Anse La Raie Beach

Anse La Raie is one of the north coast's quieter secrets: a small fishing village beach at the north-eastern tip of the island where the development thins out and the landscape takes on a more rural, unhurried character. The village has the feel of a working coastal community that tourism has touched only lightly — fishermen's pirogues are moored in the shallows, nets drying on the beach, the morning catch sold from a table by the road.

The beach is narrow and backed by a fishing village rather than a resort strip, and its facilities are correspondingly basic: the beach itself, the water, and the company of the local fishing community. But Anse La Raie has a wildlife offering that justifies the drive from Grand Baie: a small pod of bottlenose dolphins regularly enters the bay in the early morning, and encounters with wild dolphins visible from the shoreline — rather than from a boat — are recorded here more frequently than anywhere else on the north coast. The best times are between 6am and 9am on calm mornings, before the boats start their engines and the animals move back to the open water beyond the reef.

The lagoon water at Anse La Raie is clear and calm, suitable for swimming and snorkelling. The reef a short swim offshore has good fish life undisturbed by heavy visitor pressure. The drive to Anse La Raie from Grand Baie, passing through the cane fields and fishing villages of the north-east coast, is itself a worthwhile excursion through a part of Mauritius that most tourists never see.