Chagos is breathtaking.
Beautiful islands, pristine soft white-sand beaches, good
visibility through a sparkling sea,
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| Underwater garden |
… spectacular coral gardens, and nightly black skies showing off the stars to
their best, with zero ambient light to interfere.
The islands have much more vegetation than those of the
Maldives, with a variety of trees, bushes and shrubs that makes them greener
and much more lush-looking (coconut palm canopy, takamaka and banyan trees with
their groves on the islands, also bimini, breadfruit and old citrus trees) –
and also provide a haven for nesting sea-birds.
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| White booby birds nesting |
Back to the beginning: our entry to Chagos (after a short
300 n.mile journey from Gan, Maldives), was heralded by flocks of sea-birds
that left their nests and their hunting to accompany the yacht - the booby
birds stupidly diving for our fishing lures, which were hastily pulled in!
Brown boobies also showed much interest in our billowing SA
and Chagos flags: the latter proudly showing Union Jack and coconut palm on
waves.
When the birds left us we saw dorsal fins approaching from
all sides – the dolphins had come to play! These incredible, sleek, fast, lithe
mammals shoot from bow to bow, weaving amongst one another and looking up at us
as if to ensure an audience. What an exceptional privilege and what a welcome
to Chagos!
Chagos is a British Indian Ocean Territory, and formalities
are conducted when the big red BIOT boat appears in the atoll.
The dinghy arrived with a BIOT fisheries officer to check
our permit, accompanied by several marines (one of the atolls - Diego Garcia -
is on loan to the Americans as their Indian Ocean air and naval base, and they
combine checks on yachties with various other chores and exercises). When we
were here in 2010 for a month, we did not get to see the BIOT guys, and were
glad of the visits this year.
So it was back to enjoying Chagos. Above the sea, this meant
beach walks and picnics to enjoy the birds, crabs, coconuts and general
environment.
The coconut crabs are incredible. Huge creatures (they can approach 1m), they climb
up the trees, cut a coconut down, bore a hole in it and eat… surrounded by
scores of small hermit crabs, waiting their turn.
It seems to be much easier for coconut crabs than us: even
with our axe (the machete is so rusted it could not cut butter), getting a
coconut to the drinking and eating stage was hard work…
And as for getting them off the tree: Rolf always looked for
the low-hanging fruit.
But then, on our 35
th anniversary he said he has
always had success with the low-hanging fruit…. Hmmmm….!!
Often on the islands we were stopped in our tracks by remarkable
sights underwater alongside us: a large turtle rested in the water under the
shade of our beach picnic-tree, a big black shark cruised by in the shallows
along the shoreline... and there were always about 5 to 8 black-tip reef sharks
at the dinghy landing spot on one island, waiting to be fed scraps from
yachties who had been fishing. There were about 50 of them if you actually had
fish…
We revelled in nature below the sea: coral gardens with a huge
variety of healthy, big coral structures, landscaped beautifully with the
smaller corals and soft corals.
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| Spot the turtle on the giant table-top corals |
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| Beautiful underwater landscaping |
There were areas that were like an aquarium; healthy turtles
appeared to fly past; fish that we were sure were bigger than the book said
they could be. And we always had our plastic truncheons / prodders to
discourage any overly curious shark… the black-tips in some areas were cautious
of us and in others were too used to yachties and thus too curious!
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| Rolf with truncheon… to fend off the fellow below, if he got overly curious! |
And then the special sightings – always too close for
comfort, i.e. less than 5m from us – a huge stingray that passed three times,
on the third pass stopping to check us
out; big feather-tail ray (longer than Rolf) with two sucker fish that swam
nonchalantly under us; the large, bulky black shark that appeared not to know I
was there and was approaching me head on;
only when it was a few metres away and I shook my clacker (to indicate
to Rolf that he should
DO something ....
please!? Not sure what, though…) did it become aware of us and dived
steeply under us.
