Knowing that dolphins are my most beloved, favorite animal, Richard arranged a tour for us on the morning of my birthday. We dragged ourselves out of bed at six and hitched a boat ride to the other side of the bay at the hotel.
We hopped in a taxi and drove for an hour to the other side of the island. I always hear horrible things about traffic in Mauritius, but we seemed to be the only ones on the road. As we passed by villages, Indian music was playing over loudspeakers and people in beautiful costumes were walking around carrying shrines over their head.
"Today is a holiday, it is the celebration of Shiva," the taxi driver informed us. Richard whispered that Mauritius is known as "Little India," the major origin of their ancestry and culture. I felt pretty honored that Shiva was sharing his day with me. Ironically, I saw three rainbows that morning. I took it as a good sign.
When we got to the lagoon, we hopped on another boat with six other people.
Our mission was to find some dolphins and maybe try to interact with them.
Our captain looked kind of scary at first but he turned out to be a big teddy bear. He was always asking us if we were happy, if we were having a good time...and if we wanted some rum. (It was 7:30am.)
So we cruised along the slick lagoon, breathing in fresh salty air and enjoying the sunrise colors playing out on the landscape before us.
Finally we came upon a cluster of dolphins surrounded by a few other boats. I had been worried about how this would work...if we would be disturbing the dolphins or causing any harm...but it was nothing like I feared. In fact, it seemed like the dolphins were enjoying a private little game. They would circle back and forth between boats, inviting swimmers to come chase them, then minutes later they'd kick up the speed and leave us in their wake. Little tricksters!
The captain would spend some time angling us in their path. We'd climb up on the side of the boat and wait for his signal. "NOW!" He'd shout in French, and we'd dive in right next to the dolphins as they were passing by and swim swim swim as hard as we could to stay with them. Lucky for us the others seemed to be quite lazy and would give up swimming after about ten seconds. So Richard and I would be mostly alone with the pod after they whizzed by the boats. They swim so so fast...a minute with them was all we could do!
After that, we would swim back to the boat and climb up. The dolphins would come back around eventually, teasing us to try it again. And so we did, for about an hour or so.
When you jump in the water, the way they look at you goes straight to your heart...curious and compassionate, silent but deep...in those first few seconds when you're next to them and there's a connection there...I swear it is one of the highest highs life has to offer.
After respectfully thanking the dolphins for playing with us, we bid farewell and went snorkling over by the reef.
As you might imagine, we worked up a pretty big appetite! On the way home, we asked the taxi driver to stop in town for some local cuisine. Richard would not rest until he found some dholl puri, which was kind of difficult as most things were closing early for their Shiva celebrations. After a few tries we finally got lucky.
We spent the afternoon lazily napping underneath the palm trees with Elena and James. Then we got ready for dinner at Le Boucanier.
The food was magical, the service, superb. They even made me a special little cake before the dessert course. :)
I made three very important wishes.
This photo makes me laugh every time.
It was the best birthday I've ever had.
I felt so lucky to be surrounded by such extraordinary people (and animals!) in pure paradise.
The night ended in pirate discussions back at the room.
I was never really dying to go to Mauritius Island. Even though it's only a 30 minute plane ride from here, it's still pretty expensive (250 euros for 30 min!! I think it holds the record for the most expensive/shortest flight.) And with all the great wonders of the world to see, why would you go visit another island when you already live on one?
I didn't believe it was possible, but Mauritius is a completely different world. First of all, everyone speaks English, French, and Creole. Second of all, they seem to survive off tourism, so the hotels are just breathtakingly incredible. And third, their beautiful beaches give way to giant lagoons, which keeps the sharks far away from shore. In Reunion, the shores are sadly vacant, while in Mauritius they are full of life.
So Richard, Elena, James and I snuck out of work for a long weekend to celebrate my 30th birthday. We decided on the Shandrani Resort, which is only a 5 minute taxi ride from the airport. The Shandrani is a 5-star, all-inclusive hotel...and it is simply breathtaking.
Reception
The rooms were simple, stylish, and crisply cleaned twice a day by a very friendly housekeeping staff.
We were so happy to be on vacation that we wasted no time! We signed in with reception...
...and dove head first into the glorious silky pool.
After we were thoroughly cooled off, we decided to explore our new home away from home.
After a few islandy cocktails, we made dinner reservations. The hotel has a buffet, but also offers 5-course dinners through various themed restaurants. All you have to do is book the restaurant in advance. It's still a part of the all-inclusive...and the food is absurdly delicious.
