Chagos Archipelago May 2015

Chagos Archipelego May 2015

This aerial shot was taken by a drone with a camera from the folks on Merkava.  Great shots and we thank Mark and Rosie for them.  That is YOLO on the very far right in the shot below.  You can see the coral we had to deal with for anchoring and navigating.  Very little sand around to drop the hook into.  That island is Ile Bodham.

Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning....  The old ditty made this sunrise as we were sailing to Chagos a warning.  We sailed far enough to avoid whatever bad weather this may have foretold for this area but it was a beautiful end to my watch and the start of another day on the 9-day passage to Chagos.

 The red-footed boobies were a pest on our passage.  They wanted a place to land to spend the night and repeatedly tried to land on the top of our mast as we were sailing.  When the boat rocked over a wave, the top would move and the attempted landing was aborted, but the flapping wings and the body knocked the antennae on the top as well as the wind instrument.  Our wind instrument was damaged and the wind arrow could no longer sweep across to tell us which way the wind was blowing for the sail trim.  We tried shooing them away by flapping lines at them as they came in to land, but they seemed persistent.  If they stayed on the davit arches on the back, like the one below, he could shit and hit nothing but the sea below, as our dinghies were on the foredeck.  His fellow boobies kept us on the lookout at sundown to keep them from landing on the mast.

 While passing a large shallow bank north of Chagos, I threw in a line at sunrise,  Not 15 minutes later, we'd hooked this 4' wahoo.  As soon as we dragged it up and over the lifelines at the transom, it began thrashing and spewing blood everywhere--what a mess!  Jason grumbled as he had to clean up the mess, but it was good eating for weeks to come.

 On our arrival in Chagos, we headed across the lagoon to anchor in the sand of this pass.  We'd had to fight wind and waves on the nose for hours to get into the calm of this lagoon and didn't want to have to wend our way around coral bommies to reach Ile Bodham, where most of the yachties were anchored or moored.  Instead, we found two yachts here by the pass and it was a fairly straight shot, mostly free of coral to reach this anchorage.  For days before we got here, they said there was a group of up to ten manta rays that came daily to swoop and feed here on the plankton.

 A previous catamaran casualty, Black Rose, was wrecked in 2012 and the stripped hull is all that remains.  It is stranded ashore Ile Fouquet and is a reminder of what can happen in an instant if we aren't vigilant.

 Our view of the pass from our anchorage between Ile Takamaka and Ile Fouquet.  The sand here was great holding but the swirling waters were a very strange phenomenon that had us all wondering what was causing them so many times during the day.  We finally decided it was high swells on the outside making their way over the reef on the other side of the islands and coming through the narrow pass.

 An Emperor fish that was given to us by another yacht who caught it from their boat anchored near us.  Very much like a large red snapper in taste.

 We moved across the lagoon to Ile Bodham, where people used to live.  Most of the yachts were over here on the western side of the lagoon and with the forecasted change in winds, this was the best place to be.  That is our dinghy in the shallows just off the beach in front of the "yacht club".

 That's Jason sitting in the gathering area of the "yacht club" ashore on our first foray onto the island.

 Rene, from Austria is burning trash in the barrel provided.  Boxes and crates of bottles and cans are in the background; the BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory) guys were supposed to remove them, but they claim it is no longer their job, so asked that we not bring rubbish ashore.  The wheelbarrow lined with flip flops was just sitting there with no real purpose.

 The yacht club building on the shore of Ile Bodham.  We gathered here daily at 4:30 for sundowners and to share nibblies and snacks.

 Sundowners at the yacht club.  The old iron wheel made a great table.

 Some of the yachties got creative and created this hotline 'phone' to contact the BIOT guy in the UK who was responsible for issuing permits and updates.  He sometimes took forever to respond to emails and since we don't usually have phones at sea, we were left with unanswered requests quite often.  The phone is an old suction cup holder that they'd used to hold onto the side of the hull while they cleaned it.  You've seen men carrying panes of glass using them, too.  We heard the following month that there is now a new contact.  Hope she is more efficient and timely in responses.

The inhabitants were kicked off the islands and these buildings fell into disrepair.  This one has tree roots from the strangler figs that make it look like those temples at Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

Mark from Merkava took Jason and I exploring across the island.  Someone had tied buoy/floats to trees along the way to mark the path.

I like the way these trees send down roots like columns from above.

Someone before us painted signs for the highlights of the island.

A cross on the shore in memory of those left behind here.

Hermit crabs in a variety of shells climbing up a mangrove tree.  These guys can climb pretty well.

