On November 6, after a quick and unexpected round trip to Réunion, the Marion Dufresne returned to dry dock in Port Louis in Mauritius. We all had to stay on board during these few days of repairs. It's impressive to watch the basin fill up, then to see the boat move into it. The water then took a few hours to drain totally. This is the first time that I see a shipyard!
The mechanics worked day and night to repair the propeller. I couldn't see anything of the works from the boat, but the technical team took some photos and these are published on the TAAF Facebook site:
The work ended on November 8, and the Marion left the basin at the end of the afternoon, repaired and ready to go. Hooray!
We are 8 days behind schedule, which is not so bad considering that they were initially planning to be 11 days late. We all stayed on the deck to watch Mauritius disappear little by little on the horizon.
This time the crossing conditions are very good until Crozet (yeehee), so we head south at 16 knots to try to catch up. We are due to arrive at Possession Island (the island of the Crozet archipelago where the Alfred Faure base is located) on Friday, November 13.
We have 4 days left together on the boat. It will be strange when the 17 Crozétiens disembark, so we are making the most of peaceful days and festive evenings on board.
On the night of November 9-10, I saw the most beautiful starry sky of my life! Lost in the middle of this black ocean several hundred kilometers from all sources of light pollution, nothing prevented the stars from shining a thousand lights. We saw planets, constellations (the Southern Cross!), galaxies, the Milky Way ... and all that with a 360 ° panorama. To top it off, bioluminescent creatures (squid or plankton) surfaced near the ship during the night. Fluorescent spots appeared on the surface of the sea, one after the other ... a real spectacle!
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