I regret that I didn't bring a camera with me to dinner, because our hard-working boys decided to let off some steam and enjoy (a lot of) the free champagne.
Every night at one of the bars there is live music, and so we stumbled upon a dance party after dinner.
If you are wondering, the equation vacation + free champagne + Richard and James + music, equals a long night of hilarious dance moves that can never ever be replicated. I know in fact that they can never be replicated, because there was a group of teenage girls standing behind our guys trying to do just that. James and Richard were so spectacular with their drunk dancing that they had created a following.
I have no idea what time we ended up going to bed...but we had planned to be up at 6:00am to go find some dolphins for my birthday. Who knows how I convinced Richard to wake up a few hours later, (still drunk haha) but I did. Needless to say, we spent the last few minutes of my 20's in a glorious state of pure dancing bliss.
We filmed my part in Sirena last Tuesday, and I'm feeling pretty relieved that I didn't have time to write about it before we left for our amazing trip to Mauritius Island (definitely more on that later) because it was a catastrophe and after filming my spirits were completely crushed. Luckily a long weekend in a 5 star hotel cured all of my feelings of inferiority and embarrassment and now I can tell you the story without the soul-crushing anguish.
Where to start, where to start...
Ok so let's just go back to where we left off. I got the part, knowing full well I was not a synchronized swimmer, and realizing already that I would need a lot of practice to hold my breath for as long as it seemed I would need to. Actually, looking back, and knowing what was in store for me, I have no idea why they chose me. Why didn't they search for a free diver? A competitive swimmer? Maybe they did and no one could make the schedule. Maybe they figured since I'm American I'll have some secret Hollywood connections to show the film to later. Who knows. All I know is that I said yes, and I told myself I'd figure out how to make it work.
So I immersed myself into the world of mermaids. I practiced deep breathing exercises every night. I started going to the ocean to train as much as possible after work..three, four times a week. I dragged Elena along with me and asked her to film so I could see and perfect my mermaid swim. I researched EVERYTHING mermaid and found this:
Girls (actors) with really high-tech, hand-made fins, performing around the world and swimming with marine animals. They call themselves "professional mermaids" which at first made me laugh but then I got kind of inspired. Maybe this is an idea I'll revisit one day haha....
And then I enlisted the help of my Dive Guru/Ocean Master, Wulfy, from Wulfy Diving (the best dive instructor in Reunion, by the way, and the ONLY one that speaks English...among many other languages!) Wulfy met me as often as he could to teach me the basics of free diving (it's actually really complex, did you know??) He found me a mermaid fin to borrow and was very patient as I learned to hold my breath a little more every time we rehearsed the scene.
Wulfy is pretty much my guardian angel of the ocean.
My very supportive best friend is always up for sharing adventures with me....
On Saturday mornings, I would meet with the film team in a small closed off natural pool where we would be filming (or so I thought.) Mostly it turned into talking about costumes and trying different things on in the water. At first they were going to stay very simple and abstract, with just a transparent cloth to cover up top and a long blue fabric attached to both sides of a nude colored bikini bottom. I thought it would look beautiful. With the long, eerie flowing fabric, you couldn't see my legs, but there was no obvious mermaid tail. It seemed artsy and just perfect.
The small little natural pool we were supposed to film in is to the right...
During these meetings, I would delicately my concern about how long I could hold my breath. They brushed it off...telling me that we'd just film a dozen times and they could cut and paste together what they needed. We practiced with my partner in the scene only once, for a hurried ten minutes. I had to swim up to him, then make a turn around him, keeping eye contact, and then once I circled around him, I'd go in for the "mortal kiss." For the kiss, it would have to last long enough for him to kiss back, then start losing his breath, and then we'd drift apart slowly.
I couldn't make it around him in one breath. They said it would be ok...but my other problem was that I'm super buoyant. I can go down, but I float back up to the top rather quickly. This is normal, and divers usually wear weight belts to keep them stable under the water. But I'd have nothing. No weights, no fins, no mask...
Then on the day before filming, everything changed. The time, the location, my costume, the way we would be filming...EVERYTHING changed. I got really sick. Ear infection, fever, the works. I had drugged up nightmares about drowning all night...
I got up bright and early and headed over to the beach house where they were filming for make-up.
I was nervous, stressed, sick, coughing, but I started to come alive despite everything. That's how it is with your passions. They light you up no matter what else is going on.
