PatanRich's Excellent Adventure: Grand Baie- the north of Mauritius!

We spent our first 5 days at the Mervylle Beach Resort in Grand Baie. Perfect place to introduce ourselves to a country we barely knew existed! The hotel's room price included many different types of water sports, inlcuding: snorkeling, wind surfing, stand-up paddle board, kayak's. We definitely took advantage of the boat trips out to the reef for snorkeling- sometimes twice a day! The hotel was really beautiful, and included a buffet breakfast and all the croissants you could eat, and the best coffee! It also introduced us to the concepts of "all inclusive" (everything is paid for- food and drinks), "full board" (Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, no drinks), half-board" (Breakfast and Dinner, no drinks or lunch), all terms we were not familiar with. We only had Bed and Breakfast, which was fine for us, as we like venturing out to find food (and we made yummy little sandwiches to take with us for later in the day:-)). I include this information as many (most) people had the higher options than us. One totally weird thing about every hotel we stayed: the price of drinks was CRAZY! $8 for a beer, $14 for a cocktail. Luckily we found grocery stores that sold the beer and wine for significantly less! We packed for a tropical location- great Hawaiian shirts! Sadly, we were the only ones wearing them:-). We stood out like sore thumbs everywhere we went:-).

The north of the island is known for long, sandy beaches, and small islands off the coast!

Our one day trip in the north was a full day boat trip to 3 islands: Ile Gabriele, Rock Island (Le Coin de Mire), and flat island (Ile Plate). Ile Gabriele and Ile Plate are all but connected, very close to each other, and have the coolest waves and sandy/rocky beaches!

The sunsets off Mauritius were spectacular- every day we made sure we watched them!