Mauritius east
Your bracelet came loose on a day out to Île aux Cerfs
Boats cross to Île aux Cerfs from Trou d'Eau Douce, and the lagoon around the island is calm and shallow.
Losing a bracelet on Île aux Cerfs does not have to be the end of it. The part of the island where you spent the day decides most of it, along with whether you were in the water when it went.
Ring Seekers is a lost ring and jewellery recovery service that connects people who lost a ring, wedding band, watch, keys or phone in the east of Mauritius with a metal detectorist who can search there.
Tell us what happened and where. We find a detectorist who can reach the island or the beach, brief them with your map and photos, and tell you honestly if the odds are poor.
The mainland side is here too: Roches Noires and Poste Lafayette in the north, then Belle Mare and Palmar, Trou d'Eau Douce with Pointe Maurice, where boats cross to the island, and Grande Rivière Sud-Est.
Your holiday photos already hold the map
The pictures on your phone from that day are the best record you have. They show the stretch of sand and what stood behind you, and each carries a time. Keep them, and add a pin for where your towels were.
On the island, the beach bars are on the northern tip and the jetty for day visitors is on the north-west side, while a quieter beach area lies on the south-east coast by the golf course. On the mainland a village name covers more shore than you might think, because Belle Mare, Palmar and Poste Lafayette each have several public beaches and Trou d'Eau Douce has two, so a pin does more than the name. Farther down the coast, public beaches carry on at Camp des Pêcheurs, Quatre Soeurs, Grand Sable, Petit Sable, Pointe du Diable, Bambous Virieux and Bois des Amourettes, as far as Vieux Grand Port.
Places we cover in east Mauritius
- Roches Noires
- Poste Lafayette public beaches
- Bras d'Eau National Park
- Bras d'Eau public beach
- Mare aux Lubines
- Belle Mare public beach
- Palmar public beach
- Quatre Cocos
- Trou d'Eau Douce
- Pointe Maurice, Trou d'Eau Douce
- Île aux Cerfs
- Grande Rivière Sud-Est (GRSE)
- Camp des Pêcheurs
- Quatre Soeurs
- Grand Sable and Petit Sable
- Pointe du Diable
- Bambous Virieux
- Bois des Amourettes
- Vieux Grand Port
The island and the coast facing it
Where each place sits and what the ground is like.
Île aux Cerfs
Day visitors come across to Île aux Cerfs by boat and land at a jetty on its north-west side. The white beaches and rustic beach bars are on the northern tip, and more sand runs along the island's east coast under the casuarinas, with small, quieter coves you can walk to. The lagoon water is shallow and clear. On the south-east coast there is another beach area beside the golf course, and the golf club has a jetty of its own.
Trou d'Eau Douce and Pointe Maurice
Trou d'Eau Douce is a fishing village and the main starting point for boats to Île aux Cerfs, and a shuttle leaves from Pointe Maurice, in the village. Many trips stop in the lagoon on the way, so people can snorkel at spots too far from the shore to reach without a boat. The village has two public beaches, one of them near Four à Chaux.
Belle Mare
Belle Mare is a long beach of white sand with aquamarine water, where people swim, snorkel and dive, and casuarinas give shade along it. A coral reef protects the lagoon, which is calm and clear. Part of the shore is public beach and part has hotels along it. North of the beach, a Hindu temple stands on black rocks, and snorkellers find the most fish around them.
Palmar
Palmar lies between Belle Mare to the north and Trou d'Eau Douce to the south, and its beach is often quieter, with rock formations that keep it looking wild. It is really a row of small beaches split by rocky points, and the lagoon in front is narrow.
Roches Noires, Poste Lafayette and Bras d'Eau
These are the northern beaches of this stretch, with a shallow lagoon along the shore. People snorkel off the eastern end of the Roches Noires lagoon and off the beach at Poste Lafayette. Poste Lafayette has several public beaches, one of them near the Police Memorial. Close by, Bras d'Eau has a public beach, and in the Bras d'Eau National Park people walk the Coq des Bois trail through the forest from the visitor centre, or go hiking and bird watching among the mangroves of Mare Sarcelle.
Grande Rivière Sud-Est
The village of Grande Rivière Sud-Est, near Trou d'Eau Douce, has a public beach of its own. Boat trips go up the Grand River South East to see its waterfall, and people kayak down the river as well.