The washing facilities on the island.  There is a covered well in the center of the shot, with a concrete surround and a bucket on a line.  The big blue washtubs stay here for all to use.  The water is rain water that has seeped into the cistern.  We found several cisterns/wells around the island.  It was good for washing but we weren't drinking it.

This is looking the other way from the washing well above.

A coconut crab kept his home in the building near the washing well.

We all got a laugh out of Tony's haircut.  Look closely and you can see a strip that runs up the back of his head that was shaved to the skull by his wife, by mistake.  She was horrified, but Tony didn't care; he couldn't see it.

I was hoisted part way up the mast to take a few shots of our anchorage location.  Too bad it wasn't a calm, sunny day or you could see into the water.  Not as great a view as from the drone shots, but you can get the idea of our position.

Looking across the lagoon from up on the spreaders.

Looking back down at Jason sitting on the rumble seat, waiting for me to finish so he can let me back down in the bosun chair.  You can see our solar panels and out dinghy trailing YOLO.

You can see the dark reef just off our anchoring position.  If the wind shifted, that would be our danger spot.  Our anchor is lodged in coral bommies between here and there somewhere.

Same view, but with Devil Island in the shot.  We took the dinghy around the end of the island but the waves were rolling in with some speed and the sand was so soft on the beaches there that I sunk up to my calves and was nearly knocked over by the waves.  My Crocs were sucked off my feet as I tried to lift them to walk, so we didn't stay over there long.

Another view of some of the other yachts on moorings at Ile Bodham in Chagos.

The BIOT guys arriving by RIB to check our permits.

Jason and I went over to this corner of the island to go exploring by ourselves one day.  The water over the shallow sand is just gorgeous! I felt like we were dinghying into a calendar picture.

A dark blue/black coconut crab.  Not sure why some are dark, but most are brown and orange.

 The end of Ile Bodham with the pretty lagoon and the reef beyond.

Neil on Rutea caught a wahoo while trolling just outside the pass with his dinghy and brought it to shore to cook and share with the rest of us one night.  Delicious!  Cooked oved the open fire at the yacht club.

The gang's all here for the fish BBQ on Ile Bodham.

The table of side dishes.  We had to shoo the hermit and small coconut crabs off the table as they would climb up and onto the food dishes.

Washing up after the meal.  Sand scrubs the plates clean, but we need to watch out for the black tip reef sharks that prowl in the ankle deep waters here.

The right side of the yacht club area.  Someone put together the long bamboo pole for picking coconuts.  We love the coconut water, but our machete has rusted beyond repair and we don't have the tools to easily husk a coconut on the boat.  The husks stain and we try to only husk them on shore.

These are shots from Merkava's camera drone.  That is Merkava just right of center between the big coral bommie and the shore of Ile Bodham.

YOLO from the air in Chagos.

I love the way you can see through the water here!  Gorgeous and dangerous.  Most of the yachts are on moorings created by tying chain or large lines around a coral bommie and then tying to that with mooring lines.  The yacht that broke free from the mooring one night was grounded on a bommie like this one here.  It took the rest of the yachts an entire day to coax it off without damaging it further.  You can imagine why it was such a test to get it off again.

YOLO is the catamaran on the right.  That is the end of Ile Bodham and the dot of Devil's Island in the top center.  Beautiful place.

With the high tides of the full moon, these bommies actually dried above the water.  Navigating around this lagoon required good light to see where to miss the coral that comes to the surface.

Merkava on their mooring.  You can see the stone jetty that juts out from shore and the yacht club is just to the left of it.

I'm amazed any yacht could ever get close to this island when I see these shots.  YOLO is way off to the right here.

Another nice drone shot with YOLO in the distance.

The yacht club beach and jetty.  The white cross is at the end of the jetty and the washing well is just to the right of it.

Navigating a dinghy from here back to the boats at night was always a scary proposition.

 More drone shots.

Lower altitude views of Merkava as the drone is brought back down

Looking south at one of the yachts anchored in the deeper water.  You can see the reef beyond.  Our crab hunting ground is just to the top right of this shot.

Looking at yachts anchored in the deep water south of where we are anchored.  You can still see some of the coral mounds that reach up towards the surface and create navigational hazards.

Snorkeling was pretty good here, but much of the coral is actually dying.  The coral is turning bright pink, yellow, green, and blue, but the bright colors are a last gasp of a dying reef.  The water has been too warm for too long.

Mark and Rosie from Merkava, retrieving the camera drone.  Come to mama!  Thanks for the shots.

YOLO in Rodrigues, June 2015

It took us nine days and nights to sail from Chagos to Rodrigues, about 1200 miles.  We had a pretty good weather window and our passage was comfortable and incident free.  We had to reef in the sail for the last two days as the wind picked up and we were screaming along, but we settled right down and I never even felt queasy in the big swells.  

