Astove Atoll

About

Astove Atoll is a large atoll, part of the Aldabra Group, lying in the Outer Islands of Seychelles, 1,041 km (647 mi) southwest of the capital, Victoria, on Mahé Island. Alphonse Fishing Company and Blue Safari Seychelles operate from the atoll, offering packages to sustainably fly-fish and dive the Astove Wall.

The name Astove is said to be derived from the Portuguese As Doze Island, meaning the twelve islands, which may have been the original Portuguese name for Farquhar. 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. 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. In 1911, treasure hunters found near Astove the wreckage of La Dom Royal. They excavated the ship, finding gold and silver. 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. 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 atoll. 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 not visited due to its remoteness and distance from normal shipping lanes. In 1968, Astove atoll 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. “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. “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. 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. In 2014 Astove was declared a nature reserve. A fishing resort and lodge have been built on the island.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.