La Reunion Cruising Report

Created by doina. Last modified on 2004-10-11 13:57:19
Countries: Reunion Island

Thanks to a large resident French community, the island of La Reunion has better yachting facilities than any of its neighbours. The only disappointment is that the capital St Denis has no marina and even its port is some 10 miles out of town.

The island has three marinas, each with its own attraction. The newest and possibly best endowed is Pointe des Galets marina, in the western part of the so called Le Port. Its main disadvantage is its remoteness as it is too far to walk from it to the nearest town, so having a rental car is almost unavoidable. A few miles down the west coast is the smaller marina at St Gilles les Baines, a popular beach resort. Its small marina is always crowded with local sports fishing boats and space for a visiting yacht may not be available. Even further along, on the south coast, is the town of St Pierre, the island’s second in size and a pleasant town with much more character than St Denis itself. The marina was recently refurbished and expanded and, at the time of writing (October 2004), there were plenty of vacant spaces on the new pontoons. St Pierre’s main advantage is that its marina is located right in the centre of town, with easy access to all its facilities which includes a large number of pleasant restaurants and bars. Its only disadvantage is the difficult entry which should not be attempted in strong onshore winds with a high swell running. The entrance is clearly beaconed and local boats are using it all the time, so with due care it should not present any serious problems to boats up to 50 ft in length and drawing less than 8 feet. St Pierre’s other advantage is that it is the most convenient base from which to visit the island’s main attractions: the so called “cirques”, huge craters of extinct volcanoes that dominate the centre of the island.

As a French department, La Reunion has excellent public services, good roads, hospitals and public transport. There are daily flights from the international airport near St Denis to Paris, as well as frequent flights to Mauritius and Madagascar. There are also some flights to Mauritius from St Pierre’s smaller airport.

As can be expected, provisioning is of excellent choice and quality, and the prices although higher than in Mauritius, are generally lower than in metropolitan France.

October 2004 Tudor Roman on s/y DANERA