The Chagos Diaries: #2 - Our First Day in Paradise

After 10 years of planning, and 3 days of passage making, we arrived at Chagos at 1am on Wednesday 15th July. After a celebratory beer, we fell asleep pretty quickly, and woke up the next morning wondering if the place could possibly live up to our expectations.

Let’s just say that Day 1 did not disappoint. Just for fun, here’s a full timeline of a pretty special day:

4.45 am - Alarm goes off. I sit up groggily, ready to go up on deck for the 5am watch, before realising that I had forgotten to switch of the recurring alarm, and since we arrived last night, I don’t actually need to get up after all. Damn! With a mixture of relief and annoyance, I put my head back on the pillow and am asleep again immediately.

7.30 am - Wake up for real this time, and go up on deck to get a look at the place. When we decided to enter the atoll in the middle of the night, one downside is it denied us the pleasure of checking out the place as we arrived. I actually thought about sailing backwards and forwards outside the atoll for 7 hours until daylight just so I could have the pleasure of seeing this place that I’d dreamed of for years reveal itself. Then I realised I was being silly.

And in many ways, I’m pleased we made the decision we did. Because otherwise I would have been denied the full impact of stepping up on deck to find ourselves fully surrounded on all sides by picture perfect desert islands.

The atoll is a circle some 3 miles across, made up of 11 islands connected by coral reef. The biggest island is about 1.5 miles long by 200m wide, and the smallest only 20 metres by 20 metres. And every one of them is drop. dead. gorgeous.

The view was absolutely spectacular. Photos from deck level don’t really do it justice, so here’s Jen’s view from the top of the mast a few days later.

Coconut palms trees crowd almost every available horizontal surface, jostling for position and looming over the pristine beaches. The water where we anchored last night is a deep azure blue, crystal clear. And over in the distance, our preferred anchoring spot (which I had picked out months ago via Google Earth) is much shallower, and is a stunning turquoise. We decided it was too shallow to attempt at night when we came in a few hours ago, but we’ll be moving there later today for sure.

I spin around and there is Sonrisa, the last of our trio, coming in to anchor. They spent the night outside the reef deciding to wait until it was safer to come in this morning. I wave to Andrew in the bow and Leslie behind the wheel, all three of us grinning like Cheshire cats. Did you ever see the Leonardo Di Caprio movie “The Beach”? There’s a famous scene where he and his friends, after all sorts of trials and tribulations, finally arrive on the famous beach in the hidden lagoon on the secret island they’ve been searching for. They look at each other, hardly able to believe their luck, and then run down onto the beach and throw themselves onto the sand, laughing and giggling. I feel like that right now.

This is the scene in the 2000 film The Beach where Leonardo diCaprio (Richard) and the rest of the village walk down to the beach. I’ve always loved the way the film captures their awe, and immediately thought of that feeling in this magical moment at Chagos.

7.35 am - I wake up Jen, and she joins me on deck to watch Sonrisa pick their anchoring spot. The VHF crackles into life, as Mark on Erie Spirit discusses with the newcomers the pros and cons of the location they’ve selected.

8.00 am - I make breakfast - no rolls to hand, so I can’t have one of my “arrival” fried egg rolls that I wrote about on my blog recently. But we decide to treat ourselves anyway, so have poached eggs on toast (homemade bread), with smashed avocado and feta cheese. Breakfast when we’re underway is usually simpler than this, so it’s lovely to have a nice still galley to cook properly.

I know, I know, video overload. But it was too perfect a moment not to capture it. And look at those yummy poached eggs!

8.15 am - We sit in the cockpit marvelling at our surroundings, and decide that we’ll launch the dinghy straight after breakfast so we can go and explore. It usually lives in our davits and takes about 30 seconds to launch, but for long passages the engine comes off, and the dinghy is hoisted onto the foredeck and lashed upside down, where it is much more secure in the event that we meet with seriously bad weather. We knew it was going to be a relatively benign trip, but took the extra time to secure it this way anyway, just in case. The downside? It takes about an hour to put it up there, and another hour to get it down at the other end.

9.00am - While Jen does the dishes, I feel the first stirrings in my bowels for 4 days. Sorry to be a bit graphic here, but you need to know this stuff. Like many sailors, I find that when we’re on longer passages, it takes a few days to “find my rhythm” when it comes to bowel movements, so to speak. For a 3 day passage like this one we’ve just had, it’s not quite long enough for my body to settle into its new routine, so absolutely nothing happened in that department, although there were a lot of false starts!! Now it was time for normal service to resume!

