The Mauritius Ocean Classic has been touted as one of the nicest paddling weeks of the year- and who’s to say otherwise? One week with a social downwind, two races (a minor 15km event preceding the major Island Shamaal) on a tropical island, in the middle of winter (for us Souther Hemisphere folk), with some paddling school to boot with Oscar Chalupsky. And you haven’t booked because….?

All the race reports from years’ past have been super positive. This race is a week after the Dunlop World Cup in Durban; just a hop, skip and a plane ride across a channel, over an island and walah! So most the paddlers will be primed and the top guns having some scores to settle.

Paddling a 28km downwind race (when there might not be any wind at all) is a fair amount of paddling. For the middle-of-the-field paddler, you can expect to sit for between 2.5hrs to 3hrs in a ski. That’s almost as long as the plane trip over. It could be very hot and there might be swell like there was last year. No, Mauritius is not “flat” and can have some serious swell charging through on the reefs. So you can come prepared for just about anything, but most of all; come ready to smile.

Board shorts: check. Sunscreen: check. Good time: check. There’s still time to enter so if you haven’t made up your mind yet, why on earth not?