The reason for the island’s famous waterfall illusion has to do with local sand and silt deposits that flow through the area and fluctuate the color of the water so that it appears like a waterfall heading to who knows where.
According to Ethan Siegel, while most of the ocean waters around Mauritius “is at depths ranging from 8-to-150 meters, there’s a huge plunge off that shelf into the ocean, where the depth drops to many thousands of meters”. The directional erosion creates the appearance of an underwater waterfall.
Even Google Maps has captured class-A photography of the picturesque location. From satellite positions, the waterfalls still appear to be real.
[Photo credit: Xavier Coiffic, Unsplash.com.]