Return
to the list of Ted's travel articles
A TRAVELERS' CENTURY CLUB YACHT EXPEDITION
TO REMOTE BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY
by Ted Cookson
Published in January 2003
Membership in the Travelers Century Club (TCC), organized
in Los Angeles in 1954 by a group of the worlds most widely traveled people, is
limited to those who have visited 100 or more of the 317 destinations on the
clubs list.
One of the most remote of those destinations is British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).
Formerly called the Oil Islands (oil refers to copra, or coconut oil, rather
than to petroleum), BIOT consists of the Chagos Archipelago. Lying south of the
Republic of the Maldives, BIOT consists of a number of atolls, the most
southerly and the best known of which is Diego Garcia, where some of the U. S.
aircraft employed in Afghanistan were based. In the northern reaches of BIOT
are the Salomon Islands, which I visited by yacht 21-22 July 2002.
Our yacht charter was organized by club member Charles Veley who was attempting
to visit the entire TCC list within a period of 15 months. Charles, in his
mid-30's, also planned to be the youngest person to visit every destination on
the TCC list. Charles had already found two others to share the steep yacht
charter expenses, Jeff Shea and Ben Fogle. Jeff is another TCC member who is
also an accomplished mountain climber. Ben Fogle, while not a TCC member, is a
BBC travel show presenter who is writing a book on far-flung British overseas
territories. (There may also eventually be a parallel BBC television program.)
On 17 July I flew Emirates from Cairo to the Maldives via Dubai. Upon arrival
on the morning of 18 July I hopped a motorized ferry from the airport island
across to Male, the capital, which is situated on a nearby island. Then early
on the morning of 19 July we flew to Gan in a 15-passenger twin engine plane.
Upon arrival at Gan the four of us were met by two sedan cars which carried us a
short distance to a spot where we could board a small motorboat to go out to our
94-foot sailing yacht, the Dream Voyager. Due to the peculiar geography of the
Maldives, which consists of many small atolls, cars are rather uncommon. But
during the British presence at Gan between 1957 and 1976 some 10 miles of road
had been built at Addu Atoll by joining together several adjacent islands with
causeways.
After customs clearance we finally set sail on the evening of 19 July in Dream
Voyager south from Addu Atoll en route to the Salomon Islands in BIOT. We were
sailing against a strong southeasterly wind, and the water was choppy. Although
I was wearing an ear patch, I didn't feel like eating much for dinner. But I
definitely felt better after losing lunch later that evening.
Our accommodations on the air-conditioned Dream Voyager were excellent. Each of
us had his own bedroom with private sink, shower and toilet. The yacht carried
a crew of eight, including an international captain. Due to Maldives maritime
regulations, one captain had been required for the domestic journey from Male,
from where the yacht had originally sailed with crew only; and we required a
second captain for our international journey which began at Gan.
We sailed south all day on 20 July. Then on the morning of 21 July land was
sighted. We could see the low-lying Salomon Islands atoll on the horizon. All
of the islands are covered with a dense forest of coconut palms. About two
hours later we sailed into the horseshoe-shaped atoll which opens to the north.
We then turned right and dropped anchor off Boddam Island, one of ten islands in
the atoll. The crossing had taken us about 40 hours.
The atolls of what is now BIOT used to fall under the political control of
Mauritius. Then in the early 1970's the various islands were sterilized. The
people living on Boddam Island and on other atolls in the Chagos Archipelago -
about 2,000 in total - were "compensated" and shipped off to Mauritius. I heard
that the dogs living on one of the islands were all gassed. BIOT was declared
to be an independent political entity in 1972. The sterilization procedures
apparently fulfilled the terms of an agreement under which the U. S. in 1972
took over Diego Garcia from the U. K. on a long-term lease. The British coast
guard still patrols the waters of BIOT, and U. S. military personnel occupy only
the large atoll of Diego Garcia with its air base in the far south.
The "Ilois," people who had been removed from the Chagos Archipelago, recently
won a court case against the U. K. This court decision will allow them to
return to their former homes on Boddam Island and elsewhere in BIOT. We heard
that a boat carrying a few of these islanders would soon be arriving in the
Salomon Islands in order to check out the current situation there.
We landed on a pristine sandy beach on the northeast side of the still
uninhabited Boddam Island on the
morning of 21 July. Before I left Cairo I had commissioned the painting of a
cloth banner which read, "Travelers' Century Club - BIOT 2002." After taking
photos of ourselves holding that banner, we began to explore, traversing the
width of the island on a well-marked path. The western side of Boddam - without
the protection of the atoll - offered rougher water and a much narrower beach
with both sand and rocks.
