Four Weeks in Chagos – Îles Fouquet

Île Fouquet

📍 Île Salomon · 005°19.951′S, 072°15.859′E · Salomon Islands, Chagos (BIOT)

What can I say about living for four weeks in a protected anchorage, surrounded by uninhabited islands, an abundance of birdlife, sealife – and dolphin life? Not a lot actually. Apart from one bit of boat maintenance, life was slow and relaxed. I do have a lot of pictures, though, so I have split this into two posts. The other being solely about our day trip down to the bottom of Îles Salomon to Ile Boddam – the ex-HQ of the island. But first, here’s what we got up to around our anchorage:

With the trade winds continuing to deal a heavy blow from the east, there was no way we could have moved to our designated anchorage at Ile Boddam. That would have put us on a lee shore for the whole 4 weeks, and that’s if we had made it over there. The sea was as lumpy as a cobbler’s thumb, and the bommies would have been very hard to spot. We told the authorities, and they didn’t seem to mind at all. After all, the place was hardly crowded. After another departure, only Allora and Jamala remained.

Before we started exploring the area, there was a boat-related thing to do – the fridge. I don’t think it liked the battering it took on the way to Chagos, but after a bit of treatment, it is back in chilling form.

Even more concerning was the depleted ‘wine cellar’. The last time this was full was in Thailand.

Circumnavigation around Île Fouquet

The Black Rose washed up on the beach back in late 2011 when the catamaran dragged anchor onto what was then a lee shore. I doubt the owner was impressed; this was a delivery trip – and the boat looks like it was pricey.

There used to be a small settlement in Île Fouquet farming coconuts for copra. That was abandoned along with the rest of the archipelago in the 1970s, and any buildings must be long hidden or completely given up to the jungle. The only residents now are seabirds (mostly red-footed boobies and noddies) and crabs of all kinds. And the vegetation is so dense that there was no way through to see what else might be lurking in the interior.

The walk around the island is less than 2 miles, but it has to be done at low water to avoid hacking through that dense jungle. It isn’t much of a hike, but there are plenty of sights to see with baby sharks in the sea and baby red-footed boobies in the trees.

As we walked around, it became clear that it was nesting season for the boobies. We spotted them all around the island, and some made their presence acutely felt. It was like being in a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds.

There are thousands of crabs here of all kinds, mostly these fellas – hermit crabs – although this particular specimen was a bit of a whopper.

Crabbiness at Takamaka

It is possible to get inside the island of Takamaka, at least just a little bit. Here, these strange-looking crabs rule the turf. The darker brown land crab is the adult, and the one that looks like a singed bun is the juvenile.

The last one is a whopper. It’s a hermit grab with heft. With no shells around that are big enough to accommodate that unit, he has chosen to sport a large coconut-shell number as a house.

Île Sépulture

Out of pure luck, we arrived at Île Sépulture at low tide and came across turtle tracks in the sand. Because of their size (they resemble the tracks of an amphibious vehicle), they are likely green sea turtles. And they are likely to have laid their eggs the night before in enormous pits near the foliage line.

Dolphins were a recurring feature of our stay here. They often came around the boat and stayed for most of the day.

Ile Anglaise

Near the pass is Ile Anglaise, where there is a small beach which seems to be the main stopping point for flip-flops from around the world.

Île de la Passe

And on the other side of the pass is the aptly named Ile de la Passe, with its meeting place for noddies. Here’s a place for fishing gear.

And an obligatory sunset to sign off with

The other part of our stay here is covered in the post about Ile Boddam, but after exactly 4 weeks minus one day, we headed out of here towards the Seychelles in slightly boisterous but good conditions. At least the wind was in the right direction this time, and the engine could stay blissfully silent.