Tamarin and the birth of beach snobbery

Last weekend, my friends suggested we go to the beach at Tamarin for a change. It's very different from Albion as there is no coral reef separating Tamarin Bay from the ocean, and it's one of the few places in Mauritius where the waves break on the shore. A lot of the south is open sea too, but there are practically no accessible beaches and the waves crash directly onto the rocks.

It was a little cloudy when we arrived and my first thought was "Oh, it's dirty!" In fact this is not true, but the sand is grey in colour, contrasting sharply with the bright white sand and turquoise sea I've become used to. Going down to the water's edge for a paddle, I saw some floating twigs and seaweed and couldn't see the bottom, even though it was really not that deep. In rainy season, the beach is divided in two by the Rivière du Rempart, but when we went, the river dried up before reaching the bay. Most beaches in Mauritius are narrow and bordered by filao trees and car parks. From Tamarin, you get an amazing view of the Rempart mountain.

In the time Merv and I have been together, we've been fortunate enough to be able to travel quite a bit, mostly in France, but also to the UK, Turkey, Spain, and Thailand, and swimming and beaches have always been a thing we disagree on. I used to laugh at him, standing on the edge of a lake, refusing to go in because the water was muddy. I left him on the beach in Turkey while I went for a swim because the water was deemed too cold. It wouldn't even occur to him to take his swimming shorts if we went to England on holiday. He is even reluctant to use the term "beach" in Europe, preferring to refer to them as "rocky places by the sea". I always thought he was just being awkward to wind me up, but as I stood looking out over the bay at Tamarin on Sunday, I realised that I have become that person too, the beach snob who only wants to swim in crystal clear water, having left my towel on the pristine white sand. It only took me 6 months - in his defence, he spent the first 24 years of his life here! 

Six months may have changed me in many ways, but island life hasn't quite defeated the Yorkshire girl in me yet. After five minutes of hesitation, I was out there jumping around in the waves, just like I used to do in Scarborough. The water was a lot warmer too!

I also discovered that the sand in Tamarin, grey though it may be, is some of the finest sand I've ever seen. It feels like velvet. It also sticks to everything it touches and takes forever to wash out of your ears, where it inevitably ends up when you jump around in waves like these.