July 4, 2009 - Salomon Atoll, Chagos

After six blissful weeks tied to a coral head at Boddam, a strong southeasterly induced us to return to our original anchorage off of Takamaka/Fouquet. We are still within Salomon Atoll, only three miles from Boddam, but it feels like an entirely different place.

Chagos, a chain of uninhabited atolls in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is truly beyond the beyond the beyond. But the first time we stepped ashore at Boddam we were bowled over by how civilized it all was. At the main camp at Boddam there is a freshwater well and clothes washing and drying station (complete with a mangle), trash facilities administered by BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory; they come and pick up the glass and metal recycling every week or so, we burn the rest), fish cleaning station next to the old copra pier, coconut opener, shaded sand volleyball court, happy hour area complete with a large central table (made out of a giant old flywheel left over from the days when the island was a copra plantation) with benches and chairs all around and a lantern hanging above, and a covered building that is used to store lanterns, chairs, books, tools, and toys, which is affectionately referred to as the Yacht Club. Further up the island there is another clearing with another coconut opener, a hammock, and some benches, which is known as the French Camp. Cruisers take turns raking the paths that wind among all these facilities.

The island itself is a contrast to all these facilities, or perhaps it necessitated them. The vegetation on Boddam is close and creeping closer every day. It feels like jungle. At any turn a giant coconut crab might be blocking the path, flicking one of its front legs in challenge. When we first arrived, the paths were relatively clear, but as the anchorage cleared out and they saw less use, they quickly became overgrown. A walk from one end of the island to the other now involves following markers, such as buoys tied into the trees, and dragging fallen palm fronds out of the way.

Fouquet is such a contrast to Boddam. We've only been here for a week, and admittedly, we haven't explored the island as much as we have Boddam, but the only camp we've come across is a bench and table on the beach (called Camp David after the cruiser who built it), and we've only found one path through the woods on the island. But then, paths aren't really necessary on Fouquet. The palms and takamaka trees are tall and stately and the undergrowth much more sparse than on Boddam. Stepping into the woods from the beach feels like entering a cathedral. The roar of the surf and the howl of the wind is hushed by the trees. The canopy is filled with the chatter of birds - noddy terns, black naped terns, fairy terns, tropic birds, and blue footed boobies. There seem to be many more birds nesting on Fouquet, but fewer coconut crabs about.

Unfortunately, the fishing at Fouquet is not as good as down at Boddam, where it is easy to get outside the atoll to go after big fish. From Fouquet, access to the outside of the atoll is much farther away. In Chagos, dinghy fuel is precious, and not everyone has a big enough (or reliable enough) dinghy and outboard to make the run to the pass. So when someone (often Sten) catches a big fish, everyone gets together to eat. Life at Fouquet is more of a communal experience than down at Boddam.

As different as the islands are, the social calendar seems just as full up at Fouquet. The majority of the boats in the atoll are now up here. Between sushi lessons, birthday parties, remedial sushi lessons, bon voyage parties, fish anatomy lessons, dinner parties, chart talks, and board games on rainy days, there is always something going on. I thought that when we moved up to Fouquet our schedule would settle down a bit, but we're still burning the candle at both ends.

On July 3rd, we took Mata'irea back down to Boddam for a night, to join in on the fun and games of a birthday party. We were going to make the run in the dinghy, but the wind was really strong and we weren't sure we could get the birthday cake (a delicate concoction of butter, eggs, maple syrup, walnuts and single malt) there in one piece. So on went the main engine and up went the anchor. The run from Fouquet to Boddam only takes half an hour, but it is necessary to keep a constant lookout as the route is strewn with bommies. At the other end, Ron from Tigger was waiting to help us pick up a mooring. We were just in time for the birthday games, including a treasure hunt, skittles (like bowling, but on a sand court so rolling the coconut ball wasn't so effective), and crab races. The games segued into cocktails and dinner. As we lingered over drinks and dessert, we enjoyed catching up with the folks that we'd left down at Boddam, whom we'd missed during the week we spent anchored off of Fouquet. It is incredible how close you can get to people when you see them every day, work and play with them.