These boobies came along at sunset and Jason shooed them away for half an hour by swinging lines at them as they tried to land on the mast.  They had already mangled our wind indicator up there with their big wings and heavy bodies when they tried to land.  These two are perched on the front pulpit rail over the bow of the boat and Jason took their picture.  They preen and then tuck their heads under their wing and sleep.  At dawn they are gone.

Jason flagged out on passage.  Off watch means you get rest when you can. We have to sleep at an angle to keep from being rolled back and forth as the boat crosses over the swells and waves.

Our first sighting of Rodrigues in the morning.  It's not a very big island and the reef and lagoon around it is almost twice a big as the land mass.

YOLO tied up safely at Port Mathurin, Rodrigues wharf.  We made it!

You can see it's just a big concrete wharf for the cargo ships, but they let yachts tie up here for free when the boat is not in port.  Notice we still have both dinghies on the foredeck.

The following morning, here comes Silver Girl, the dismasted vessel, along with Lop To, her escort for the last few days.  We were glad they finally made it here safely and we welcomed both boats with fresh bread and sweet rolls from the bakery here.

Chris on Silver Girl, safely tied up at Port Mathurin.  The mast is missing, as is the boom, all the rigging, lines and sails.  A bit of bent steel around where the mast used to be is the only damage readily visible as they've cut away all the rest of the rigging and its at the bottom of the ocean out there somewhere a couple of hundred miles from here.

A food fair and Bread As an Art festival was going on when we got here.  These folks are making fresh hot roti (flat bread) and I bought some to take back to the boat to use as wraps/tortillas.

The building along the front side of the wharf where we are tied up.

An aisle in the market.  It covers most of a full block and Saturdays this place is hopping with locals and fresh produce.

It rained off and on for days after we got here and we had to put hose around our lines to reduce the chafing when the wind picked up.  The tide here goes up and down about 5-6' so we had to allow for that and still manage to keep us off the concrete.  Our fenders took a beating here as they ground up and down with the concrete chewing them up.  We were at the far end of the wharf near the deep-sea charter fishing vessels and there was no giant black tire here to keep us off the wharf.

A map of Port Mathurin.  We are at the top in the middle where that sailfish is.

A typical street scene in the town.

We took this for Jason's Mom, named Stella.  There are some nice buildings in this little town.

Just in front of our bow is the town jetty and these little fishing boats are on the opposite side from us.  They have a nice calm lane of water and they don't get bothered by the wind and tide much here.

Looking back at YOLO and the wharf from the town jetty that sticks out.  The wharf is full and any new arrivals must find a spot to anchor here.

A monument to the volunteer soldiers from here.  The tower is made from rifles with bayonets and there are two cannon, painted a horrible army green facing us.

This is Birgit, a German lady who has lived here for 18 years and heads up the Care-Co organization, which runs the Gonzague Pierre Louis Special Learning Centre (aka the center).  It takes in hearing-and vision-impaired children and those with learning disabilities and they teach them and provide them with the equipment to handle their disabilities (hearing aids, glasses, reader enlargers and such) and skills to make handicraft items from coconut shells.  They sell the items to local shops and tourists and send them to Mauritius for sale in their shops, too.

A bin full of coconuts.  They have to get the coconuts from Agalega, an island over a hundred miles away as Rodrigues doesn't really have many coconut palms.  Rodrigues is a volcanic island with few beaches or waterfronts suitable for coconuts, so they import them by special permission to take them from the island reserve.  A ship collects them a few times a year.  They feast on the coconut meat and milk for a little while and then use the coconuts for projects.

The folks here also make chain link fencing with the machine in this photo below.  It used to belong to the prison system, but there weren't enough prisoners on a regular basis for them to make the chain.  (Wouldn't our cities like to say the same?).  It's hard, physically strenuous work to make the chain using this machine, and they only make it when they get an order for it.

James here is cutting out a tiny little dodo bird, one of the symbols of this island and Mauritius, out of coconut shell with a band saw.  The blades are incredibly close to his fingers and I'm surprised at how dangerous it looks for supposedly handicapped/learning disabled folks to be doing this.

The resulting dodo, not yet polished or detailed, but you can see the likeness.

This worker is filing the coconut pieces with a hand file to get the rough edges off.

A dodo bird carved out of coconut shell.  This piece has just been polished and is used to hold a sarong/pareu together.

Here he is polishing the piece above.  The soft slapper wheels are expensive, but this place uses only the best materials they can get.  The equipment is fine German machinery so it will last and they don't have to keep fixing or replacing it.

