Mauritius…island paradise, Christmas vacation spot choice of celebrities, home to exotic fishies. And SAS’s own personal island for a day.

We wake up at 6:50 AM trying to successfully see a sunrise come up over land for the first time. This time we are successful, and it is a beautiful sight to be held. The island of Mauritius stretched out before us, small enough to see both the beginning and end of it horizontally from our spot on the boat. The mountains are lushly covered in green, and the sun slowly creeped out from behind one of the peaks. The sky changed from purple to gold and then finally pink, and then it was time to eat.

After the eats I went downstairs and packed up my stuff for the day. Caroline, Hannah and I all had tickets for a trip exquisitely titled “Ile de Deux Cocos,”which we took the liberty to always pronounce in strong French accents whenever anyone asked us what we were going to be up to. I put on my most French bikini, zebra stripes haha, and a cute cover up. My mom called me that morning and my dad got on the phone and asked what I would be up to that day. “Booze cruise,”I told him. “Can’t you do something cultural?”he asked. And that’s when I had to tell him, no, Mauritius is an island paradise, vacation spot to many, and all of the culture I will be experiencing for the 11 hours I am here will be found in the ocean and tanning on the sand. Mauritius was added onto the schedule as a sort of break for us between South Africa and India, and we took full advantage of it.

The weather was amazingly hot and humid, just the way I like it. The ocean felt amazing, cool enough to be refreshing but easy to jump into.

After our diplomatic briefing we hopped into little buses to take us over to Ile de Deux Cocos. The island is only forty miles around so it baffled Hannah and I why it took an hour to reach our destination. The bus ride was pretty funny because pretty much everyone was sleeping on our bus, even though the tour guide was talking, including me for about half of it. Caroline’s shoulder is pretty comfy. The really hilarious part though was when the other bus pulled up next to us and seeing every single passenger inside completely passed out. Hahahahaha I am laughing thinking about it.

So we finally get there, and the minute we step out of those buses, we are in paradise. The water is my favorite color, light blue and sparkling turquoise and crystal clear. The water was shallow for about a half mile out to see due to the coral reefs surrounding the island that still flourish in the area despite huge sugar cane production and consequently pollution. We all hop into water taxis that are already waiting for us. They are glass bottom boats so we get to check out the sweet coral and fishies below us on our slow trip over to the island that is like 250 feet away.

And then we were there…Ile de Deux Cocos. Basically SAS rented this island for us for the day. Insane. There were a bunch of chairs set up along the beach, some in the shade, shaded areas with huge white couches to lounge on, a covered lunch area and a bunch of tables, a couple of bars, really nice bathrooms, a bunch of birdbaths with exotic birds drinking out of them, a little store selling homemade rum and magnets and other souvenirs, and a table full of snorkeling gear. Wow. We didn’t even know what to do first. I don’t think anyone expected a private island for the day.

We decided to go snorkeling first. We hopped in the water taxis that were also at our disposal all day along with about six other people and went snorkeling for a half hour. This was pretty funny as well because it was Caroline’s first time snorkeling and Hannah’s second time, and her first time she was terrified of fish touching her so she wasn’t sure how she would react this time. Hahaha. But when Hannah was finally able to figure out how to put on her goggles and Caroline had stopped complaining about hers fogging up, we really enjoyed ourselves. The ocean felt amazing, the coral was really cool, the fish were radiantly colored and visibility was perfect. I saw a bunch of parrotfish, which are my favorite fish. Google them. They are sweet.

Snorkeling ended all too soon and we headed back to the island, which by the way we could have swam to from where we were, I’m not sure why we had to take a boat. Probably because the coral was everywhere and the water was really shallow. A lot of people got scraped up or even actually cut pretty bad, especially when drinking started.

So back on the island we suntanned and went swimming until it was time for lunch, which was delicious as pretty much all meals have been on every SAS trip I have been on. There were huge prawns, scrumptious pink tuna, lamb, chicken, shrimp kabobs, marlin, and a bunch of appetizers. The tuna was the best tuna I have ever had. Hannah could not stop talking about it. She still talks about it. It was pretty fabulous. This is also when the alcohol started being served. Our server, Ravi, hooked it up. We loved him and Hannah tipped him 20 American dollars, which that reminds me I need to pay her back. We had lots of vodka and rum mixed with pineapple juice and orange juice and mango juice and wine and then a round of shots. I gave my shot away because I had had quite enough in the extreme heat. We made some new girlfriends and gossiped about everyone on the ship. It was a really really great lunch. There is a lot of gossip going on about a certain 16 year old that may or may not be the daughter of someone important on our ship…so we all talked boys and nightlife and shared our experiences on the ship and our many nicknames that Hannah and I have for the people we often chat about. Our favorite is this guy we call the ghost. He goes to USD but he told everyone that he wasn’t going on SAS even though he was, and he is here, so every time he passes we make a ghost howling sound. It is pretty hilarious and really never gets old.


Anyways, I digress.

So after lunch Hannah was on a secret mission and I was her wing woman and it went pretty well, if I do say so myself. And I am a great wing woman, if I do say so myself. Maybe the best ever. Hannah and Braxton and I went swimming and the current was really strong and I was the only one able to swim out and it was a pretty funny ten minutes watching them try to walk out on the coral. And all too soon the day had ended and all 80 of us or so climbed back into water taxis and back to our buses, where again we slept. Such simple lives we lead.

