20 August 2005

I’m out and about again at night, still not much else to do. I had intended to make it down to the Air Force’s Camp Justice and take some pictures of their “tent city”. It didn’t quite happen. I did make it down to their area but for some reason I didn’t feel like stopping so I kept riding and ended up down at the cemetery. That was all right because I figured cool; the moon is nearly full I should be able to get some interesting pictures of the cemetery. As you can see, I did end up back at the big billowy white tents again for another picture or two, but kept on moving. I had heard that the BIOT police had caught a boat fishing out amongst the islands of the Chagos Archipelago (that’s where Diego Garcia is) and hauled it in. So I decided that I should go to the Brit side of the harbor and see if it was still there. Quite fortunately for me it was and quite unfortunately for the fisherman to whom it had once belonged. The BIOT police had the pier it was tied up to blocked off so I couldn’t get right up to it. But just from looking at it from shore I was rather impressed that the boat had even made it out this far. With the exception that the hull was in one piece it seemed to be a rather ragtag assembly held together with whatever was at hand. To me it seemed that there was a remarkable amount of bamboo and other materials that I would not quite think fit for an ocean going vessel. I also haven’t a clue where on that small boat they would store all the fuel necessary for getting all the way out here and then back again. And in addition to the fuel they would have to store all the fish they caught, I simply didn’t see room enough for that. The name of the boat is Blue Star and I want to say that it was from Thailand but I won’t swear to that. I would be surprised if this boat had a crew of more than two but I think that they must have spent there nights sleeping on the deck as the captains cabin didn’t look big enough for much more than the captain. Altogether I guess I would have to say this boat just seemed too small to be out here, but somehow those poor unfortunate fishermen had gotten out here, and then gotten themselves caught.