In early January of 2026, a group of us ventured to the sunny island of Mauritius for 13 days to see Mr. Chris B himself. How did they get on? See below!
Sunday 4th by Olly
Like all great things, the trip started off with a pint at spoons (who knew there’s a spoons before and after security at Gatwick?!). Everyone had managed to make it through security well before boarding so no problems there – there had been some minor train delays before but luckily no one panicked…
None of us had intentionally booked seats next to each other – though by pure chance Olly and Casper had accidentally gotten seats next to each other. The flight there was delightful with the four infants surrounding us on half an hour shifts of crying, screaming and bawling rendering sleep all but impossible; Casper made the most of the situation and was hard at work the entire flight not even stopping for food.
Arriving at Mauritius was truly a spectacle – I could feel the spirit of David Attenborough narrating what I was seeing on the journey to Chris’ house. The volcanic formation of Mauritius made for lots of striking terrain – rolling mountains covered in foliage with the backdrop of the Indian ocean made for amazing sights. The rest of the first day in Mauritius was spent mostly relaxing by the pool as we would be getting up early the next day to get straight on the diving.
Monday 5th by Olly
The first two dives were at Trou aux Biches (which we pronounced quite rudely for the duration of the trip) – quite a handy dive site being 20 minute drive from Chris’, on the north side of the island (typically sheltered by the island from easterly winds), public toilets, car park and a nice not sandy beach. We would come back to this location for quite a number of the dives for this trip.
Kitting up in the car park and then loading everything onto the boat, we set off for our dives. The first dive was a nice shallow dive to 12m at Lady’s Spot to ease us into the diving. Having only ever dived in the UK before this trip, this was an instant 5/5 dive for me – instantly revolutionary as I was not shivering as soon as I entered the water (a lovely 27 degrees). The lack of hood, gloves and 20mm of neoprene also does wonders for how easy it is to move around. As soon as we descended, I then could also literally see how stark the difference was to UK diving. Lady’s Spot is a set of reefs – the visibility was a good 15 m at least – and as soon as I looked below the surface I could see the sea bed, the reefs and a small shoal of fish swimming above. Instantly multiplied the number of fish I’ve seen on dives by 10!
We saw a bunch of big eyes, garden eels, clownfish protecting an anemone, moray eels, loads of wrasse, lionfish and even a turtle! Amazing first dive. The second dive was at Stephen’s cliff – a shallow 12m wall dive. Absolutely stellar dive as well seeing some needlefish and scorpionfish. Following the dives, we went to a food court to have some lunch and to get Sophie and Casper sim cards, and then headed back to the house to chill and play some games.
Tuesday 6th by Olly
Day 3 started with another dive at Trou aux Biches. This day marks the anniversary of my great friendship with a local fish enthusiast. Only one dive for this day due to the cylinder fill situation – but by no means was this a let down! The dive site was called Emily and Waterlily and was two small wrecks directly next to each other. The wrecks were nothing too crazy; the main attraction was a threesome of blotched flattail sting rays! The assumed female was absolutely colossal – maybe queen bed sort of size – and was accompanied with two smaller male rays. One male was definitely more enthusiastic than the other and at one point swam extremely close to Dom and myself (I did almost shit myself – recurring theme of the trip). The rest of the day was fairly laidback – got some massive pizzas for lunch and chilled at a nice beach in the evening, grateful to not end up like Steve Irwin.
Wednesday 7th by Chris
We had another relatively early morning to go diving at two of my favourite spots in Trou-aux-Biches, Jenny’s Spot and Stella Maru.
Jenny’s Spot is a boulder field reaching down between 25m to 30m, though most of the life I usually see is around 15m to 20m. And thankfully it did not disappoint – we had lots to see including very big shoals of silver fish (I still don’t know the names unfortunately), quite a few batfish, and plenty of needlefish too. Plus an eagle ray came past us mid-water, which was awesome to see! No pictures from us though as Dom was completing his Dive Leader training (lead a newly qualified diver / teach a skill) which he did very well at – but of course this means no pics. And the others were off to do their depth progression to 30m.. which meant swimming quite a lot…
The second dive was at Stella Maru. Whilst it got wrecked even more due to Cyclone Belal two years ago (when the previous UBUC lot were here), it’s relatively stable now and I’m usually quite happy to go inside – which is what we did, introducing Olly to some overhead environments and getting some really nice pictures inside, and then pootling off to the reef to find some more cool animals, including lots of eels.