The next morning, Sten had a successful fish outside the reef, and returned laden with coral trout. We would have stayed longer at Boddam, but the Kiwis, Australians and South Africans up at Fouquet were planning to blow some stuff up in honor of our Independence Day, so we figured we had better make an appearance. So on went the engine and off went the mooring line. Once we were anchored at Fouquet, we had just enough time for Sten to dive on the anchor and for me to put the final touches on my latest dessert creation (the stuff that comes out of my galley these days truly amazes me) before heading ashore for a chart talk about South Africa with the South African boats, Affirmation and Rainbow Gypsy. Over wine and olives, dates and cashews, we absorbed all the advice they had time to give us before everyone else arrived for the Chagos version of fireworks.

After dark (and after making an announcement over the radio to let any ships in the area know that there was no actual emergency), we lit one of the big floating rice paper lanterns that we bought in Thailand. As it filled with hot air and soared silently over the masts of the boats anchored off the beach and into the night sky, it glowed like a beacon. It also made a perfect target for a Kiwi with a rocket flare. He took aim, fired, and nearly set one of the boats on fire. Okay, maybe not, but when that red flare fell out of the sky behind a catamaran, a few of us muttered, "that was a bit close." After what seemed like 20 seconds had passed, a big red glow flared up behind the catamaran, and we all thought the boat was on fire. The glow extinguished as quickly as it sparked, but the owner of the cat and the firer of the flare had already piled in one dinghy, Sten and I and another cruiser piled in ours, and charged across the reef to make sure the boat wasn't about to go up in flames. A search of the boat showed no visible damage. The conjecture among the crowd was that the flare sputtered when it hit the water near the cat, causing a bright reflection between the hulls. Either way, it was a scary moment and a good lesson for all of us - When shooting off expired flares, it is best to pick a beach in front of someone else's boat.

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June 23, 2009 - Salomon Atoll, Chagos

These past few days have been simply amazing. The wind has been so light that we've been able to range far and wide in the dinghy. We played with hundreds of dolphins inside the lagoon one day and outside the atoll another, experiences that filled us with a sense of wonder. We deep fried donuts and delivered them around the anchorage, brightening everyone's morning with the inaugural run of Dinkin Donuts (TM). We swam outside the lagoon with rays, sharks and the occasional yellowfin tuna. We feasted on fresh pesto made from Mr. Curly's hydroponic basil. We picnicked on Ile de Passe's shaded swath of white powder. After lunch, we looked for nesting terns and boobies in the woods. We lost a big wahoo but landed a beefy yellowfin before the circling sharks could steal our prize, which we served up as Ahe Poke during cocktail hour the following night. We walked on the windward reef at dawn the day of the new moon, looking for reef bunnies. We pushed each of our free diving bottom times to the limit to correct a problem with the Queen's Mooring before the wind could pick back up and blow Mata'irea onto the beach. We walked the paths of the island, our steps cushioned by a soft carpet of casuarina needles. We celebrated Ron on Tigger's 69th birthday and Mr. Curly's last night at Boddam with a beach party complete with a jerry can of rum punch, hanging lanterns illuminating the palms, songs composed by Silver Fern and Affirmation, and the best chocolate cake ever (see October 2007 archives for recipe). As we listened to Mr. Curly's adventures hiking in the Seychelles and Affirmation's tales of trading for mud crabs in Madagascar we looked forward to upcoming landfalls. But we have come far enough to know that Chagos is a special place and so we are in no hurry to move on.

