Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Monday 19^th August, Direction Island, Cocos-Keeling Islands, Indian Ocean Territories.

Monday morning, fresh coffee, views of a beautiful blue lagoon and palm-fringed white sandy beach. Big decisions of the day include whether to snorkel before or after lunch. We've been here a few days now and have settled beautifully into island life.

We have been five boats up to now with one new arrival yesterday morning (the excitement!, we watched him come all the way in and then eavesdropped on his conversation with the Federal Police and Border Force on arrival. Well it was the only thing going on!). Anchorage residents currently include a retired Australian man who has been sailing the world for years, has lived previously on Christmas and Cocos Islands and has lots of stories of the good old days back in the 80s and 90s. There's an English/Aussie man with his Indonesian wife, bub and another bub about to arrive; they're in the middle of relocating from Indonesia to Fremantle. There's a Catalan family who have been living in Indonesia for the last 15 years – the couple originally sailed (mainly separately) from Europe, though the Caribbean and across the Pacific and then stopped in Asia for work, had kids, and now are planning on slowly making their way back to Europe. There's a boat that belongs to the man who owns the bakery-cafe on West Island but he's not aboard. There's us. And there's the French man who had arrived at Christmas Island just as we were leaving – he's been living in Tahiti and is now on his way to Madagascar. So that's the family.

The day of our arrival we just sat around, admired the view, ate food that was able to independently maintain its position on a table and indulged in some wine and self-congratulation at getting here.

Expedition Day 1 we spent the morning launching Doris (trusty dinghy) and in the afternoon went for a trip down to Home Island. A very splashy and wet trip courtesy of the constant tradewinds of around 20 knots. I think there was more water inside Doris than out by the time we got there. As we hauled Doris up the boat ramp we heard a cheery “Hello!” - it was Tara from Quarantine at Christmas Island (she runs the office for both islands). Very small world out here. She was able to give us a quick orientation before hopping on the ferry back to West Island. Home Island is basically the residential suburb of the Cocos-Malay community. There's a few small shops, a mosque, a cyclone shelter, a school and a museum. The museum is the old Copra processing area (coconuts being the big business here back in the day). Everyone drives around in golf buggies or quad bikes. There are perfect little blocks of perfect little houses with perfect little paved boulevards. After a wander around, and the obligatory reconnaissance of the supermarket shelves, we braved the splashy ride back to Grainne.

 I don't know why the supermarket is called Shamroks but we just had to go in.

 Safety conscious child seat in the golf buggy.

 Old boats at the coconut drying sheds.

 Main Street. That's the actual road, golf-buggy sized.

 And white picket fences.

 The mosque.

 The lagoon.

Expedition Day 2 we decided it was time for a big expedition to West Island, home of the Western community, the tourist trade and the airport. First up we had to dinghy down to Home Island to catch the ferry. Then we needed to top up our dinghy fuel so asked a man at the dock where we could get some. He directed us towards the petrol station but then pointed at a man approaching on a quad bike saying he might be able to help. He worked in the business beside the hardware shop beside the petrol station. He reckoned we didn't have time to get petrol before the ferry left and suggested maybe we leave the tank and pick it up when we got back, then thought we wouldn't have enough time on West Island if we tried to be back in time to pick up the fuel and in the end decided to just take the tank from us, fill it up and said he'd meet us off the last ferry in the evening with the full tank. How helpful! Thank you very much. As we waited for the ferry we met the retired Aussie anchorage neighbour. He let us know that we had picked (accidentally) the perfect day to go to West Island because Friday is the only day the pub opens at lunchtime. He was able to give us the lay of the land as regards transport and facilities on West Island which is just as well because we've somehow managed to leave home without any travel guidebooks whatsoever. A minor oversight. Once we got to West Island we caught the bus (the only bus), completed formalities at the Police Station, found the ATM at the tourist office (Karl had not brought enough cash for lunch and petrol), talked to another lovely Chilean working at the tourist office (see Torres Strait blog for the surprisingly high incidence of Chileans), found lunch at the bakery and made our way to the pub. At the pub we found Guinness, anchorage neighbour number one, soon followed by anchorage neighbour number two and a pleasant outdoor verandah overlooking the airport runway (which pretty much takes up the entire island). Then it started bucketing down with rain and we were trapped (no really, no escape possible) all afternoon. Once the pub closed we stayed in the verandah drinking the takeaway we had bought: us, Aussie anchorage neighbour, English/Aussie anchorage neighbour and an Aussie woman running a local kite-surfing business. A great way to spend a wet afternoon. Then it was time to catch the bus and ferry back to Home Island where the wonderful local was waiting on his quad bike with our topped up tank of petrol. And a final wet, splashy ride back to Grainne before finally snuggling up in warm dry clothes for a cosy evening in the cockpit.

The golf course/airport runway on West Island. A good use of land when there's only two flights a week.

A little background of the Cocos. So the atoll was first noted by European sailors (specifically Mr. Keeling) back in the 17^th century and then mainly ignored. Darwin visited and came up with his theory of atoll formation. In the early 19^th Century an Englishman (Mr. Hare) decided to settle here and start a coconut plantation. The captain of Hare's ship, Captain Clunies-Ross (grandfather of half of the Christmas Island phosphate plant founders), also came with his family. They imported Malay workers and ran a very profitable business, basing themselves on Home Island. At some point there were disagreements between Hare and Clunies-Ross and some money problems and eventually Hare left and the Clunies-Ross family took over the islands. Queen Victoria granted them ownership of the Islands in the late 19^th century (the family seemed to have a knack of getting the British Empire to give them remote tropical islands), during WWII it was a base for Allied military, in the 50s it was moved from being part of the colony of Singapore to being part of Australia and in the late 70s the Australia government bought the islands from the Clunies-Ross family (now there's a clever trick – get the British Empire to gift you an island and then later sell that island to the Australian government). 

Is there nowhere too remote for the Hash House Harriers? This is on the uninhabited Direction Island.

Direction Island is now uninhabited but has a few shelters with picnic tables along the edge of the beach. Apart from us yachties it's visited some days by a few kite-surfers and twice a week the ferry comes from West Island bringing some tourists – 5 on Saturday, the place was over-run! The beach was named best in Australia (or the world, I can't remember) by Lonely Planet or some such publication a couple of years back so expectations were high and I have to admit it lives up to the hype. Soft, white sand. Shallow, clear, warm water. Coral reefs with loads of pretty fish a few metres from shore. Palm trees. No roads, no traffic, no people (mostly). Evenings ashore with the neighbours, having the complete run of the island, the Catalan boys with their machetes collecting firewood and coconuts. It's pretty perfect really. If it weren't for the threat of cyclone season a person could forget to leave.

Oh, just to prove it's not all fun and games, Karl did get gastro. I filled him full of drugs though and he came good a couple of hours later.

So we will leave, probably on Friday (though sailors should never leave on a Friday). Plans are afoot for another expedition to West Island on Wednesday to check out with the Police, give Karl a chance to surf the Indian Ocean (and maybe get barrel before he's 50) and get some WiFi to upload this. Then we head to Mauritius which will take 2 to 3 weeks, just enough time to brush up on my French.