In the evening most of us attended the monthly (free!) pub quiz down the road at Long Bar in Calodyne (though we did grab dinner.. not many places in Mauritius where you can get a good steak pie). Having a bunch of students on the team meant we aced the first round (Science) and basically stayed out in front for the rest of the quiz. We only dropped 4 points and thus came first, winning a bottle of pink gin!
Thursday 8th by Chris
Just when they thought it couldn’t get any earlier, I proved them wrong by making everyone leave at 6am (and thus up at 5am) to ensure we reached Flic-en-Flac before the traffic built up. We arrived around 7:15am and thus had plenty of time to chill on the beach (got a small litter pick in too) whilst we waited for Naraj to get back from his early morning dive he had scheduled. We were joined this morning by three South Africans, a brother of my friend Dylan and his newly-minted bride-to-be as well, and my other friend (and Dylan’s wife) Frankie.
The first dive was at Cathedral, maximum depth about 26m (though you could go deeper) with the top at around 12m – 15m. We had a small amount of current but honestly nothing to write home about, which made the dive really easy to navigate. We dropped straight on top of Cathedral, so swam straight into the tunnel and spent some time there. We then went out the other side and had a look inside Lobster Cave (which is a very small cave that each buddy pair took it in turn to have a look into) before following the wall south, coming up to the top and following the ridge along. We eventually found where all of the fish had moved to, feeding mid water and providing a glorious view to our group. We then went through another small tunnel before heading shallower to finish the dive.
After a small break we headed out to dive Big Rock, a dive site I hadn’t dived before (though have tried in the past) and assured that the top was at 15m. This is incorrect, the top is more like 20m or so, so we didn’t stay long on the rock. When we first dropped in I couldn’t see anything that resembled a big rock, but after swimming shallower and into the current I eventually spotted it and steered the group towards it. After enjoying the large turtle we mooched on over to Aquarium, with lots and lots of fish at around 15m or so. The rest of the dive was pretty chill (aside from Sophie and Casper who had to call it quits due to the current), meandering through the rocks southwards going with the current and trying not to go into deco (which I did manage to somehow). The rest of the afternoon, was spent exploring Grand Basin, some large Hindu statues and local beer tasting.
In the evening after a very quick dinner, we headed out to Balaclava public beach to join the SECORE team who were there looking for signs of coral spawning – though this time we were not looking for acropora (which is what I had been doing over the past few months) but instead were looking at brain corals mainly. The team had set up quite a few collectors and had managed to collect one colony spawning (though they subsequently released the spawn afterwards as very few colonies were spawning). Me and Olly set out and managed to see the corals spawn! Sophie and Dom swam around endlessly, but to no avail. They still waddled out of the sea with high spirits after having seen an octopus, a moray and all sorts of sea cucumbers and worms! It was super late by this point in time (10:30pm or so), though as we knew we weren’t diving the next day we didn’t have to worry too much about the time. We headed back home and crashed out hard.
Friday 9th by Dom
Friday was our first day off. Despite Casper’s initial reluctance to do any training on this trip, we spent most of the day writing a risk assessment, making dive plans, and lying around. Musa also appeared so he could borrow his truck, Sophie helped him take some stuff to the dump.
That evening we walked to the nearby curry house. On the way, a pack of street dogs descended on us, apparently this was their gaff. The curry was good. Ollie was briefly distressed by the absence of his ciabatta, before realising after everyone had finished eating that it had been confused with a cheese naan. The day ended with Casper organising the loading of the truck for the early morning ahead.
Saturday 10th by Dom
Saturday began too early. We woke up, ate whatever food happened to be lying around Chris’ house that morning, and drove to Trou Aux Bitches. Musa greeted us with his usual big smile and only mildly concerning, mildly outdated equipment.
Following Casper’s directions (he was doing his LP2), we loaded the boats, had a briefing, and pootled over to the dive site. The first dive was the Tawariq, a moderately sized wreck lying on its side on a sandy bottom. Like all Mauritian wrecks, it was sunk on purpose, so max depth was around 33 m. I was diving with Musa, who enthusiastically pointed out every single living thing encrusting the wreck. At one point, a massive moray eel swam freely around the base of the wreck. Somewhere between the two dives Musa (who is in his 70s) hit us with his best “six-seven”, bewildering us all.