Boddam Island contains the remains
of a copra plantation. The old warehouse is connected to the dock bynarrow gauge
railway tracks. The cement and coral walls of the buildings remain but some of
the roofs have decayed. One of the old building stones bore the inscription,
"Cowen - England." There is also a graveyard where headstones bear inscriptions
dating back to the 1800s.
There are a church and a number of residential buildings. The latter, made of
corrugated metal, still stand with their roofs intact. The interiors of some of
the buildings have been spray painted with the names of yachts and yachters who
have visited in recent years. One such yachter graffito, for instance, reads,
"Against all odds - Andy & Margaux, Australia 2001 - Love to live, live to
love."
We overnighted off Boddam Island
along with a dozen or so other yachts which were anchored in the Salomons. This
atoll serves as a way station for yachts crossing the Indian Ocean. For a $70
fee yachts are allowed to anchor for several months. Having chatted with a few
of the yachters on Boddam, we learned that some yachters sail to BIOT, stay up
to six months, and then simply return again after resupplying in Malaysia or
Thailand. With E-mail available nowadays via short wave, yachters can easily
stay in touch with the outside world even from somewhere as remote as BIOT.
Yachters sometimes congregate on Boddam Island in the
evening in order to barbecue and socialize, and perhaps once a month the British
coast guard sponsors a barbecue for all yachters present. There is a
volleyball court, a swing made from rope and a half of a coconut shell and even
a picnic table.
Although fishing is allowed in BIOT, diving is not. Regulations are enforced by
and yacht fees are collected by the British coast guard which calls in at the
Salomon Islands from time to time. We felt fortunate that Andy, a coast guard
official, called on us the morning of 22 July because he stamped our passports!
Andy clearly was not looking for trouble when he boarded our yacht. He
commented that, if we had any dive tanks on board, he didn't want to see them.
I believe that anyone who had dived in the Salomon Islands would have said that
it was the most fantastic dive he had ever taken since the water was so very
clear.
After disembarking from our yacht, Andy returned to his coast guard vessel and
sailed out of the Salomon Islands atoll in search of commercial vessels fishing
in BIOT waters. He was also charged with inspecting these vessels.
On the afternoon of 22 July we rode our yacht's small motorboat from our
anchorage near Boddam Island around the rest of the atoll. After landing on
Takamaka Island we saw a ray swimming in the crystal clear water. Before
returning to our own yacht across the lagoon, we halted to swim and snorkel at
the site where another yacht had recently sunk. The sunken yacht's two white
masts rose at an awkward angle out of the blue green waters of the Salomon
Islands lagoon. We could see that a PC and other personal belongings were still
aboard the sunken yacht, which bore a hole in its fiberglass hull.
Arriving back on the Dream Voyager, we found a Frenchman and his daughter from
another yacht on board our own yacht sipping tea with our crew. They related to
us the story of the sinking of the yacht in the lagoon two weeks previously.
The family which owned it was then still in the lagoon, living aboard another
boat with some friends.
The prevailing southeasterly wind assisted us on our northbound journey from the
Salomon Islands in BIOT to Addu Atoll in the Maldives, so the return sailing
took only about 38 hours. Upon arrival at Gan on the morning of 24 July,
Maldives immigration officers boarded the Dream Voyager in order to clear us.
Then we took a short driving tour of Gan before flying back to Male on a
50-seater jet aircraft.
Charles and Jeff flew back to the U. S. that same evening while Ben and I spent
the night in Male. I departed Male on Emirates to Dubai early on the morning of
26 July and arrived back home in Cairo that same afternoon one very remote
destination richer!
For more information about the TCC and about my extreme travel hobby, please
visit
www.eptours.com and refer to World Travel Club. The web site features a TCC
destination counter, and you can see where you rank compared to others who have
registered their destinations on my site.
ABOUT TED COOKSON: Egypt's most widely-traveled travel agent, Ted has been
to every country in the world! He has also visited 307 of the 315 destinations
on the list of the Travelers' Century Club (visit
www.eptours.com and refer to World Travel Club). A travel agent in Cairo
since 1986, Ted manages EGYPT PANORAMA TOURS, a full-service travel agency, at 4
Road 79 (between Roads 9 and 10, near the "El Maadi" metro station) in Maadi.
Contact Egypt Panorama Tours (open 7 days a week 9 AM-5 PM) at: Tels. 2359-0200,
2358-5880, 2359-1301. Fax 2359-1199. E-mail:
ept@link.net. Web site:
www.eptours.com.