Ilot Gabriel

The beautiful Ilot Gabriel.
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Today we took a day trip to Ilot Gabriel, a gorgeous island about 11 km north of the mainland.  The tour left from Grand Baie (most tours of northern islands leave from that town) and was pretty much an all-day deal - the boat ride was about 2 hours each way, we had some time on the island and a barbecue lunch on board our catamaran (the Ile de France), and we had transfers back to our hotel.  Most any tour you can set up to the northern islands will be very similar.  When we were out on the island we saw plenty of other boats and other tourists doing the same thing.  The only variation seemed to be that some people actually got to eat their lunch on the island, while others had to eat on their boat (like us).

Scenery on the way there -- Coin de Mitre.
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I would recommend going to any of these wonderfully beautiful islands off the north coast of Mauritius- there is great snorkeling, lovely breezes for cooling you off if all you want to do is lie in the sun, and the scenery is so gorgeous that there is no way you could take a bad picture.  However, if you get motion sick (like we do) I would have to urge you to think hard about how bad you want to do this!  The seas were incredibly rough on our way out there and at least three people (that I saw) threw up on our boat - and we felt so sick that when we got to the island all we could do was collapse onto the beach, no energy for snorkeling.  Still, it was worth it to see such an exotic place as Gabriel Island!  And on the way back at the end of the day, we even saw dolphins leaping off the side of the boat!