9.15 am - I’m still there when Jen calls out to me to say that I’d better get a move on, as we have incoming traffic. I tell her I have outgoing traffic!! “I’m serious”, she says with some urgency in her voice. Seemingly there are 3 black military RIBs, full of soldiers, bearing down on us at top speed. I rush up on deck, only to find that they have passed us by, and have disembarked half their crew onto the nearest island, where they disappear into the undergrowth.

I glare at Jen, unhappy that I was disturbed unnecessarily during such a productive moment (!), but I’m glad I’m now getting to watch the action. It’s a bunch of British Royal Marines, on exercise from the US military base at Diego Garcia, some 120 miles to our south. We had been told by the British Indian Ocean Territory authorities that they would be here at some point this week. And our liaison officer had told us she would be with them too, and would come over to say hello.

9.30am - Here they come! They roar away from the island at top speed again, and just when it looks like they’re going past us, they hang a hard 90 degree turn and come straight at us, waving. They pull along side, and we chat for 20 minutes, during which time they ask for our passport, and we get a much coveted, and vanishingly rare, BIOT stamp. Just for good measure, they put a second stamp in there, for Diego Garcia. I’m not sure that counts as a country in its own right, but I guess they stamp the services personnel when they come on the base, and figured we’d want one too.

As rare a passport stamp as you’ll ever see. Only 6 boats made it to BIOT this year, and due to COVID, the first 3 were not checked in by the authorities. That means that only the 6 of us on our three boats got this stamp this year.

Yolanda, our liaison, is indeed on the RIB, the only person not wearing military fatigues. She is wearing a wetsuit though, as is consistent with her main role, of Senior Fisheries Protection Officer for BIOT. BIOT is the world’s largest marine reserve, and so part of her job is to monitor what’s happening with the sea life, and prevent any illegal fishing. Just last night, she tells us, they intercepted an illegal fishing boat and chased them. She doesn’t say what happened next, and we get the distinct impression not to ask, so we keep the conversation light.

In other years, there has been a bit of mingling between the BIOT authorities, the military detail, and the cruisers, and we had been looking forward to it, up until Covid-19 blew that idea out of the water. We discuss it briefly with the crew in the RIBs. Seemingly there is one case of Covid on the military base and the Commanding Officer is taking the situation VERY seriously, which is not surprising if you recall back to the beginnings of Coronavirus and what happened with the US aircraft carrier in Guam.

We discuss how long it’s been since our last human contact, which ironically after 4 months of virtually nothing, turned out to be lots of contact in the last 48 hours in Addu, when we finally got to go ashore and eat in local restaurants. So our 14 day clock is reset. But Yolanda tells us she’ll be back in a couple of weeks, and maybe she’ll be able to come on board for a cup of tea then. We hope so - I’m sure she’ll have heaps of interesting stories.

10.00 am - The RIBs head off to Sonrisa and Erie Spirit, and we get to work launching the dinghy from the foredeck, and reinstalling the outboard engine. It takes about an hour, as usual, and by the time we’re finished, I’m chomping at the bit to go and explore.

11.00 am - Jen jumps in the dinghy with me, and we head off towards Sonrisa. It turns out they’ve chosen exactly the spot we had intended to move to. They have already told us on the radio that there’s plenty of room for us too, but we know the target zone is actually quite small, squeezed between a coral reef on one side, and a high current area where the water rushes between two of the islands. Other cruisers, and Yolanda, our BIOT liaison, have warned us not to anchor too close to the current. So we motor around for 10 minutes, and satisfy ourselves that there is indeed plenty of space, and we pick exactly the spot we’ll want to bring Steely to.

While we’re in the dinghy, we spot 2 or 3 giant stingrays, and we’re pretty sure we see a small reef shark too.

11:15 am - Andrew and Leslie beckon us over, and invite us on board for coffee, where we debrief the passage and Andrew confirms that they’ve seen 3 or 4 sharks around their boat. This is not unexpected - this Atoll is famous for having 5 different species of sharks living here in abundance. We’re told they’re pretty much harmless, but “pretty much” is not a guarantee, and we nervously discuss plans to go for a snorkel later.

Also up for discussion are dinner plans for later tonight. Sonrisa offers a tasty sounding Mediterranean Chicken concoction, and in exchange, we offer to wash their bed linen for them, as they had some sea water gush into their cabin at some point during the trip down from the Maldives. Anyone who has had something dowsed in salt water knows it never really dries properly until it’s fresh water rinsed. And duvet covers and mattress protectors are too big for the bucket the Oddgodfreys’ normally use for laundry. We’re lucky to have the luxury of a normal washing machine on board, and although we’ve offered its use to the Sonrisa team before, they’ve always demurred, sensitive to the high fresh water usage and not wanting to be seen to be taking advantage. But this time its different - damp bedding is no-one’s idea of fun, and we’re delighted to be able to help.