What you can expect from us
You tell the story once
The person reading your account of the day is the one who finds the detectorist and passes it on, and any later question comes back through the same chat.
Nothing lost in the retelling
Whatever you send us, from the boat photos to the pin by your towel, is passed on as it is, so the person searching sees the beach the way you saw it.
Plain talk about the lagoon
Sand by the jetty is a small patch to cover. Open lagoon under a waterskiing run is not, and your story tells us which of the two this is, so we tell you.
Costs before any booking
We explain the costs before any search is booked, in the same chat, so you can weigh them against what the piece means to you.
The lagoon and the crossing
What the water is like between the sand, the boats and the reef.
Shallow water round the island
The lagoon around Île aux Cerfs is calm and shallow. Tell us whether you walked out from the beach or went in from a boat, and roughly how long you were in the water before you noticed.
Sand close in, coral towards the reef
Close to the beach at Palmar and Belle Mare the bottom is sand, with rock as well at Belle Mare, and coral takes over towards the reef. Whether your feet were still on sand when you last had it narrows things down a lot.
Boats on the lagoon
Shuttles, catamarans and small boats cross between Trou d'Eau Douce and Île aux Cerfs, and many stop in the lagoon for snorkelling. A loss at one of those stops leaves a far smaller area than a loss somewhere along the crossing.
Questions about Île aux Cerfs, Belle Mare and the east coast
We walked a long way from the jetty on Île aux Cerfs before we sat down. How do we tell you where?
Start from the jetty where your boat came in. Day visitors land on the north-west side, and the beach bars are on the northern tip, with the white beaches. From there, people walk on along the island's east coast to find shade under the casuarinas. Say which way you turned off the jetty, roughly how long you walked, and what you could see across the water.
Does the bottom by the black rocks at Belle Mare make a wedding band harder to find?
Near the beach the bottom is stretches of sand and rock with only a few corals, and the black rocks north of the beach, with a Hindu temple on them, are where snorkellers see the most fish. Tell us which side of the rocks you swam on, and whether you were over sand or over rock.
Where would a search even start for a watch lost waterskiing off Île aux Cerfs?
At the two ends of the run. Because of the coral reef, the lagoon here is used for waterskiing and wakeboarding as well as speedboat and banana boat rides. Mark where the boat picked you up and where you fell or let go of the rope. Unless it can be tied to a fall, it is a long shot, and you would hear that from us first.
My phone fell in at Pointe Maurice as we boarded the shuttle. Is that a small area to search?
Compared with the open lagoon, yes. Pointe Maurice, in Trou d'Eau Douce, is where the shuttles to Île aux Cerfs leave from, both for the beach and for the golf club, so the boarding point is easy to put on a map. Tell us which boat you were getting on and on which side of it the phone went in.
Palmar has so many little coves. How do I show you the one where my Oura ring went?
By the rocky points on either side of it. Palmar is a row of small beaches with those points between them, and the public beach south of the village is lined with lawns and casuarinas. The lagoon is narrow here, so the reef is within swimming reach of the shore, with sand under you at first and denser coral as you near the reef. Say whether you had reached the coral or were still over sand.
The car keys were in my pocket on a snorkel at Poste Lafayette. Where does a search begin?
At the point where you went into the water. The lagoon along this stretch is shallow and people snorkel straight off the beach, so after that it follows your swim. One of the public beaches here is near the Police Memorial, which makes an easy reference if it was that one. Say whether the pocket zipped shut, and how long you were in.
Can you place a snorkelling stop on the Île aux Cerfs boat trip, where my necklace came off?
Usually, with your help. Many trips from Trou d'Eau Douce stop inside the reef, in a part of the lagoon sheltered from waves and currents that is too far from the shore to swim to. If the crew named the stop, pass the name on, and look through your pictures from the boat for any that show the shore.
Sunglasses with metal frames went overboard on the Grand River South East trip. Which part of the river do you need?
Where on the river you were. Boat trips go up the Grand River South East to its waterfall, and people kayak down it as well, so say whether you were close to the waterfall or still near the sea, which bank was nearer, and whether you were heading upstream or back.
Mauritius east
Start with the day, in any order
No need to have everything ready before you write.
Open a WhatsApp chat and tell us about the day as it comes back to you: the island or the beach, the boat if there was one, and the bracelet, ring or watch itself. Your photos can follow in the same chat.