Our second dive was “Tom Mulder’s Place”: a fairly standard reef, max depth 16m, so we got a full hour. It was a lovely little dive, we saw nudibranchs, snake eels, multiple morays. I found a loose lead weight under a rock. I handed it to Musa, who shoved it straight into his BCD pocket. I assume it lives there now.
That evening we stopped at a supermarket to acquire bevs, then went to Chris’ friend’s birthday barbecue. Casper demonstrated his Geoguessr skills. I was impressed by the quality of Mauritian meat-substitute burgers.
Sunday 11th by Dom
Sunday was another non-diving day, but by no means a rest day. Chris took us to the “Hash,” which is sadly unrelated to hash in any way. It’s a run/walk club where about 40 people wander around a field and then use the achievement as an excuse to get drunk before 2 pm.
There was lots of excellent homemade food, and we observed their tradition of “punishment beers” for various crimes, such as drinking out of your own shoes if it happened to be a new pair. Ollie passed out in the car on the way home. I got sunburnt. I spent the rest of the day planning my LP3 for the following day. We had pesto pasta as an afternoon snack. Sophie made stir fry. Delectable.
Monday 12th by Casper
After a relaxing day off, we were straight back in the zone. 6:30am, up and itching with curiosity about what marine life we might see today but more importantly, if Dom will pass his LP3 (Dive management and planning). We drove to Trou-aux-Biches, again, followed all of Dom’s instructions, and listened to his brief meticulously.
Our first dive was at KT Angerric, a purposely sank wreck situated around 20 to 30 metres in depth. On Nitrox 32%, we were able to spend most of the dive at around 25 metres, exploring both the stern, port and starboard of the boat. One of the main sightings was a humongous Moray Eel, one of the biggest most of us have seen. After surfacing, we headed back to shore and got some food at a nearby noodle shack.
We only did this one dive in the morning because we were planning to do a night dive in the evening, which all participants were thoroughly excited for! Therefore, we headed home from Trou-aux-biches, to sleep off the earlier dive and regenerate for the next one. Some of us did some admin work, others took a nap, but it quickly became dark, so we hopped back in the cars and went back to Trou-Aux-Biches. In the car park, we all assembled our kit. We got on the boat at dusk, watching the sunset sink beneath the horizon.
Chris and Sophie buddied up, which left Olly, Dom and I as a three. The dive was a shallow one, again at Stephen’s Cliff. The max depth was around 12 metres but we spent most of it around 9 metres. Staying too close together, we ventured ahead of us, keeping the rocky reef to our left. The dive did not disappoint. In fact, the most notable sightings included a turtle, a squid, a couple of nudibranchs, specifically Spanish Dancers, whose size utterly amazed us. Sleeping among the rocks were parrotfish, peacefully catching well deserved z’s whilst crabs, lobsters and moray eels danced around, exploring and hunting on parts of the reef, illuminated by the moon above. After surfacing and getting back on the boat, we made our way back to shore, silently admiring the abundance of stars in the clear sky. The day slowly came to end, as we drove back debriefing and sharing sightings of the recent spectacle.
Tuesday 13th by Casper
The grind never stops, as today we woke up even earlier, to beat the traffic heading to Port Louis and make it to Balaclava, an area on the north west of the island. We headed to Denny’s (our skippers) house to pick up the engines for his boat. Wasting no time, we jumped back in the car and headed to the beach to assemble our kit and get in our damp wetsuits. As we pushed the beached boat out, we made our way to the dive site – Kindergarden. The water temp was a pleasant 26 degrees and the site did not disappoint either. As the name implies it housed a myriad of marine life, who were running their daily errands as we observed them curiously. Clownfish were tending to their anemones, lionfish – drastic in size – were big chilling and moray eels… well, as far as I’m concerned they spend their whole day just trying to look scary peering out of their holes. Cowries, leaf fish, flat fish, groupers, triggerfish and butterfly fish were also spotted. At an average 14 metres in depth, our gas was being consumed, slowly, leading to a 59 minute dive. We made our way back to Denny’s house, who kindly offered us condiments, coffee included, but more satisfyingly fresh mangos straight from his mango tree. So refreshing!
