Day 181, Year 5: Visit to the Chagos Social Center
Date: Sunday, April 25, 2010
Weather: Beautiful, Windy Day; Lightening Tonight
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
On April 25, 1915, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (the Anzacs) joined French and British troops in an assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. It was their first act in the First World War and it failed tragically. Nevertheless, since that time the Aussies and Kiwis honor their military on April 25. It is like Memorial Day in the US, but for the Australians and New Zealanders it’s called Anzac Day. Today was that day, so the Aussies here in Chagos hosted a cruiser swap shop at the Boddam camp in honor of Anzac. Ed, Lynne, Mark, and I headed off in our dingy from our calm anchorage at 9:30 am and by the time we were half-way across the atoll, we realized that it was very windy outside of our little anchorage. Ile Boddam is about three miles from here and is the main anchorage for cruisers visiting Chagos, but when the southeasterly winds set in, it is a bit bumpy. It was that way today and has been for about four days. The veterans who come here year after year say winds like today are unusual before mid-May, but we are certainly glad we are anchored here and not there right now. The boat, Mr. Curly, was the organizer of today’s event and it was great to meet the other cruisers. Ile Boddam was the main community in Chagos during the years when these islands were inhabited and it was the center of the copra industry. We’re hoping the winds will calm a bit in a few days so we can go down and anchor off Boddam to explore and get to know the other cruisers there better, but we will just have to see what happens with the weather.
There are the remnants of a pier on Boddam but it is right next to shore versus the long pier in Peros Banhos at Ile du Coin. The entire anchorage at Boddam is filled with coral bommies and people do not anchor there. They wrap chain around designated coral heads which serve as moorings. There are fewer boats here this year than there have been for a number of years. People who have been here before have seen as many as forty boats at Boddam, but today there were only ten. But that was a great number to be able to meet everyone and have some good conversations. Lynne and I are going to compare notes tomorrow, but we think there are only ten boats headed to Africa this year, versus at least double that number last year, and all but one other are going south to Mauritius for a few months before heading back up to Madagascar. Because we want to spend more time there, we are going directly, but it looks like Constance will be the only other boat going that way with us in early June. So we’ll have the whole west coast of Madagascar to ourselves! I doubt that will be the case, but we shall just have to wait and see.
On our way home we stopped to snorkel one of the many bommies near the reef. The place we chose was nice, but there weren’t as many fish as we had hoped to see. We had wanted to do another afternoon snorkel, but by the time we got back and had lunch, it was time to get ready for dinner. We had Ed and Lynne over for a taste test of marinated Bonito and Yellowfin. Lynne doesn’t care for Bonito, but I wanted her to try it with our marinade. She found it tolerable but still likes the Yellowfin better. Ed, Mark, and I find the Bonito more like beef tenderloin with no fishy taste at all. So the marinade really works to mask the taste of fishy Bonito.
Tomorrow morning Mark and Ed will go fishing and try to retrieve the lure that snagged on coral yesterday. In the afternoon I hope to go to Takamaka and find the well that is there. We can use the water for showers and washing clothes, but another boat that has been using the well says it is best not to use it for washing dishes. So we will spend this week exploring Ile Fouquet and Ile Takamaka and getting to know the other couple of boats that in are in this anchorage.
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| 100425 Day 181 Salomon, Chagos–Visit to Boddam |
