Mauritius & Réunion

Mauritius keeps its charter grounds close together: the Caudan Waterfront at Port Louis clears you in, Grand Baie fills the tender with provisions and a first night out, and the coast runs unbroken from the northern islets round to the UNESCO lagoon at Le Morne inside a single day's sail. The marinas are modest by Mediterranean or Gulf standards — the largest berth on the island takes 30 metres — so the fleet here rides at anchor and tenders ashore rather than lying rank on rank at the quay. A hundred and twenty nautical miles southwest, across open water, Réunion trades lagoons for altitude: Piton de la Fournaise, one of the most frequently erupting volcanoes on Earth, and three cirques (steep-walled volcanic amphitheatres, one of them reachable only on foot or by helicopter) that between them cover forty per cent of the island.

“From the air off Le Morne, sand pours off the reef shelf in a shape that reads, unmistakably, as a waterfall — an illusion invisible from the deck, and impossible to miss from above.”

Signature anchorages

A lagoon circuit inside a day's sail of Port Louis, and a hundred and twenty miles of open water to Réunion's volcano and cirques.

• Port Louis & the Caudan WaterfrontThe only port of entry on Mauritius, and the base for anything larger than a tender: Caudan Marina's twenty berths take craft to 30m LOA (length overall), stern-to in med-moor style — bow anchor out, stern lines to the quay. Health, Immigration and Customs board in that order before anything else happens.
• Grand BaieA horseshoe lagoon 16km north of Port Louis and the island's liveliest anchorage; a free two-month membership at the Grand Baie Yacht Club covers showers, fuel and a first taste of the nightlife ashore, with Coin de Mire's dive sites a short run further north and the entrance channel carrying at least 3m at high tide.
• Le Morne Brabant (UNESCO)A basalt monolith on the southwest tip, its reef-sheltered lagoon holding good sand for the anchor and the wave known as One Eye. Inscribed by UNESCO in 2008 for its use as a refuge by runaway slaves, or maroons; from the air alone, an optical illusion reads as an underwater waterfall where sand cascades off the reef shelf into deep water.
• Black River & La Balise MarinaA small, largely residential marina on the west coast — berths run to around 16m LOA, with anything near 30m rare and privately arranged — but the best-placed anchorage for the inland run to Chamarel's coloured earths and rum distillery.
• Blue Bay Marine Park & Île aux AigrettesMauritius's largest marine reserve, 353 hectares of coral garden off Mahébourg holding a brain coral over 1,000 years old; anchor with care in sand, clear of the coral, and tender to the neighbouring islet's tortoise and gecko sanctuary.
• Île aux Cerfs, Trou d'Eau DouceAn 87-hectare lagoon islet off the east coast holding a Bernhard Langer golf course and a run of beach restaurants; yachts lie in the open roadstead (an unmoored, open anchorage) off Trou d'Eau Douce, with the tender crossing to the island itself taking ten to fifteen minutes.
• Réunion — Saint-Gilles & the volcano crossingSome 120 nautical miles southwest, a 20–30 hour passage into French territory: clear in at Port Réunion (Le Port), then moor off Saint-Gilles for the reef-fringed L'Hermitage lagoon and a helicopter up to Piton de la Fournaise and the cirques.

The scene

A championship wave, an island-crossing trail race, a technicolour hillside and one of the world's most active volcanoes.

Table & stay ashore

Belle Mare's original resort, a 2025 relaunch on Le Morne itself, and a Creole-colonial address on Réunion's smartest beach.

A week, sketched

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