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PASSAGE PLANNING |
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COCOS
(KEELING) ATOLL
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For
yachts making the passage from the pacific towards
South Africa, the atoll of Cocos (Keeling) provides
an excellent port of refuge in the often tempestuous
Indian Ocean. Cocos is rare in that it is possibly
the world's remotest atoll and was only recently
inhabited by man. If the ancient Polynesian voyaging
canoes did stop here, they left no trace.
This
island group, which voted in 1984 for integration
with Australia, is a lagoon seven miles wide encircled
by a chain of sandy islets. Only two are presently
inhabited. West Island has a population of about
300 Australians, most of who are on temporary work
contracts. In reality they have "bugger all to do
here mate." At the opposite end of the lagoon, on
Home Island, is an equal amount of people of Malay
origin, brought here originally to work the coconut
plantation.
The
atoll permits a big sky where clouds, stars and
winds roll by unobstructed. The islands are in their
last stage of their cyclical existence. Born of
ancient volcanoes with lofty peaks have long since
been eroded into the sea, the islands were reborn
when coral polyps began building upwards from the
submerged mountains. As new coral spreads outward,
the dry coral polyps in the reef's centre died and
collapsed to form the central lagoon. The sea continued
to hammer at the edges of the island until channels
were eroded into the lagoon, creating segmented
islands, or motus, lying like a necklace of pearls
in an azure sea. 
The
average elevation of these islands is less than
two metres above the sea. If our crowded planet's
atmosphere overheats and the polar ice caps begin
to melt, the sea levels will rise and these islands
will be the first to drown again. But for today
the wonder of an atoll is the refuge it offers in
a vast wilderness of ocean. Fish, birds, plant life
and people all find their way to it's mid-ocean
sanctuary.
Long
ago a single coconut carried on ocean currents from
far away, drifted onto one of the motus. It settled
into the sand and took root. Before long, all the
motus in the atoll bristled with groves of "that
giraffe of vegetables" as Robert Louis Stevenson
so aptly described them. Its wood and plaited leaves
make comfortable dwelling places and its fruit is
the lifeblood of the atoll. With the coconut the
motus would be mostly barren and inhospitable to
life, as they were before the coconut arrived.
There
is also an anchorage behind the three kilometer
long Home Island. However, before visiting there
you must get special permission from the local Malay
council. In the centre of the island is field where
flatbed rail cars rest on iron tracks. The cars
wait under open-sided sheds to be loaded with fresh
coconut and pulled into the sun for drying. At one
time most of the islanders worked at harvesting
the copra. Today the copra cars lie as idle as the
people.
For
over 150 years these islands were the private territory
of the Clunies-Ross family. By the indenture dated
1886, Queen Victoria granted all land in the group
to George Clunies-Ross in perpetuity. Throughout
this time, exporting copra was the sole industry
and the Clunies-Ross descendants prospered. Since
the family sold the island to Australia several
years ago, the hard work of harvesting copra has
been largely abandoned in favour of welfare checks
from the new landlords.
Entering
the Malay village you can't help but notice every
family has been provided with new prefabricated
homes with indoor plumbing. With less than one kilometer
of road that leads to nowhere, the natives rush
about on motorized bicycles as if on some urgent
business. On the south end of Home Island is a large,
empty turtle pond. Its perimeter is marked by a
large wall of stones, fencing off a corner of the
lagoon. The Malays seem to have lost their taste
for turtle in favour of frozen dinners flown in
on the weekly flight from Australia.
Though
Cocos has gone through some lamentable changes,
cruisers who visit there for the first time now
will appreciate the convenient services. Besides
card phones on the beaches, the government also
provides them with a free weekly ferryboat that
goes from Direction Island across to west Island.
A free bus runs from the pier to the government
settlement where a bank, post office and supermarket
are located. Next to the airstrip which takes up
nearly a third of the island length, is the meteorological
office where in pre-weather-fax days the visiting
sailors would go to get a long range weather forecast
before departing. Gales and violent squalls are
not uncommon in this part of the Indian Ocean. Along
the rock-strewn windward side of Home island is
the sobering sight of a fiberglass yacht dashed
to pieces on the reef some years ago.
On
the lagoon side of home Island lie two rusted iron
rails, the ruins of an old slipway. This may have
been the spot where Captain Joshua Slocum hauled
out "Spray" when he visited here during his solo
circumnavigation 100 years ago. Close to the beach
nearby is a graveyard under the palms. One of the
marble headstones is marked "In memory of Maria,
relict of Captain James Clunies-Ross, 1899" a conspicuous
reminder of the islands' strange past.
It
was 1609 when Captain William Keeling discovered
the islands whilst in the service of the East Indian
Company. They were then mostly ignored until visited
by Captain Clunies-Ross in 1814. As he passed on
a voyage to India he came ashore and raised the
British Union Flag on what is known today as Horsburg
Island. He was staking his claim for he planned
to return and settle there.
The
story goes that meanwhile Alexander Hare, a wealthy
ex-governor of the colony of Borneo, had landed
on Cocos with a ship full of Malay settlers, many
of whom were unmarried women. When Captain Ross
returned two years later with his wife, children
and eight sailor/craftsmen to take possession, they
found Hare comfortable in charge of his new colony.
Captain Ross was righteously indignant and the eight
sailors were understandably envious. As the months
passed the two leaders had many confrontations and
it became obvious that the islands were not big
enough for two colonies.
Bit
by bit Hare retreated from the advances on his territory
until he was finally expelled from the larger Home Island
to a tiny motu that came to be known as Prison Island.
Hare tried in vain to restrain his ladies, but the channel
between Home Island and Prison Island was shallow and
the lusty Scottish sailors repeatedly waded across at
low tide and made of with the women. Hare later left the
atoll to live in the Dutch colony of Batavia. |
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