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June 18, 2009 - Salomon Atoll, Chagos

The anchorage at Boddam has emptied out as many of the repeat visitors head back to Malaysia and Thailand. As new boats arrive here in Salomon Atoll, they are staying up at Takamaka, the anchorage closer to the pass into the atoll. I can't blame them. The trip from that end of the atoll to this one involves dodging lots of coral heads. Once one gets down to this end of the atoll, it is best to moor to a coral head, rather than dropping anchor and letting the chain drag through a field of pristine coral, destroying everything it touches (and mucking up the chain). It is easier for short term visitors to stay up at Takamaka and use their own anchor. As a result, there are now twice as many boats up at Takamaka as there are down at Boddam, the inverse of the situation when we arrived in Chagos last month.

When it became available, we moved onto a coral head mooring close to the beach that is known as "The Queen's Mooring" because it is the one chosen by the first yacht to arrive in Chagos every year. It has been a nice change of scene, particularly for me. Usually, when I'm down below on Mata'irea, I can't see anything but sky out of the side ports or windows. Sten is tall enough to have a panoramic view around us, but my vertically challenged world is just blue. However, anchored this close in to shore, I can see the palm trees. Suddenly, my world includes green and yellow and and if I stand on my tippy-toes, a swath of white beach and aquamarine sea. The sunsets in this spot are terrific. The pink sky above the palms does wonderful things as it reflects off of the shallow water close to shore.

With only four boats at Boddam, it was the perfect opportunity for us to invite everyone over. We started looking around for a theme. It didn't take long to find one. We had been given a bottle of single malt scotch by one of the boats we met in Sri Lanka. We already had a single malt on board. For two people who don't drink scotch, we had a lot of it cluttering up the liquor cabinet. So we put the bottles on the cockpit table and called it a scotch tasting. Well, this isn't Iowa, but if you build it in Chagos, they will come, and come bearing single malt and appetizers. We ended up with two twelve year old Islay's - Bowmore and Coal Ila, a ten and eighteen year Highland - Glenmorangie and Highland Park. After a few hours of sipping our various ways through the collection of bottles, I had developed a preference for the Islay's, but Sten still preferred s/v Tigger's amber boat brew.

The morning after the scotch tasting I harvested the first batch of (somewhat trampled) lettuce from our cockpit garden, which we had for dinner with some grilled grouper and pickled tomatoes. It was wonderful to have some fresh greens. So I sowed a fresh batch of seeds in the pot. We should have another salad in about a month.

We've taken long walks ashore, looking for green things to supplement our diet, but the few lime trees on Boddam had been picked clean long before we got here and the taro leaves are of the inedible variety. So we were excited to learn that there was a tree here called a bilimbi that grows cucumbers out of its trunk. At first we thought our legs were being pulled (Sure, and it grows right next to the money tree?), but after following the directions given by a departing yacht, and fighting our way though a cloud of mosquitos and dense underbrush, we found a few trees with waxy, green, elongated fruit growing out of their trunks. We were stoked to have a source of fresh fruit, but upon getting them back to the boat and cutting into them, we found that they were so acidic that they were inedible. I understand that in the Seychelles bilimbi are used in salads, but I am not exaggerating when I say that I could feel the enamel being stripped from my teeth after biting into one.

I asked around and learned that the only use that yachties have found for the bilimbi is to make jam out of it. Not being big jam eaters, but not about to let a source of vitamin C go to waste, I emailed my sister and asked her to do a little research for us. Alena reported back that making jam out of bilimbi is traditional in Malaysia. In the Philippines and Goa, bilimbi is eaten raw, dipped in salt and spice. So we tried that. Phleh. Again with the enamel stripping. We clearly had to do something to this stuff to break down or neutralize the acid.

Next, I tried cutting it into thin disks, and briefly boiling it simple syrup. I mixed the bilimbi syrup with soda water to make a bilimbi fizz, which was very refreshing. Served over ice with a splash of vodka, it made a unique (Sten's word) cocktail. Last night, while toasting Silver Fern's fourth anniversary of cruising, we mixed a little bilimbi syrup in each glass of sparkling wine to make a bilimbi bellini, which also turned out pretty well.

