Stefan Sietzen and Michal Palyska travelled for the first time to Mauritius and brought back a nice video. Although not everything went smoothly right from the beginning, they said it was a great experience overall.
“First, we shipped the equipment by cargo because Emirates luggage is limited strictly to 30 kg per person with every additional kilo costing 50€. What we didn’t know was that when you ship something with cargo, you have to pay import taxes. This is quite an exhausting process which resulted in us loosing 2 days of sailing and increasing our equipment shipping cost from ~400 to ~800€….” etc. Read more about their trip and get some travel tips for Mauritius below the video.
No rescue after five – Mauritius
A short story about their trip to Mauritius by Stefan Sietzen
First, we shipped the equipment by cargo because Emirates luggage is limited strictly to 30 kg per person with every additional kilo costing 50€. What we didn’t know was that when you ship something with cargo, you have to pay import taxes. This is quite an exhausting process which resulted in us loosing 2 days of sailing and increasing our equipment shipping cost from ~400 to ~800€….
Then somehow Michal managed to get his extension broken within the first 10 min. of sailing, which cost 100€ for the boat rescue + 35 for a used extension from ION Club. He was quite lucky though that a kiter found the board which couldn’t be found with the motorboat.
The next few days there was an unusually strong forecast, so that we feared sailing would be too dangerous because of red flag (meaning no boat rescue). We got told that the current pulling you outside can reach up to 15 kts when the waves are big. We spent those days mainly jumping inside the reef with one of us always on the watch / filming in case something happens. We even bought a 5 m rope to rescue one another with our second equipment in case something broke. Luckily we didn’t need it.
Then a couple of days later both of us hit the shallow reef on the way back from one eye so we lost 2 fins in one day. Finding a slotbox fin was not the easiest task, although we finally got one from Tom at Sion shop. After that the wind started to drop always around 1hr or so before sunset, which caused a really bad situation one time when Michal was the last on One Eye and he suddenly wasnt able to get on the board anymore due to lack of wind. The sun was setting quickly and Stefan had already phoned the coastguard when Michal finally was able to get on the board and pass the reef. It was almost completely dark when he reached the beach.
Then during the last days Stefan broke an extension when getting washed at Manawa, but we were lucky because we were there with a rented boat for filming and although the footage turned out not so good this probably saved us a 200€ boat rescue 😉
When we visited the famous chamarel waterfall we were quite disappointed that you can only watch it from far away, so we drove through the cane fields and did some drone scouting until we found a way to get there and we were able to stand right on top of it.
We also wanted to get some shots from the mountain next to the spot, the Brabant, and we ended up climbing it twice because the first time Michal brought only 4 kilos of lenses without camera and Stefan forgot the ipad cable for the drone.
Travel Tips for Mauritius
-Get an aquapack with your phone if you want to sail after 5 in case you need to get help (which is very difficult after 5 though).
-Check if the local shops sell fins for your finbox in case you break it.
-Don’t sail alone.
Mauritius is a great spot but you have to be careful with the current and boat rescue stops at 5pm.
thanks a lot guys, cameras where Sony FS7 with a really long lens for the sailing shots (would have needed a much better tripod for that), Sony A6300 for gimbal shots and a Phantom 4 drone.
Gread videom, cool editing and some really useful tips about the spots and gear
Thank you for sharing
wow amazing colors and very well edited video. best video for a loooong time. would also be interested in the camera gear?
Super nice video, PRO : ) Thanks!
One of the best travel videos by far! Great footage, great music, great editing. Nice windsurfing!
Congrats!