12:00 pm - Back to Steely, and as the first of three loads of Sonrisa laundry goes on for a quick 30 minute wash and spin, we lift the anchor and head over towards Sonrisa and our new spot. It really is perfect here, and in just 4 metres of water we can see the bottom clearly, much more comforting than the 20 metres we were anchored in before.

While the washing is underway, we put up the shade covers on Steely, settling in as we know we’ll be in this anchorage for 2-3 weeks at least. As we’re doing so, we spot more sharks circling, as well as some rays, and see some large fish jumping nearby.

We’re in our perfect spot, and the shades are up!

12:30pm - Time to start preparing lunch - home made chicken schnitzel, coleslaw and baked potato. One of my favourite meals, ruined somewhat by the discovery of some wriggly things in a potato that had gone rotten in the box under the sink where we store them. Jen takes the box away and disposes of the offending item and a few others, and thoroughly cleans the others with bleach. While she’s doing this, I inspect the potatoes I’d already pulled out VERY carefully, and having satisfied myself, set about making lunch.

1.30pm - We sit down for lunch, and Episode 1 of Series 1 of Doctor Who. We’re not sure if we’re going to get into this or not, but figure we’ll give it a try.

2.30 pm - Leslie gets on the VHF, and asks on Andrew’s behalf if I’ll keep him company in the water. He’s ready to go check his anchor, and I need to do so too, and we figure the sharks may be less interested if there’s more than one of us. Or maybe he just thinks he can swim away faster than I can, leaving me as bait.

2.45 pm - I’m in the water, and immediately 3 stingrays glide past. The first two are big, but the third is HUGE - easily the biggest I’ve ever seen, maybe 3 metres in diameter, with a long thick tail thicker than my upper arm. Wow! Despite Steve Irwin’s untimely and infamous demise, I know they really are harmless, so long as they don’t feel threatened. And since they hang out on the bottom I don’t pose any threat to them at all.

2:50 pm - Yup, there’s my first shark. It’s small, maybe 1.5 metres, a black tipped reef shark, but he’s curious and swims past a couple of times before disappearing into the murk. I’m on high alert now, checking my blind spots often and struggling to relax. I spend another 15 minutes in the water, checking out the anchor and fixing our snubber line, and chatting with Andrew, and we see a couple more sharks. We agree we just need to try and acclimatise ourselves to them, as they really don’t pose too much risk. So we call our 20 minutes in the water a good start, and Andrew heads back to his boat.

3.30 pm - Jen enlists my help to launch Dora, our kayak. We haven’t used it much since we got it at Xmas time, but this is the perfect setting. Calm, crystal clear waters and beautiful beaches just a short paddle away. Mindful of the sharks that we can now see quite often swimming around Steely, Jen exclaims “Keep all hands and feet inside the ride” as she jumps into the kayak and paddles off towards the nearest island. I jump into the dinghy and motor along side her, and 3 minutes later we step onto Chagos land for the first time.

Of the 11 islands, this one is the closest, and also has the attraction of a wrecked catamaran lying on its beach. It was a 50 foot cruising cat which dragged its anchor and washed up on the reef about 10 years ago. The owners didn’t have wreck removal insurance, or the personal financial resources to have it professionally removed (pretty hard to organise thousands of miles from anywhere on a deserted island in the middle of the Indian Ocean), and so it has remained here ever since, gradually being broken into smaller pieces with each passing storm. You can actually see it on Google Earth, and it had featured in a YouTube video made by SV Delos when they were here 5 years ago, so I was looking forward to checking it out.

We were anchored in the turquoise water in the top left of the picture. The catamaran can just be seen off the NW corner of the bottom island, right next to the shore.

Before we did so, however, we set off on foot to explore a bit of the island, in search of the famous Chagos Coconut Crabs. These monsters are oversized hermit crabs that take up residence in coconuts…until they get too large even for those. The largest ones are bigger than your head, and pretty much the meanest critters you’ll ever see on land. And Chagos is full of them.

We wandered for an hour or so, spotting dozens of crabs, of many different species, some as large as your hand. But no Coconut crabs. We did see some red-footed boobys, though, another famous Chagossian inhabitant and plenty of them. They seemed happy to see us, and were quite playful.

Around every bend in the tortured topograhy of the island was yet another beautiful bay, with more fallen palm trees to clamber over and explore. We happened upon three large eels, hiding under a rock ledge and reaching up and grabbing crabs from the rocks above. Those eels had pretty powerful jaws, we could hear them crunching through the shells, and we instinctively stepped back out of the shallows to keep our toes protected from their voracious appetites.