After making the bilimbi syrup, I dried the candied bilimbi disks in the oven. The disks have a star shaped design in the center that, together with the taste and texture of the fruit, makes me think that the bilimbi is a relative of the star fruit (carambola). Candied bilimbi disks look like small translucent sand dollars.

From Alena's research, we also learned that bilimbi is used in curries. So, we added chopped, raw bilimbi to some leftover Thai curry before we reheated it. The result wasn't offensive, but not something that I'd rush to make again. The sourness of the bilimbi just didn't jive with the other flavors.

Alena reported that bilimbi was used in India to make pickles and that it could be used to make chutney as well. We have enough pickles at the moment, but we're running short on chutney. So I whipped up a batch of bilimbi chutney, working from a mango chutney recipe. It is delicious; definitely the best use we've found for bilimbi yet.

We figured that the highly acidic bilimbi juice could also be used in the place of lime juice in ceviche. We love ceviche, but after five weeks in Chagos (and one Cinco de Junio) lime is a limited commodity on board (I'm hoarding our last cup of fresh frozen lime juice for cocktails). But when Sten came home yesterday with a good sized Green Jobfish (a type of snapper) within a few minutes of my finding a small bag of Andaman chilies in the back of the fridge, we figured it was time to give bilimbi ceviche a go. So this morning we went for a long walk, stopping on the way back to pick another small batch of bilimbis. After squeezing the bilimbis, we left the fish to marinate in the bilimbi juice while we went off to snorkel the reef. After three hours, we drained the juice off the fish, mixed in the rest of the ingredients and set it aside while we fried up some very old, stale white corn tortillas to make chips. I don't know if it was the bilimbi marinade or the freshly fried chips, but the bilimbi ceviche disappeared quickly during happy hour.

Chagos Cocktail

Boil 2 cups water and two cups sugar to make simple syrup.
Add thinly sliced bilimbi.
Let sit for 15 minutes.
Remove bilimbi and dry in oven at 200F for one hour.
Let bilimbi syrup cool.

In cocktail shaker, mix:
2oz vodka
2oz bilimbi syrup.
Shake and pour over ice for a Bilimbi Gimlet.
Top up with soda water to turn your gimlet into a Bilimbi Fizz.
Decorate with candied bilimbi.

Bilimbi Chutney

2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 cups coarsely chopped bilimbi
1/3 cup candied ginger finely chopped
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup cider vinegar
3/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon cardamom seeds
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

Briefly toast spices in a dry saucepan to wake them up then set aside. Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, and cook until soft and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, and cook until thickened, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool. Serve at room temperature.

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June 11, 2009 - Salomon Atoll, Chagos

Chagos isn't so much a destination, it is an experience. For some cruisers, it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to play Robinson Crusoe and live out their deserted island fantasies in an unspoiled paradise. For others, it is like summer camp, a place they return to year after year, to hang out with other yachties. At the end of our first month here, it is high time (or as many of you have told us by email - past time) that we related our experiences here.

For Sten, Chagos has been the realization of a goal set while still in school. During his second sea year at Kings Point, he shipped out on an Marine Sealift Command chartered, Maersk pre-position ship that spent a month anchored at the American military base in Diego Garcia. After a few weeks, the ship headed out on a tour of the Chagos Archipelago to exercise the engines. While steaming past Salomon Atoll, Sten saw a dozen yachts anchored in a placid, palm fringed lagoon in the middle of the ocean and said, "I've got to come back here some day." 14 years later, goal realized. Now that he's made it back to Chagos, Sten spends a lot of his time indulging in one of his favorite activities: fishing. He's promised to write up his fish tales, so I won't say more about them now.

