Astove Island

Astove Island

Astove Island, slightly oblique view from space.
Note the wide land area (dark) surrounding the whitish lagoon
Geography
Location Indian Ocean
Archipelago Seychelles
Area 6.61 km2 (2.55 sq mi)
Country
Seychelles
Outer Islands Aldabra Group
Demographics
Population none
Astove
Location of Astove Island in the Indian Ocean

Astove Island is part of the Aldabra Group of the Seychelles. It is 38 km SSE of Cosmoledo Atoll, located at (10°06′S 47°45′E / 10.100°S 47.750°E / -10.100; 47.750).

It is a raised coral island of most peculiar form: a single stretch of land, more than 1 km (nearly one mile) at the widest, almost entirely encloses a shallow lagoon. This has a maximum depth of 3 metres (10 ft), and the only exit is a winding passage in the southwest, called Gueule Bras Channel.

Astove Island measures nearly 6 km (3.7 mi) north to south and about 4 km (2.5 mi) at most east to west. The land area is 4.96 km2 (1.92 sq. mi.), and the total area including the lagoon 9.5 km2 (3.7 sq. mi.). The only settlement, on the western coast, has been abandoned since the 1980s. There is a grass airstrip on the north east point of the island, and remnants of a former coconut and sisal plantation. Today, the island is rarely visited - usually by scientists researching the lagoon's ecology - but the near-vertical drop-off from its outer reef edge is an occasional destination for diving cruises.

Geology and geography

Astove's unusual structure has raised questions about its formation. It was suggested that Astove is not a true raised atoll, but rather a reef flat, with the lagoon being washed out later. In any case, the lagoon indeed grows slowly, owing to rainwater, acidic from the soil's humic acids, dissolving the lagoon's carbonate rock bottom. This causes the unusual milky-white color of the lagoon's waters.[1]

On the large land mass towards the western tip, exposed reef rock raises to some 5 m (15 ft) ASL. Elsewhere it is largely covered by gravelly debris. Dunes of up to 18 m (60 ft) line the windswept eastern rim of the island, and the eastern part of the lagoon is especially shallow due to the inblown dune sand. Astove Island's fringing reef is just about 180 m (300 ft) wide. As noted above, beyond the reef's outer edge the seafloor drops down steeply, with a depth of 550 m (300 fathoms) a mere 300 metres (900 ft) away from the shoreline.[1]

The climate is dominated by the southeast trade winds which are most pronounced between April and November. Temperatures are around 28 °C (82 °F) in the shade during that time, and slightly higher during the northwest monsoon season. At that time, tropical cyclones with torrential rain sometimes hit the island, but overall it is very arid.[1]

Ecology

Flora

Astove Island has a very thin soil layer overlying its rocky core, which is pockmarked with caverns. Guano of nesting seabirds has accumulated in these, and the western part has been worked over and some of the guano was mined in the past. Large stretches of the reef rock were stripped bare of vegetation, but some Pisonia grandis and white milkwood (Sideroxylon inerme) persisted. The general vegetation on much of the island's western side is herbaceous plants however, mainly the leadwort Plumbago aphylla, as well as Stachytarpheta species and the crowfoot grass Dactyloctenium pilosum. Coconut palms (Cocos nucifera) remaining from the struggling plantation along the western shore, sisal (Agave sisalana), and wild cotton (Gossypium) are also found here and there. Maize (Zea mays) was planted by the guano miners, but presumably this plant which depends on constant care has disappeared since.[1]

The eastern dunes are overgrown with the dropseed grass Sporobolus virginicus near the sea, and on the higher parts bwa matlo (bay cedar, Suriana maritima) shrubs are found. In more sheltered places, a regular scrubland of vouloutye (Scaevola taccada) and tree heliotrope (Heliotropium foertherianum), with some Pisonia, occurs. Here, the main herbs are fimbries (Fimbristylis) and the parasitic vine Cassytha filiformis.[1]

The flats around the lagoon show a mixture of grassland (mainly pembagrass, Stenotaphrum dimidiatum) and Pemphis acidula scrub; in places, it is difficult to penetrate to the lagoon through the mass of Pemphis and bwa matlo. Small grey mangroves (Avicennia marina) line much of the southern half of the lagoon rim.[1]

Fauna

Astove Island is home to four landbirds:

There are few seabirds, probably due to the presence of rats and feral pigs, left behind when the settlement was abandoned. Unlike the other two atolls of the group, (Aldabra and Cosmoledo), there are no predator-free islets except for a few small sandbanks close to the lagoon entrance. At the lagoon, Caspian terns (Hydroprogne caspia) will often be seen but it is not known whether or not they ever breed on the sandbanks. Indopacific sooty terns (Onychoprion fuscatus nubilosus) and western black-naped terns (Sterna sumatrana mathewsi) have also been reported, but there are no confirmed breeding records. Green turtles (Chelonia mydas) remain very common here despite years of exploitation and remarkably high numbers will be seen on dives or from tender trips to the lagoon entrance close to high tide.

