Black sand and a surfboard

Sarah, my housemate who's a French trainee surgeon asked me last night whether I wanted to go surfing with her this morning. With a beer in my hand, I happily said 'oui, bien sur'. This morning the alarms were set for 4:45. By 5:15am we were leaving the house - with a surprise appearance from my other hilarious Parisian housemate, Jean-Yves, who has two silver skull and crossbones capped onto his teeth...he's downstairs at the moment cooking tripe for everyone for tonight...he's a character, to say the least.

Etang Salé was the destination, 20 mins drive west of here along the coast. The spiky peaks of the mountains always look stunning in the hazy morning sunshine and the roads were unusually empty. Jean-Yves brought his mug of 'chocolat chaud' and smoked his morning cigarette out of the passenger window. I tried to avoid the smoke in the back and make the most of the morning breeze rushing through the car. 

Etang Salé, literally means 'salted pond'. It has a little port, black volcanic sand and the possibility of surfing and snorkelling. The water in the port lay absolutely still in the morning light and a few fisherman pottered about on their boats. The water on the beach gently lapped the sand and I kicked off my Birkenstocks and went to test the water. Beautiful. We snorkelled for about an hour, I think I need to learn the names of more types of fish...my vocabulary goes about as far as the characters Finding Nemo. But there were long thin ones, big flat ones, camoflaged ones, brightly coloured ones and luckily we didn't come across any big nasty ones with lots of teeth. As the sun rose over the palm trees and the fishing village, it penetrated the surface off the water, casting long shadows behind coral. A beautiful start to the day. Then, Sarah lent me her friend's surfboard. The waves were very small and allowed me to find my balance and learn the paddling technique, while watching the more experienced surfers do their stuff. 

We came back here for breakfast at 7:30 and discussed life in Reunion in the car on the way back. It seems the relaxed attitude to life here is something that has attracted many people to 's'installer' here. As the island woke up for work, and the roads became busier we all agreed to have mornings like this on a more regular basis.