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I was looking for some sunset photos on my final day in Mauritius and had specifically driven to the southeastern part of the island.  I was planning to take them at Gris Gris, but after surveying the area, it was facing too far south for what I wanted. So, I kept driving around the coast, and with light fading rapidly, I passed Saint Felix beach, which had a lot of locals parked there for what looked like a camping ground, so I decided to stop there too.

Walking past all the campers, I came across three boats that were moored by the end of the beach.  Perfect.  I decide to wade in and take some photos.  And then Gavin turns up.

“Bonjour!” he calls out to me whilst I’m knee deep in water taking photos of one of the boats.  We exchanged pleasantries and he waded into the water with me and took a look at the first boats.

“That’s not good,” he mumbles as he got in.  I asked why.

“It’s been raining: look at the boat. It’s full of water!”

I peered into the boat and indeed it was full of water.  Gavin then took a bucket and started to dutifully bilge the water out of the boat.  I asked him more about the boats and about what he was doing here in Mauritius.

“This is my dad’s boat.  The boat over there, that’s my brother’s. The other boat, that’s a friend’s boat.  We’re almost like family.  We go fishing in these boats and I need to get the water out to prepare for fishing.  Maybe one day I’ll have a boat too…” he explained as he continually bilged water from the boat.  In the meantime, the sun was setting and I was taking photos of the beach, sun, and the boats.  We were really alone – there was no one else in this area of the beach.  No one.

“I nearby at the Sofitel as a butler; it’s a great job, I have a lot of friends and it’s closeby.” And of the clients? “Well, MOST of them are fine.  But you know, these are people, and there will always be people that are, you know … difficult.”

I thought to myself: he’s just a kid. He’s got no ego and he’s such a nice guy.  And he’s a butler!  That really challenged the stereotype of what I assumed and knew about butlers working at five star hotels.

By now, the sun had set past some really thick clouds that were far on the horizon.  The sunlight wasn’t diffusing through the clouds, instead just slowly sliding away the blue sky to orange.  Gavin had also timely finished his work on the boat.  As I was leaving, I wished him well as he re-anchored it a little closer to the beach.  Light was falling fast on my last night in Mauritius.