History

Much of the region in which Astove lies was explored by Arab seamen and merchants between 1000 and 1500 AD, but there is no record of human settlement on the island before 1760. In that year, the Portuguese frigate La Dom Royal, laden with plunder and slaves, went aground at Astove. All aboard made it to the island, but the captain and crew soon abandoned Astove and struck out for Mozambique in a long boat. They never returned for the slaves, who organized into a community and subsisted on the bounty of the island and the sea.[2]

A passing ship reported that there was “a treasure trove of slaves” to be had for the taking from Astove, but repeated efforts to capture them failed when almost all the ships foundered, as had the La Dom Royal. In 1796, a British ship attempted to remove the slaves by force – and succeeded in embarking some 100 of them – but the slaves revolted and helped thwart the effort, which failed completely when the ship foundered. There was, reportedly, great loss of life in the shark-infested waters.

The remaining slaves on Astove were eventually picked up and evacuated to Mahe, leaving one sole survivor “named Paul” on the island. In 1799, a passing ship stopped at Astove and a search was made for this lone slave, but no trace of him could be found.[2]

On the morning of August 12, 1836, the ship Tiger of Liverpool, which was commanded by Captain Edward Searight, was wrecked on the reef of Astove Island. An account by William Stirling was published seven years later.

Human presence at Astove remained inconsistent throughout the 19th century and centered largely upon harvesting operations that were under way at the time. Astove was heavily mined for guano and phosphates, and hunted for its sea turtles, but for the most part remained unvisited due to its remoteness and distance from normal shipping lanes.

In 1968, Astove Island was occupied by British adventurer and businessman Mark Veevers-Carter and his American wife, Wendy (Day) Veevers-Carter, who was the daughter of American author Clarence Day (Life With Father). The couple had founded, operated and sold a successful copra plantation on the Seychelles island of Remire, and sought to do the same on the much larger island of Astove.[3]

“When we landed on Astove, we found palm trees, a roofless wooden house and a graveyard,” wrote Wendy Veevers-Carter. “Part of the British-governed Seychelles, Astove was a ‘lost’ island.”

The Veevers-Carters built a 14-room house, a processing center, a chapel, a store and small residences for their Seychelleois employees. While copra constituted the primary cash crop, the Veevers-Carters plantation also grew tobacco and raised, for subsistence, goats, cattle and pigs. The life of the couple and their three children were chronicled by Wendy Veevers-Carter in an article for Parade magazine in June 1969.[4]

“Mark has had painful trouble with his teeth but has borne the agony stoically,” she wrote in the article. “He must see a dentist soon, but that will mean a trip of many days.”

Her husband’s dental problems necessitated a March 1970 journey to Kenya for medical treatment. He took with him the couple’s broken short-wave radio and one of their three children, leaving his wife and their two sons on the plantation at Astove. On March 11, the 42-year-old Veevers-Carter died under anesthesia in the dentist’s chair, but because there was no radio on Astove, word could not be quickly delivered to his wife.

Ten days after Veevers-Carter’s death, the news was delivered to his family by the Kenyan cement carrier Bamburi, which took them to Kenya.[5]

Wendy Veevers-Carter tried to manage Astove alone until November 1970, but found the task impossible. Returning to the United States with her children, she left Astove in the care of three Seychellois employees. Although she expressed hope in maintaining control over and access to Astove, she never returned and the island was abandoned.[6]

Further reading

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Piggott (1961)
  2. 1 2 A Brief History: Shipwrecks of the Seychelles, Glynn Burridge
  3. ↑ Island Home, by Wendy Veevers-Carter. Pub. Robert Hale Ltd, Nov. 11, 1971, 352 pages. ISBN 0-7091-2772-3
  4. ↑ My Life as Mrs. Robinson Crusoe, by Wendy Veevers-Carter, Parade, June 8, 1969, pages 6-7
  5. ↑ Mrs. Carter Learns She's a Widow, Lowell Sunday Sun(Massachusetts), March 22, 1970, pg. E4
  6. ↑ (15 March 1971). Dream of Life on Tropical Isle Becomes Reality, Oxnard Press-Courier (Associated Press story)

References

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