802 and the island was only discovered in the 17th century.
Even though it was controlled by the English for the better part of 200 years, Rodrigues still has more in common with it’s first settlers — the french. They make a pretty decent baguette, speak Creole and smell like garlic. Ok, I made that last one up….The people of Rodrigue still live pretty close to the land, mostly fishing and subsitance farming. The food we had on the island was excellent, nothing flashy but very fresh. The people were laid back and welcoming without being too in your face. They get some tourists, but they don’t have any big ocean side hotels or major developments. There are just a few guest houses, the restaurants were pretty minimal and internet was hard to come by.
An older man whose name escapes me, comes out to meet the sailboats when they arrive and gives you a tour of the island basically in exchange for the cost of gas and your signature in a book he’s kept for decades with the names of all the boats that have come through the island. This isn’t your tourist trap island, but a place where people are happy to see foreigners and welcome them to their island. Life is tough there, there’s a reason why many islands weren’t permanently settled for thousands of years — but the people are happy and relaxed.
We spent about a week on Rodrigues waiting for a weather window to make the crossing to Mauritius. I didn’t do much but relax and take it in. I took some pictures with my hot (at the time) 4 megapixel camera. I think you’ll see a little bit of why I’m so desperate to get back to sailing.