For me, Chagos has been the chance to do some amazing snorkeling. One day, while fishing outside the reef, we hopped in the water for a swim. The sharks, attracted by our catch, circled us looking for an easy meal. Under us swam schools of some of the biggest grouper we've ever seen. As we were watching them, I noticed a turtle feeding among the giant sea fans along the vertical drop into never-never land. Distracted by the turtle, we didn't notice a huge manta ray until it was within a few feet of us. As we fumbled with the camera, trying (and failing) to get a good shot of the manta, a pod of five eagle rays swam below us. Just spectacular. But we needn't go outside the reef to see great stuff.

The other day, I was swimming around the coral in the anchorage, taking pictures of colorful little reef fish, when two eagle rays glided up to me. For the next half hour, we danced around each other in a hollow in the reef as I tried to get some good shots of them. Distracted by the rays, I didn't see a black tip swim into our coral garden until he was right next to me. Between the rays and the shark, I might have missed the hawksbill turtle if it hadn't swum right under me. To top off the experience, a four foot long, narrow, grayish green cornetfish swam into the vicinity, saw me and my menagerie, and immediately froze (freezeframe!). As he struck a pose, his skin changed from a uniform grey, to a spotted and striped concoction meant to help him blend into the reef around him. I'd never seen anything like it. And the best thing about this epic snorkeling session? It all took place within a few hundred meters of the boat.

For both of us, Chagos has been work. We worked to prepare the boat and ourselves before we set off to spend a few months in such an isolated location. We laid in provisions, gathered supplies for a garden, made sure we had any spares we might need, and (since spearfishing is illegal in Chagos) bought plenty of fishing lures. We did a pretty good job, but quickly discovered one major oversight. We had just enough flour to keep us in pancakes for a few months, but that left nothing for baking bread or other treats. Two other boats came to our rescue and gave us several bags of flour in exchange for wine in one instance and cash in another. Arriving at the tail end of the main season, we've benefited from several departing boats wishing to offload extra provisions. We now have more flour, outboard fuel and cooking propane on aboard than we did when we arrived one month ago. And a recent gift of eggs has us sitting pretty. We're doing so well on supplies that we are considering staying on for another month here.

The work hasn't let up since we arrived. Keeping the boat clean and us fed takes a lot of time. With no place to send the laundry, and no washing machine on board, it all has to be done by hand. In addition to the regular loads of clothes and towels and sheets, the salon and cockpit cushion covers all needed to be done. I've spent an entire week of our first month here doing laundry. Although a decent workout, stomping in place in a bathtub and wringing out clothing is a monotonous, mind-numbing way to spend one's time, even paradise. The only redeeming aspect of the whole exercise is hanging the laundry on the lifelines, which becomes an opportunity to visit with the noddy terns that have decided that Mata'irea's bow makes an excellent fishing platform. With their beautiful charcoal grey feathers, shiny black beaks and sparkling jet eyes, which are surrounded by a striking circle of white, they always seem to be dressed for a black tie event. They are so unthreatened by humans that they aren't bothered at all by my standing next to them to pin laundry on the lifelines. Another monotonous task is polishing stainless, but it has to be done. But worse than doing laundry or polishing stainless, is cleaning the bilge. A small leak in our stern tube packing gland allowed just enough water into the bilge for things to start smelling a bit sulfuric (and here I thought Chagos was supposed to be heaven, not hell). After tightening up the gland, Sten had the unenviable task of cleaning the bilge. That was one day that I was glad to be stuck in the tub stomping on laundry.

We both spend a lot of time planning and sourcing our next meal. With no place to eat out, and no grocery store in evidence, everything has to be made from scratch. Luckily, we both love to eat and enjoy reading cookbooks and cooking, so that isn't much of a hardship, it just takes a lot of time out of every day. But with no dishwasher, having to clean up after every meal is getting a bit old. Doubly lucky for me, Sten does more than his share of the cooking and cleaning, which I understand makes him a rarity among cruising men.

During our first few weeks here, our menus revolved around whatever disgusting, partly spoiled item we found in our vegetable stores. When things rotted faster than we could eat them, I turned to pickling to preserve the bulk of our peppers, carrots and tomatoes. Although our veggie bins are almost empty, the fridge is filled with tasty pickles to eat during the month ahead.