The Chagos archipelago has a very similar geographical
structure to that of the Maldives: atolls are ringed with reef and there are a few
passages through the reef to enter an atoll; islands are also often
reef-fringed. Sitting on your boat inside the atoll looking at beautiful, calm
beaches and placid shorelines, the associated sound-track seems wrong:
incessant pounding surf.
But the sea pounds constantly on the outer reefs of the
atolls, and a walk (possible at low tide only) around the splendid islands
exposes another harder island scene: with fine beach on the inside of the
atoll, there is rough weathered rock on the ocean side.
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| Low-tide walk on the outer reef side of an island: weathered rock |
Within the atoll, coral bommies (coral outcrops) shoot up
from the depths making travel in anything but the best light definitely …. stupid,
if at all avoidable! Sailing within the atolls is challenging but crystal-clear
water in most areas allows bommies to be seen in good light, although predicting
the depth is impossible as the clarity is so good.
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Coral bommie as seen in good light – easily avoidable.
Not seen at all if the light is bad. |
In Chagos you need courage - to deal with any and all issues
(boats- and body-related) on your own, particularly in deciding on where to be
in certain weather conditions and where to anchor safely.
With this in mind - when we left the Madives, the invoice from
our agent included a cost for the item “Ancourage”: well, that was a strange (accidental? insightful?) slip - the view from our boat in Gan, the last anchorage of the Maldives shows
the reef awfully close by, and there was no more space to move in the
anchorage.
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| Intimidating reef close behind Ketoro in Gan, Maldives |
In Chagos too, very few easy anchoring options exist – the
pictures tell the tales of constant reminders to take care…
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| Boddam Island, Chagos: nearby reef so shallow that it dried at low tide |
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A yacht that evidently did not take enough care with anchoring:
dragged onto shore in a storm |
Previously used commercially for the copra industry, Chagos
is now mostly untouched and commercially unexploited. All that remains in this
marine reserve of man’s intervention (besides the wrecked yacht) are
fascinating, deteriorating reminders of that time (and an on-going court case
with claims against BIOT by the previous Chagosian people).
The generator broke down and only Irene could fit behind it
under the bunk to try to get a cover-plate off; with inappropriate tools, we
could not do it, so we made do without the generator (a job for Mauritius).
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| Irene squeezes behind generator in a futile attempt to diagnose and fix |
The freezer stopped working – aaargh!
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| Freezer- surround frames a pitiful sight (Rolf and the non-functioning freezer!) |
All carefully planned and provisioned meats from Thailand
and chicken from the Maldives defrosted; the outcome of this was 12 bottles of
boiled chicken pieces in an attempt to save some (horrible, but true….) and two
very well-fed Ketoro crew: never has so much pork (fillets/bacon/ham) been
eaten by so few in such a short time! Later, a kind yachtie lent us their spare
electronic controller for a freezer and we simply re-froze what was left
uneaten / unboiled. We are still well and there is more on the shopping list
for Mauritius: spare parts and more meat….
Apart from taking care of oneself, when surrounded by such
beauty you take due care of the environment. There are strict rules for refuse treatment
and one island on each of the two atolls has bins and an incinerator for
plastic and paper. If not at those islands, you need to completely burn refuse
on a beach at low tide.
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| Incredible surroundings for refuse disposal by burning |
Chagos is seductive, unforgiving, and potentially
threatening to the unwary. Deceptively gentle and beckoning, however it is a harsh
environment and requires visitors to take care. It is not frivolous: neither in its beauty nor its dangers. This
place is truly beautiful but it commands respect.
It is good for the soul to know that such places exist, and
are being maintained with no commercialisation.
This remarkable marine reserve cannot disappoint, neither
above nor below the waterline.
Three years ago, Chagos was a stop for a month on our way
from SA to the east, and we were concerned that, after all the most wonderful sights
and experiences we have enjoyed in the intervening years, our memories and
expectations of this place were rose-tinted.
They were not. We
love it.
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