We said our goodbyes, and headed back in the direction of le gaff. On the way, a significant mission occurred. Securing a diving t-shirt. With requirements of it including Mauritius in writing, as well as something to do with diving, calling it a challenge is an understatement. Every dive shop on the way home was stopped at. Must have been at least 10. Most of them, unsuccessful, uneventful, tiring, but we did not give up. We finally found a shop selling some, and I was quick in purchasing one. Once we made it back to the house, it was time to lock in, as I was doing my LP3 the next morning, on a nearby island called Coin de Mire. The day ended with some fantastic dinner putting all in a deep food coma, fueling us for another big day tomorrow.
Wednesday 14th by Sophie
Another bright and early morning led us to the docks where Dylan and Frankie kept their brand new boat, primed and ready for its maiden voyage. After a very precarious motor out past the reef with a few monstrous waves, we arrived at the nearby island Coin De Mire about 5 miles off the north coast of Mauritius. The dive site known as Confetti Baie was a sheltered reef which progressed to a large wall riddled with fish and sea creatures hidden between rocks. Olly and Dom claimed this is their favourite dive of the trip due to the near 40m visibility and them having spotted an octopus and a mantis shrimp! We saw large lionfish, beautiful underwater topography and the biggest parrot fish I’ve ever seen. Due to some strong current and iffy weather, we motored back to land and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon. Dinner was a delightful meal at Musas, although ending quite abruptly with Olly sprinting all the way home due to some questionable rice from a few days earlier…
Thursday 15th by Sophie
With today being our last day of diving, we returned to our usual Trou-aux Bitches site. Our second-to-last dive was known as the Three anchors wreck at about 22m. To our dismay, Olly, Karine and I instantly got lost and although we found all sorts of creatures such as a poking out snake eel, conga eel and nudibranchs, we lacked sight of any of the anchors during the dive. Fortunately, just as we approached our no deco time, the third anchor came into view (impressively as it was the worst visibility of all of the trip). Chris, Dom and Casper on the other hand did a search dive and successfully managed to find all three! They were also doing the diver leader resume lesson and proceeded to give “cpr” to a dying dom.
Our final dive of the trip was at an 18m site called Helmet, named after the clusters of rocks resembling them. Here we saw all sorts of life clustered around these rocks. Dom, rocking his debut of his ancient mask bought in Plymouth, and I ventured noting a scorpion fish dragging itself along the ocean floor and the tiniest, cutest little yellow box fish! The other buddy pairs swam off in all sorts of directions searching for a nearby second reef and spotted sand camouflaged flounders, eels and an abundance of fish. It was a chaotic final dive with some duos going into deco and Dom and I spending our safety stop sadly watching his jammed DSMB float away from us on the surface.
Once safely back at shore, we spent the afternoon fetching a long list of items for a big pizza evening. Chris invited over everyone we had met and had been diving with over the trip and we all chatted, drank and enjoyed some homemade pizza in Chris’ very own pizza oven.
Friday 16th by Sophie
Finally a non-early start for us – We tidied up and packed all our clothes and kit, crossing our fingers that we hadn’t left anything irretrievable behind. Casper opted to pack his luggage outside where he could catch some last minute sun. Todays mission, much to Domothys dismay, was to go on a nice hike and enjoy the landscapes around us.
Before noon we were driving off towards the Mauritian mountains, stopping at a fantastic snack shop for a pre-hike roti and curry. Within 20 minutes we went from driving in flat fields to through big green forests and mountains. We ventured to Sept Cascades (seven waterfalls), a nice trail overlooking countless waterfalls and stunning views. In between climbing and following instinctive paths, we stopped off for a swim in the cool lakes and for a solid back massage from the waterfalls.
If it was up to Olly’s sense of direction we never would have made it back, but thankfully Chris was an expert on the paths and acted as our friendly tour guide. After washing up at Karine’s apartment, a quick pesto pasta snack and listening to some wild past UBUC stories from Chris, we bumbled to the airport ready with our barely underweight luggage. On the plane, with Olly and Dom and I cozy in an aisle together, vicious games of monopoly and trivial pursuit occurred. The 12 hour flight was a breeze, particularly for Dom who took in a pre-flight pint and then both his and my many glasses of wine during transit. All in all, we landed in London Gatwick with ourselves, and many bottles of Mauritian Rum, in one piece.
Overall, A fantastic adventure with plenty of beautiful diving and good company. A big thanks from all of us to Chris for his generosity and organizing!
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