One particularly memorable day our menu was dictated by two rotting apples, some moldy sausage, and block of mildewed cheese. The apples became a baked apple pancake (ala Chicago's Original Pancake House), the second half of which was served with the sausages for lunch. Having already completed two culinary miracles in one day, I was completely nonplussed when confronted with the grey powder coating the Boursin that I opened for what was supposed to be a simple dinner of cheese and crackers. "This is paradise?" I muttered to myself as I turned to the cookbooks for inspiration. Once again, necessity proved to be the mother of invention as, knowing that I couldn't afford to waste the cheese and that I certainly couldn't run out to the store for another box, I whipped up a divine angel hair pasta in a creamy herby sauce using as much of the Boursin as was salvageable, canned cream and a mixture of herb pastes.

Lest we get lazy, Mata'irea has been keeping us on our toes by tossing the occasional fit. Since we've been in Chagos, Sten has had to troubleshoot and repair a complete failure of our DC power system and all of the radios on board, including the car stereo we use to listen to CD's and feed the Ipod into the sound system. In addition, we've taken the opportunity of staying in one place for a while to make some improvements. Sten installed a new 12 volt plug in the nav station. He replaced the cracked cover on our spare outboard engine, repairing and upgrading a cover from an abandoned parts outboard onshore. I quickly absconded with our old cover and planted a bunch of basil and some tomatoes in it before he could change his mind.

Chagos hasn't been all snorkeling and fishing, cooking and cleaning, and working on the boat. For both of us, Chagos has been an opportunity to socialize with other cruisers. We've been traveling on our own so much the past few months that we've really been relishing the opportunity to make and spend time with new friends. Sometimes, the active social schedule makes Chagos feel like one long party. While there were still enough yachts to make up two teams, there were daily volleyball matches in a sand court set among the palms (watch out for falling coconuts!). Even though the number of boats have dwindled to the point where we can't field enough players for volleyball, there are still enough people around to be sure that we'll have someone to chat with if we bring our sundowners ashore at 5:30. However, now that we are down to five boats in the anchorage, we've taken to hosting cocktail parties aboard the boats. Rainy days aren't even a hardship in Chagos - they are just an excuse to spend a day playing cribbage or mazing with new friends.

At least once a week someone comes up with an excuse for a more elaborate fest. A few days after we arrived in Chagos, a child's birthday was celebrated with an afternoon of games and a potluck in the evening. A few days later, the impending departure of a slew of boats was all the reason needed for sunset cocktails to turn into a late night of drinking and reminiscing. The following week, a gift of some meat and salad greens lead to an elaborate feast, shared among the boats in both anchorages. And since we arrived here too late to join in on the legendary Chagos Cinco de Mayo party, we brought out the tequila on the 5th of June and held Cinco de Junyo, or something like that. When we reemerged on the 7th, our first question was "what can we celebrate next?" Now we know why those noddy terns on our bow are always dressed for a party.

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June 1, 2009 - Salomon Atoll, Chagos

For the past three weeks we have been tied to a mooring (a heavy hawser wrapped around a large coral head) in the southwest corner of an uninhabited atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean. The island to our west has ample fresh water and plenty of coconut trees and the atoll is teaming with fish. This atoll could easily support a settlement. Indeed, among the coconut trees we have stumbled across wells and wandered through the ruins of a hospital, a church, a graveyard and a jail, each of which is a remnant of the community that once thrived here. So how is it that these islands are now uninhabited?

Chagos lies 300 miles south of the southernmost island of the Maldives, a 500 mile long chain of atolls, which has been long known to the Arab traders who crisscrossed the Northern Indian for thousands of years, but Chagos lies outside those traditional tradewind routes. Ptolemy's Geography (circa 150 AD), the first written reference to the central Indian Ocean archipelagoes, identifies the islands of the Maldives, but made no reference to the islands that are now known as Chagos. It wasn't until the Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama sited these islands in 1532 that the islands of Chagos became known to the world. But unlike the atolls of the Maldives, which were settled centuries ago by waves of immigrants from India and Sri Lanka, the Portuguese found the islands of Chagos to be uninhabited. As they weren't suitable for growing spices or as a source of slaves, the islands of Chagos remained unmolested for two more centuries.