Two hours later, the whole crew (about 20 people) headed over to Cap La Houssaye, where I usually go scuba diving. So I felt kinda at home, but I knew it would be nothing like diving, or even the rehearsal in the natural pool. The current at Cap La Houssaye was strong, and of course it's the real ocean, so all the friendliest little sea creatures are hanging out there...stone fish, sea urchins, and yeah maybe some sharks...
There were three scuba divers in the water with us at all times, one was a look-out for sharks, and the other two were there to give us air, something to hang on to during breathing breaks, and to generally help with filming.
And then the costume changed to this...
In my opinion, the simple abstract idea would've been much better , but I'm not the director so I don't really get an opinion. But the train of the dress was 20 feet long and when wet, weighed probably around 25 pounds. If you can imagine wearing that, then jumping in the ocean with a strong current without a mask or fins, trying to swim strong, gracefully and slowly, while acting like you breathe underwater...maybe then you can imagine the incredible panic I felt for the next three hours while filming.
That's me in the dress on the left..
It was just awful. I couldn't really advance while swimming in the dress...there was 20 feet of fabric wrapped around me like tentacles, relentlessly trying to pull me down into the depths of the salty water. At first they wanted to just film me swimming, but I couldn't move forward and instead just floated to the top while desperately trying to keep to my mermaid swim. I spent most of my energy/breath fighting the dress, so not much was left over for acting. In fact, I honestly did not do ANY acting. My thoughts were mostly on just trying not to drown.
Then they told us they wanted us to descend to 10 feet with the scuba diver's second air, let go of the oxygen, let the divers swim away, and then start the scene from ten feet down. This freaked me out for many reasons. First, as a scuba diver I was always told that compressed air is kind of dangerous, as is going up and down multiple times. Second, Wulfy himself told me to never accept air like that because if you don't remember to blow it all out before going up, your lungs could explode. Third, I wish I could really explain to you the horrors of going down without a mask....trying to breathe through your mouth when you instinctively want to breathe through your nose, the stinging red eyes, the burning salt water up your nostrils, the air bubbles choking you, trying to calm yourself...wanting pop your ears, but oh yeah, you're sick...so instead they just throb painfully...
Scuba diving without a mask is advanced, scary, and takes practice. And I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. I tried twice, and I just couldn't do it. The film guy seemed frustrated. He even said: "you just need to calm down, and slow down your heart beat!" (Duh! What the hell was my problem?!?!)
After realizing that I physically could NOT do what they wanted me to do, I basically gave up. I did the absolute best that I could...but I wanted to just cry.
She can't do it. I imagined all of them up there, watching, talking...
Everyone looked so disappointed. They even canceled the next location so we could finish and get this right. It was because of me, I know it...If I could've just preformed like they wanted, and on time...If only I had known before what I would've had to do...I could've practiced more...better...differently...
So we did like a zillion versions of the kiss, until we both couldn't breathe anymore. We filmed the circling part separately. That was the hardest. The film crew went down first. Then Alexis and I looked at each other. Ready? Ready...We sucked in as much air as possible and dove under. I swam to him, trying my hardest to pull this heavy load of fabric behind me. I tried to have a peaceful look on my face. I tried to not use my arms, as it was "too human" for what they wanted. I tried, I tried, I tried....
We'd go up, gasping for air.
"ENCORE (again) !!" Someone would shout.
The film crew was staying down, we just had to keep repeating...So again, we'd make eye contact. Ready? Suck in our breath...fight the dress, swim, swim, explode out of the water, gasp for air. ENCORE. Eye contact, breathe, struggle, explode, suck in air. ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCORE! ENCO----
I couldn't do it anymore. I flung myself on my back, heaving, trying to catch just one deep breath. I just needed a few seconds...I'll try again after I catch my breath....
But suddenly there were hands on me, pulling me out of the water, dragging out the dress. Towels and coke and cookies were thrust at my face, I was trembling and white.
"Good job," they said.
But I knew I had failed.
I went home in defeat. I bought myself an ice cream. I think I must've been giving off some pretty pathetic vibes because even Mowgli tried to comfort me, and usually he's pretty much a jerk.
Now that I've had a week to get over my bruised ego, I can say that I'm really happy to have had this experience, despite everything. Hopefully it didn't go as badly as it did in my head. Hopefully they got enough footage to make something cool. Hopefully the dress looks cool underwater!
And you know what? I'm not afraid of the ocean anymore.
Also I learned that there is a such a thing as a Professional Mermaid.
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