When I was a kid, we used to play a board game called Wildlife, created by the World Nature Fund. The game was meant to create an understanding with young kids for endangered species. It was one of the many board games we played (we also played Monopoly a lot, and Risk and many other board games). Wildlife had a map of the world that you had to travel across and on the way, you had to save all kinds of endangered species. One of the species I believe was the Dodo on the island of Mauritius, that went extinct in the 17th century.

Mauritius is a small volcanic island next to Madagascar and only because of the game, I knew where it was. I can’t remember exactly why, but the game caused me to always have a kind of weird idea about Mauritius–the island used to intrigue me when I was young.

Last October I got the chance to actually visit Mauritius. One of our clients has an office on the island and there was of a group of people that needed training. I decided that a week of holidays in addition to spending a week working on the island would be nice, so that’s how I ended up on Mauritius from the 21st of October until the 2nd of November.

I left for Schiphol on the 21st and took my kiteboarding gear with me. I had heard and read that Mauritius has strong and very consistent winds (due to the SE trade winds) between 15 and 25 knots. Because 15 knots isn’t enough for my 8sqm and 25 is a little bit too much for my 12sqm kite, I brought both, in addition to my board (a Naish Haze, 133cm). I also brought my shorty, which you really don’t have to do if you’re going to Mauritius at any time other than in the middle of their winter (the water was 23 degrees, warm enough for just a rashguard and board shorts).

I had quickly taken a look at the luggage limitations for KLM, Air France and Air Mauritius and I learnt that they still allow 1 piece of 32 kilos (that’s exactly the weight of the kite board bag I borrowed from a friend). On Schiphol I had to pay 40 euros to get it shipped to Mauritius. On my way back the woman at the check-in desk mistakenly held my bag for golf equipment which apparently is free. A German guy told me to look at the Prolimit kite/golf bag that supposedly looks like a golf bag so is allowed on the plane without paying.

The first week I had to work and unfortunately only did some kiteboarding on Wednesday when I was done early. That already proved to be very nice!

The week after I was done with work I actually had more time to do some serious kite boarding. I was staying at the Indian Resort (which is located right at the best kite boarding spot on Mauritius: Le Morne beach), so the beach was just minutes away from my hotel room!

About the hotel: it’s a resort with all kinds of people staying there on an all-inclusive basis. I usually don’t like this a lot, because I’m more into the boutique hotels (smaller, owner-occupied, et cetera), but for this time, it was actually very nice, because of it being so close to the kite spot.

Kiting on Mauritius was great. I was used to doing water sports in warm countries with warm water already because I had visited Costa Rica three times in the past to get some serious wave surfing done, but this was even better. Having a kite to propel you, clear blue waters below you with a big lagoon with flat waters, but a bit further out big waves to play in is just awesome! Seriously, although Wijk aan Zee is great too, this beats everything.

I hope to be posting some pictures soon. I did make some, but didn’t get them off of my camera yet.