During the 1700's, the Portuguese monopoly in the Indian Ocean was broken up by the Dutch, English and French, who were all scrambling to claim an island or two of their own. While the Dutch were preoccupied by their bid to control the trade routes around Indonesia, the Malacca Strait, and Sri Lanka and the English were busy mapping the east coast of that sunburned continent now known as Australia, the French did quite well for themselves, claiming Mauritius, the Seychelles and Reunion. In 1776, with the English distracted by a spot of trouble in their American colonies, a French ship sailed up from Mauritius to Chagos to plant a flag and claim these islands for Napoleon. Wasting no time, a French fishing company applied for and was granted a land concession. In exchange for accepting leprosy sufferers from Mauritius, the French company was granted the right to "enjoy the facilities of the islands."

For the next few decades, the French imported lepers into Chagos while they exported coconuts, turtles, sea birds and fish. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, the Treaty of Paris transferred ownership of Mauritius, and its dependency Chagos, from France to England. Under British rule, the coconut industry in Chagos grew and additional workers were brought in from Mozambique, Madagascar, the Seychelles, and India. By 1900, there were approximately 426 families living in Chagos.

In the 1950's, the British Colonial Office shot a film in Chagos, in which the narrator extolled the beauty of the islands and stated that they were inhabited "mostly by men and women born and brought up in the islands." The population of Chagos, which was originally primarily male, evolved over the generations into a matriarchal society as female leprosy sufferers lived longer than males. Over time, the islanders developed a Creole dialect that few outsiders could understand. The islanders kept pigs, chickens, ducks and dogs. Their homes were surrounded by gardens in which they grew eggplants and cucumbers. Their primary religion was Catholic. By the 1950's, many of the 1,800 people living in these islands had never known another home. Their parents or grandparents might have come from Mauritius or the Seychelles, but Chagos was their home. Unfortunately for them, there home had become valuable real estate.

During World War II, the British established a military base on Gan, an island in the southernmost of the Maldivian atolls. In 1956, when they had to pull out of Sri Lanka, the British expanded their presence on Gan into a Royal Air Force Base. The benefits of having a base in the Indian Ocean from which Soviet activities could be monitored were not lost on the folks working at the U.S. Pentagon during the height of the Cold War.

In 1965, the British granted Mauritius its independence, but as part of the deal they insisted that Chagos be portioned off to become part of the British Indian Ocean Territory ("BIOT"). For a time, BIOT would also include several islands to the north of Madagascar that are now part of the Seychelles. The following year, the British leased BIOT to the United States for 50 years with an option to renew. The only apparent fly in the ointment was that the Americans insisted on leasing an unpopulated archipelago to ensure maximum security for the base. So what was to become of the 1,800 residents of Chagos?

Over the next decade a series of agreements were reached between the British and the United States that turned Diego Garcia, the largest atoll in Chagos, into an American military base. During the same time period, the islands were depopulated. Islanders who traveled to Mauritius to visit relatives and buy supplies for their families on Chagos were not permitted to return. BIOT purchased the company that ran the coconut plantations, and proceeded to shut them down. Imports of rice were cut off. By taking away the islanders' jobs and restricting their food supplies, BIOT encouraged approximately 1,000 islanders to leave Chagos between 1965 and 1971. By 1971, when the first Americans arrived in Diego, BIOT could claim that there were only 830 islanders in the archipelago.