The little dodo birds are used to decorate these coconut shell bowls.  They are great sellers and would be great to serve peanuts or snacks out of, but we just don't have room to keep these things on board.

This is Keanu playing with a piggy bank made of coconut shell.  He'd heard Jason making a snorting pig sound and he was trying to make the sound himself.  He couldn't quite figure out how to do it and it made me smile to watch him surrepticiously trying to imitate a new sound.  He is on a boat from Croatia and his parents speak German and English as well as their local language.

The white coconut shells comes from young coconuts.  They get darker with age.  Young coconuts with the light shells are fairly rare and more difficult to work with as they may be softer, but they really make beautiful things out of them.  These trivets or flexible pads were gorgeous.

Their storeroom had boxes of carved figures!  They had sections for Christmas, Easter, animals, etc.  So many little carvings.  I was quite impressed by the skill and creativity needed to create these things.

An animal mobile.  Birgit explained how they positioned the animals as you'd find them geographically: polar bear at the top, penguin at the bottom and the animals as you'd find them going west from Rodrigues.  Very clever.

The octopus is another symbol associated with Rodrigues.  It is one of the food specialties here and I bought a necklace with a carved coconut octopus from the center.  A small donation, but they are doing such good work.

Another worker grinding coconut shells smooth to make into bowls.

The center also has a honey making business. Their honey has won gold and silver awards overseas, but the honey supply is gone for now.  Recent cyclones and droughts have hurt the eucalyptus and flowers and the drought killed lots of the bees, so they are trying to recover now.  The worker here is cleaning out the stagnant water gathered in the basins below each of the beehives.  The basins keep the lizards and other animals from getting to the bees to eat them.

A closeup of the beehive entrance for the bees.

Birgit is explaining about the beekeeping aspect of the organization.

The following day, we climbed that hill in the background.  There is a cross on the top and it is a good hike.  Keanu there is tossing stones into the river that flows past.

The center makes candles from the bees wax, too.  Nothing here goes to waste--my kind of organization!

Jason liked the cabinet full of old skeleton-type keys at the front desk.

James here is using a drill like a dentist uses to carve the details into the tiny dodo birds.  He adds the beak and feathers.  Birgit gave me one to keep when he finished it.  They also make them into buttons.

In the shop, the center keeps this demonstration beehive so people can see how the bees operate.

A carved fruit bat--this photo is for my brother who is a Batman nut.

Since most folks are geographically challenged as to where we are, this map shows our location pretty well.  Diego Garcia is the bottom of the Chagos Archipelego, a thousand miles to the NNE of us.  We are at Rodrigues now.  St. Brandon is also known as Cargados Carajos and is the reef where the Volvo Ocean Race boat Team Vestas Wind ran aground and tore up their boat.  (It was lifted off the reef onto a ship and just got repaired in Italy and has rejoined the race.)  We hope to visit that reef next.  Mauritius is just east of here and is a planned stop for us.  Reunion is a place we wanted to visit, but we're hearing that they don't accommodate catamarans well, so we'll have to stay flexible on that one.  Agalega is where the center gets its coconuts from, but foreign yachts are not allowed to go there; it is a reserve.  The Seychelles, farther up, is a popular destination for many yachts again this year.  It was within the pirate zone for a while, but that activity seems to have abated and many yachts are heading from Chagos to the Seychelles to stay in the warm waters.  Madagascar is the last island before reaching the African coast.  We hope to go up around the top end of Madagascar and explore the islands on the NW coast before crossing to Mozambique/South Africa.

A mobile of Rodrigues animals made of coconut shells.  The big bird on the right is the Solitaire, a cousin to the dodo bird and also now extinct.  It used to live on Rodrigues and is one of their national symbols.

This is a bay around the headland from the port.  At low tide (as it is in this shot), there is barely enough water for a local boat to get back in.  The only deep spot is taken by a lone yacht who has left it here while returning to his homeland.  He made arrangements with a local to watch it for him.  A calm place to leave the boat but it requires snaking along a thin line of deep water along the rocky shore at high tide to get here.  I doubt our cat could do it.

One of the local boats returning by sail.  We see these guys with their boats parked out on the reef way offshore and walking around looking for something.  We aren't quite sure what it is they are hunting or gathering out there.

The local Coast Guard station at Port Mathurin.

A statue along the beachfront of the Solitaire, a now-extinct large bird, similar to a dodo.

The mosque in town.  Such a small space, but a colorful front and lots of minarets.  A real person, not loudspeakers, does the call to prayer here, so we don't even hear it from the boat.  Such a nice change not to have the calls to prayer blaring five times a day, starting at 4:30 AM!