FREEDOM BLOWS
The forecast promised highs in the balmy mid-20s. Considering that it was slap bang in the middle of winter, dawnʼs 19°C was hardly cool. The soundtrack, though, suggested a wailing banshee kicking about in one of the resortʼs pools.
A glance outside and there was indeed a threatening gale, the usually flat blue-green lagoon chopped up into row upon row of line-dancing seahorses disrupting the tropical colour scheme as the wind unapologetically redistributed beach sand and frightened the palm trees.
It was not what you anticipate on a tropical island holiday. But, of course, being an island, the weather can come at you from every angle; it can turn unexpectedly, get wild and hairy. Mauritius is known for its cyclones, after all.
Wild wind notwithstanding, the lagoonʼs gorgeousness was indisputable – a broad strip of curved coastline, where a creamy white beach is lapped by cerulean water and bookended by black boulders that are essentially fat blobs of lava that cooled millions of years ago.
Whatʼs deemed a cold day by Mauritian standards barely bothered the Europeans, who were enthralled by the waterʼs Pantone hues, the vastness of the lagoon, the unmitigated sense of ease with which the island operates.
The wind was in any case precisely why these folks had come to this beach in the off-season; they were seeking action not lazy days on sun loungers.
ʻThe rider with the blue kite made a crash landing,ʼ came the announcement from the Spanish MC. Then his cheerful “observation” that ʻthe wind is a bit gustyʼ.
Despite this minor setback, it wasnʼt long before a sortie of more than a dozen C-shaped inflatable kites transformed the sky into a kind of colourful aerial