When the Americans arrived in Diego, the remaining islanders were removed to Salomon and Peros Banhos atolls, which are over 100 miles to the north of Diego. But that was still too close to the U.S. base, so in 1973, BIOT evacuated the remaining islanders to Mauritius. The tragic experiences of the Chagos exiles in Mauritius, their attempts to return to Chagos, and the disposition of the case that they brought before the British High Court in London, is all beyond the scope of this post. But suffice it to say that Diego Garcia has become one of the most strategically important American military bases in the world. It is home to U.S. military personnel, merchant mariners, and BIOT officials and support staff. Its isolation enables it to be extremely secure. It is unlikely that the Americans will fail to renew their lease, or that they will permit the Chagos exiles or their descendants to return to Diego or the outlying atolls. And so, churches fall into ruin, cemeteries become overgrown, and coconut crabs and birds reclaim islands that humans inhabited for a brief 200 years.

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May 11, 2009 - Chagos Arrival

Our love of landfalls is at least as strong as our dislike of passages. So it was with a lot of pleasure that we put the hook down in Chagos this morning. We then bustled around converting Mata'irea from passagemaking mode to living at anchor mode. We rolled up the jacklines, put the sail cover on the main and bagged the staysail, inflated and reassembled the dinghy, cleaned the rime and grime out of the cockpit and off of the dodger windows, put away our foul weather gear and harnesses, sorted through all the fresh fruit and veggies to pluck out the rotters, changed the sheets, and swept the cabin sole, smiling all the while.

We took a break from all this activity to have lunch. Sten grilled up a few steaks from the giant wahoo that he caught this morning as we passed Blenheim Reef just after dawn. Served with lemony iced tea and the Andaman tomatoes that I pickled with coriander and ginger in Sri Lanka, no gourmet meal could have tasted better to us.

Because we are going to be here for so long, without access to fresh produce, I started some container plants this afternoon in Ikea herb pots. I have high hopes for my 'Kea Pets, particularly the lettuce and basil. Of the 26 boats anchored in this 4 mile wide atoll, many of which have been here for two or three months, 16 are leaving in the next few days. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll inherit some plants from their aftdeck gardens.

We spent the evening visiting with Renaissance 2000, the charming Canadian couple who saved Mata'irea's topsides from getting scratched up in Kupang one afternoon when we were off the boat. Ken and Jean deployed our fenders when they noticed a boat dragging down on Mata'irea. We were glad to finally have an opportunity to properly thank them; in Chagos that means a gift of two ripe tomatoes and several pounds of wahoo and yellowfin.

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May 10, 2009 - Chagos Crawl, Day 9

We expect to arrive in Chagos tomorrow, and not a moment too soon. We're both so over the novelty of crossing oceans in a small boat. We're definitely over going to windward. As I fret about the passages ahead, Sten keeps reminding me that we have weeks, if not months, in Chagos before we have to come back out here and do this again.

This passage hasn't been that hard, and it certainly hasn't been dangerous or even very challenging from a sailing point of view. It has just been long. And monotonous. And that presents its own set of challenges. When we first set out on this trip, keeping the boat going was challenge enough. Now the three of us work so well together that the humans on board need to find something to keep ourselves occupied and stimulated while Mata'irea quietly goes about her job of getting us to safe harbor. In addition to keeping watch, sleeping, bathing (that daily shower is such a treat), feeding ourselves, tidying up, and emailing friends and family, each day Sten and I tackle projects to fill our time. When we had no wind a few days ago, I did some laundry and hung it out to dry (good thing about squalls - they desalinate the lifelines) and Sten went for a swim to scrape the barnacles off the propeller. Since then the wind has picked up, conditions have become more boisterous, and our projects have become less ambitious.

After towing our lures for over a thousand miles with only one other bite (a giant barracuda that we threw back a few days ago), late this afternoon we finally got out the skunk. We landed a 35 pound yellowfin tuna and released a second. After the intensity of landing, releasing, cleaning and packaging up the fish, all on the heaving back deck, we were not ready for a big cooking event so it was Campbell's chicken noodle soup for dinner.

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