Yup. It’s an eel. Eating a crab! This was a surprisingly common sight over the next few weeks.

We kept going for a bit, already enthralled and feeling so grateful that we’re going to have a few weeks to thoroughly explore this, and the other 10 islands. And then, no sooner had we turned back toward the boat, it happened.

“Is that a coconut crab?”, I asked Jen. "Right there, between the trees.”. And sure enough there was a medium sized one and then another, bigger one. And then a HUGE one. All right next to each other, and not in the least bit bothered by our presence. We stared at them for a while, and I tried waggling a coconut frond at the biggest one. He twitched his antenna at me, but otherwise didn’t move. Round 1 to the Coconut Crab.

It’s hard to convey the size of these monsters without getting MUCH closer to them than you would really want to. This one was bigger than my head!

4.45pm - Feeling pretty satisfied with our first shore visit, and knowing there would be plenty more, we headed back to the beach, and had a quick look around the ruined catamaran before heading back to Steely.

The catamaran has been there for almost 10 years, we think.

4.50pm - Would you look at this! Half way back to the boat, a 2 metre shark appears, and I slow the dinghy to have a look at him. He instantly turns towards the dinghy, and it’s clear that while he’s not interested in me, he’s familiar with dinghies in general. We recall cruisers who were here a month or two ago talking online about how a shark took their lure when they were trolling for fish here in the lagoon, and when they tried to remove the lure, the shark bit their dinghy!!! Maybe this was the same guy?

Either way, I decided to play with him a bit. So I motored in a large lazy circle, and he followed me. Then I turned sharply towards him, and chased him for a bit, before turning away, at which point he started chasing me again. It wasn’t aggressive or anything like that, but he was definitely interacting. After 5 minutes, I remember the time, and head back towards our boat, leaving my new friend behind in my wake as I speed away.

4.55 pm - Problem! The dinghy motor cuts out 3/4 of the way back to the boat, and instantly, I can see a lot of fuel leaking out of the case. I open it up, and the carburettor is leaking from multiple places. Possibly a stuck float, or maybe something else, but definitely no time to address it today - that can go onto tomorrow’s joblist. In the meantime, I row back the remaining 50 meters to Steely and jump aboard for a quick shower and freshen up before dinner.

5.30 pm - I prepare some of “Pete’s Nuts” to take over to Sonrisa as a snack. It’s pretty simple - chuck a bunch of peanuts into a fry pan, heat them up, squeeze a couple of limes in there and dust with chilli powder. Once they’re good and hot into tupperware they go and voila! Instant party treat. And I get to ask people if they want my nuts. Everyone’s a winner!

5.35 pm - Except me! I smash the only wine glass actually made of glass in our drinks cupboard , and it shatters into a hundred pieces all over the floor. It had fallen out of its holder during the passage, and unbeknown to me gotten caught in between two bottles. It fairly flew out of the cupboard as I removed the gin bottle in a hurry. Smashed glass is no fun at the best of times, but since we’re barefoot on the boat 100% of the time, it was essential that I track down every last shard of glass.

6:00 pm - 30 minutes late due to my shattering experience, we turn up at Sonrisa for dinner, where we’re also joined by Mark and Susan from Erie Spirit. On the way over, there are 5 sharks circling our dinghy! Leslie serves up a pretty special Lemon and Tarragon chicken on saffron rice with thyme & butter carrots, followed by home made yoghurt with home made Graham crackers (don’t know what a “Graham” cracker is? I didn’t either, but they’re famous in the US and they’re delicious - google it!).

I forgot to take a picture of dinner, but when you see one of her sourdough loaves, you can tell that Leslie is no mean cook!

We’re eating pretty well right now, but it will be interesting to see if we’re managing such nice sounding menus when we’ve been here (with absolutely no shops remember) for the full 28 days. If I remember, I’ll lay out the menu on our last day too so I can compare.

10:00 pm - Back to Steely, and a quick moment to marvel at how pitch black it is here before Jen goes to bed and I start writing this.

So there you have it. Stunning surroundings, swimming with giant rays and small (thankfully) sharks. Moving from one beautiful anchorage, to an even more stunning one. Coffee, and then dinner, with friends. Giant eels eating medium sized crabs. Giant crabs thankfully not eating me or anything else. Exploring a ruined catamaran on the beach. Playing chase with a shark in the dinghy, fabulous food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Productive bowel movements, and interacting with Royal Marines and getting a BIOT stamp.

Not a bad day, I reckon!