Once back on the ship we unfortunately didn’t have time to go back out to get T-shirts/postcards like we wanted to, so I now have a second country where I got no T-shirt and no postcards. Huge bummer. But it made me feel a lot better that it was BBQ night!!! We treasure these nights. The chicken was delicious, and tipsy dinners are always good. I would say 80% of the student body came back on the boat pretty hammered, which was perfect because that night was the opening ceremony for Sea Olympics!!!

Sea Olympics are an epic competition among the entire SAS boat, teachers and Life Long Learners and kids included. First prize is pretty huge: you are the first area to get off the boat when we arrive in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The stakes are high.

We are all divided into different seas. My sea, or my hall, is the Mediterranean Sea and our color is royal blue. Basically Sea Olympics is a whole day of competitions like dodgeball, volleyball, workout relay (how many situps, pushups, and chinups you can do and how long you can wallsit), mashed potato sculpting, team relays (orange pass, fireman’s drill, wheelbarrow), sudoku, Texas Hold Em, spelling bee, Twister, limbo, human knot, paper boat float, and finally, the grand finale, synchronized swimming. Anyone that knows me knows that I pretty much live for this stuff, and I had a great time.

Our team’s chosen mascot was the smurf, and we painted Eric’s entire body blue. Our flag consisted of a smurf blowing wind towards boats all titled with the different sea’s names. Our chant, that included some stomping and clapping and yelling, was, “Hey you! The ocean isn’t red green yellow white, I can keep this up all night, pink black purple BOO, I’m sorry but the ocean’s BLUE!”We all dressed up in all blue, painted our faces and our bods, and headed to the Union.

My team got front row seats which was pretty sweet. Everyone was cheering like crazy, every team was wearing their colors, everyone had their own made up mascots. I personally liked Gangreen for the green Aegean sea and yellow fever for the Yellow Sea. Their slogan was “No hope, no cure.”Pretty good. There were also ninjas, pirates, the red bull, and the pink panther.

They opened up the ceremony with some tribal drumming. Then we had mascot, flag, and chant judging. My team did pretty mediocre in the chant. Actually, as it would turn out, we did pretty mediocre in pretty much everything.

Then I watched “Slumdog Millionaire”which was good but nothing like what I expected.

The next day we awoke for a day full of festivities and no class. I again donned my blue gear and went to my first event, volleyball. It was pretty fierce, not really we all pretty much sucked, but it was a fun game and we lost when we went into three games. Next I went to the relay, where I participated in the orange pass and fireman’s relay. I think we got the bronze medal in that event.

After that I went to go practice with my team for synchronized swimming! I was sooo excited about this, I knew people were going to be hilarious and I was absolutely right. We practiced for awhile, then I went to go check out the workout relay which was pretty intense. Sexy Dean Les McCabe beat out all the kids in pull ups. He is a beast. And a nine year old girl beat everyone in the wall sit.

Finally it was time for synchro. Everyone’s routines were absolutely hilarious. Ours was probably middle range when it came to goodness and funniness, but I had a great time doing it. I can’t wait to show you guys the video. We used a few different songs, started out with Pass That Dutch, then I Want it That Way, then Single Ladies, then Umbrella where we all had umbrellas in the pool, then we finished up with I’m Blue. It was so fun. The whole day was a blast. Just like summer camp. Pretty much every day on this ship is just like summer camp, and I don’t mind that at all because I am getting old and my days of summer campish fun are numbered.

At closing ceremonies, everyone again gathered behind their mascots. Several more medals were given out, and then the top three teams were announced. It was actually a three way tie for third which is crazy, but the Adriatic Sea took it over all. Damn pink panthers. But they were a very unified team and they did have the best synchro for sure so I didn’t mind too much. We got third to last. So…yeah.

After closing ceremonies I grabbed Balderdash and invited Hannah’s crush to play with us. Wingwoman of the century. Six of us played for the next hour and a half and we only got a quarter way through the game, we were all that bad and slow. But it was a good time, and we finally adjourned when we were just too sick of it. Our favorite weird word of the night was “pahoehoe.”Apparently it is a Hawaiian word meaning hardened lava. But we liked to use it in sentences like, “Oh, that girl is such a pahoehoe”or “Mmm break me off some of that pahoehoe.”I’m pretty sure pahoehoe will now be a permanent part of our voyage.

After that I wrote a paper that I’ve been putting off, surprise surprise, but it only had to be two pages long so NBD.

Today was a pretty chill day, the weather outside is still blazing. I went to class then ate lunch which was yummy then took a little nap and awoke to it pouring outside. It only lasted for a few minutes, but it was nice. After dinner, which was also good, it was a good food day, Hannnah and I went and looked at the beautiful sunset and the stars forming in the sky. Then we watched a movie called “Earth”about 1947 when Britain handed over India to independence and divided the country, India and Pakistan. It was crazy and we left the Union feeling confused and uncomfortable. It was a terrible ending and everyone died.

So now we are trying to shake that off. We went up to pub night and the theme tonight is “Things that start with C.”That entertained us for about ten minutes. Cow, crossdresser, Captain Underwear, cowgirl, coffee, condom dispenser. Creative?

I thought I would finish up my blog and we are about to pull out some sort of game and play. The people around me are really enjoying the music I’m playing, mostly childhood relics.

India in three more days.

Hope you all are well. I miss and love you.