About 1am here on 'The Island', and fokkit, what a day it has been. The @expafrica Adventure Race kicked off with a spectacular regatta, where traditional pirogues and a few very wayward sailors teamed up with 60-odd teams in order to tame the Indian Ocean off this most easterly Mascarene island. Let's just say the ocean won... Right from the word go, our boats were blasted by a searing tradewind as we tracked the racers onto the Big Blue. Near collisions and a few capsized ships - plus a broken mast - saw a handful of teams limping back to shore... After the colorful chaos of the sailing leg, everyone piled into the ocean - more than a kilometre off-shore - to set off in search of three CPs. Easier said than done, with tempestuous tides and the wind whipping up the water, with spray flying everywhere. Nobody ever said this was going to be a picnic, did they!? A high-speed trek into the volcanic coastal ridges morphed into a whoop-it-up zip-line across a yawning gorge, followed by a gritty descent back onto the coast to pick up their bikes. When we left the teams to head back to the editing salt mines, they were toiling into the steepening and dark hills above Port Mathurin, the capital of #Rodrigues. Currently, #greeneradventures (Sweden), #Nevarest (SA) and #Jabberwock (SA) are in the lead, but this 320km race has barely started. On that note, I'm going to hit the sack for a couple of hours before doing a dark-zone sortie onto the northern coastline in search of more #AR Heroes 🙌🏻🙌🏻 #itsallaboutrodrigues #ExpAfricaRodrigues #VisitRodrigues #AirMauritius #SPOTAdventure #arworldseries #expafrica2019 #SpotAfrica #ExpeditionAfrica #itsallaboutrodrigues #itsallaboutlove #kineticevents #ifollowthetribe #ishootwithorms #sonyxperiaza #hellosonyza #sonyza (at Petit Gabriel, Rodrigues, Mauritius) https://www.instagram.com/p/B14kFIjnpHg/?igshid=1u8pu84d51msj
