Friday 7 January 2011

Picton Castle alongside at Le Port, Île de La Réunion, France; Friday 7 January 2011 בס"ד

Stood night watch at 0400, and first thing I did was fix some chafe gear on the well deck hawser with Mitch before he went below. Everything was fine, a couple of mangy dogs roaming around. At 0430 I went to light the stove, but it was being a serious pain in the ass to light, and so I spent twenty minutes trying and trying. Thought maybe there was not enough diesel in the box, and so woke Brad at 0450 for his watch and we refilled the diesel box, remade the torch wick, and tried and tried some more. Still nothing. At 0530 Brad said he'd keep trying but that I could go to sleep, so I did. He eventually got it in the next 15 minutes or so with some more experimentation. Woke up at 0715, had breakfast, quick internet, then Mitch, Brad, Susie, Niko, and I went out in the bromobile to explore. Went through the mountains, driving on the N3 through a town called “Le Tampon” hehehe, and kept going til we stopped at a horseback riding place to check it out. It was pricey and we weren't dressed right, so we carried on until we found forêt le grand etang, and we stopped there to go hiking. It was raining, so Mitch and I stayed in the car while the others went for a hike, which lasted them about two hours or so. They came back very wet. Mitch and I just chilled out and shot the shit, and then started watching Platoon on my computer. Once they got back, we drove to St. Benoît, had paninis near the beach, then we made our way around the island to St. Guille de Baines, where we had a nice dinner. Came back to the ship, used internet, then bed. Though we didn't “do” much, we saw a good portion of the entire island. I enjoyed going down the N3 to St. Benoît, because it was like a racing video game location with endless hairpin switchbacks winding down the volcanic mountain. Shabbat Shalom.