Chagos in Pictures: Birthdays and Goodbye

As I had written in my previous post, August was the birthday month, and we celebrated 3 birthdays in Chagos, and 1 en-route to Seychelles!

First up was Benedicte, on August 1st.  A lovely day with a party and bonfire on the beach in the evening:

Benedicte's birthday present...6 eggs and a hand made card.  Gaby is getting really good at drawing boats.
That's Moby on Benedicte's birthday card!

Beach Party!  The birthday girl with our makeshift table.  Coconut and coral centerpiece, a big bowl of popcorn and a chocolate cake!

Dinner:  Freshly caught,then marinaded fish kebabs!

What's a party without wine?!

Or without desert, for that matter??  Benedicte whipped up this amazing array of desert goodies:  chocolate fondue and for dipping...dried banana, meringue, brioche, coconut, marshmallows and just good ol' chocolate cake...  

Consider this the "Before"...

"During"

And "After"!  Total Destruction!!

The birthday bonfire

Enjoying the beach and fire

Birthday Number 2, August 2nd:  Dror turns 7!

Dror admiring his birthday cake

Anna is captivated by the balloons!  Maybe because they had Hebrew writing on them!

Dror opens his presents.  Moby made him a weather station, so he could help his dad with weather forecasting!

Gaby chills after the birthday party

Birthday Number 3, August 3rd:  Yoav turns 13.  Bar Mitzvah on the beach, in the POURING rain!

The kids trying to save the fire and keep each other warm!  Anna, Benjamin, Eyal and Gaby huddle together as Victor directs Dror on where to put the log

We watch as Yoav gets ready to do his reading from the Torah

Yoav, wet and smokey, recites his passage

More food, quickly put out during a lull in the rain, consumed just as quickly and then packed away before it got completely ruined in the rain!

And those were our memorable Chagos birthdays.  Our 4th August birthday was Dave's on August 16th. We were hoping to make it to Seychelles in time to celebrate his special day, but it was not to be, and we celebrated on our last day of passage.  Never mind, we still made it a special day!:

Birthday boy, with his special present from Gaby:  a painting of Picnic Island in Chagos!

We also had cake!  Happy Birthday, Dave :)

Our time in Chagos came to an end all too soon.  We had a very special time there, and we will remember it forever!   All four Cool Runnings crew rate this as the absolute best place we have visited so far on our epic journey!

Goodbye, Chagos!!

Chagos in Pictures: Picnic Island and Boddam

Two of the fun excursions we had while anchored in Chagos was a dinghy ride to what we called "Picnic Island", and another dinghy ride over to Boddam island to explore the ruins of the Chagossian settlement.

I wrote about both these outings while in Chagos, but was unable to share any pictures at that time, so here they are!  Our trip to Picnic Island occurred after a morning surf session ended, and we decided to explore a different island and have a picnic there.  It was here that an amazing feast appeared (and disappeared just as quickly!).

Arriving at "Picnic Island" by dinghy

There it is!  Gaby painted this scene for Dave's birthday!

Ben explores the new beach

Looking over to the next little island

We were a little concerned about the squall on the horizon. Loic and Dave took Loic's dinghy back to the big boats to check their anchors and close the hatches!

Momi and I explore Picnic Island

Another view out over the lagoon

The kids making the tables with coconuts and slabs of rocks

It's a feast!!  

The only one missing is Benedicte, because she took the photo!!  From left:  Dave, Gaby, Victor, Ben, Anna peeking out behind Ben, Eyal, Arthur (in orange), Yoav, Dror, and behind, Loic, Lilach, Momi and Gudrun...and lots of yummy food!!

The kids had a blast playing in the sand, and on the palm trees!

Gabs in one of her favorite new habitats!

Ben gets ready to give Anna a piggy back ride!

Just kids being kids!

Anna also climbs the palm tree!!

The rocky side of the island

Palm tree...one of thousands!!

The Chagos kids squad...these kids will have a connection for life...3 different countries...3 different languages...1 incredible experience in common!  Gaby (Cool Runnings), Anna (Moby), Eyal (Shuti), Ben (Cool Runnings), Yoav (behind, Shuti), Dror (Shuti), Victor (Moby) and Arthur (Moby)

The following day we took the dinghies over to Boddam island.  There are mooring buoys here that have been laid by previous cruisers, but the entire anchorage area is on coral, and none of us really wanted to bring the big boats here and pick up the moorings.  It was easy enough to take our dinghies over and we spent the day on the island.  As I mentioned before, there was a small settlement here prior to the removal of the population in the late 1960's.  They farmed the coconuts to produce coconut oil and copra.  The remains of the settlement are slowly being taken over by the jungle.

This photo shows the Boddam settlement in 1963.  The white cross is still there as seen below

From its location and layout, we believed this was the building that can be seen on the right in the top 1963 picture.

Another view of the cross and the jetty in 1963

Dave and Ben at the cross as it is today

One of the winches from the jetty

The Manager's House, already falling into disrepair (+- 1978/9)

We are not sure what this building used to be, but this is all that remains

The small church, about 1975

This is all that remains of the church today.  The roof is completely gone

All that remains of the windows

On Boddam, part of the ruins have been converted into what is called "The Yacht Club".  There is a welcome sign, a log book where you can sign your name and a seating area where we had our lunch.

Sign posts!

The Yacht Club building.  

Once again it was time for food!

The kids were playing with the hermit crabs

Grubs Up!

Relaxing at the Yacht Club

What a playground...

That the kids put to good use!

Kids of all ages playing together

After exploring the interior, and after some lunch, we went for a walk along the beach, to the other side of Boddam island.

The beach is just spectacular

The "squad moms":  Lilach, Gudrun and Benedicte

Before leaving the island, we each wrote in the log book, so our visit to Boddam could be recorded along with all the other visiting yachts:

The three boats sign the log book

And then it was time to go back to the anchorage.  On the way back, Cool Runnings and Moby took a detour to another island to solve the mystery of the big white object.  I wrote about this previously.  The object turned out to be a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Tsunami buoy.

On the way there we caught a fish!  It was a delicious grouper!

Dave on the buoy

The kids on the buoy...it was huge!

Cruising Kids:  Gaby, Arthur, Victor, Ben and Anna

As these posts are so long, the previous posts have been moved to another page.  Please click on "Older Posts" below to see the previous post on "Chagos in Pictures:  Life in the Anchorage", and click on "Older Posts" again to view a short video of our passage from Cocos Keeling to Chagos.