Recently in Island Travel Category
The palm covered islands of Lakshadweep make up what is arguably the least known part of India. These 36 islands, totaling a mere 18 square miles, lie 180 miles off of India's western coast. Ninety-three percent of the 60,000 residents are Muslim giving these islands their own distinct culture. Nonetheless, mention the Lakshadweeps to experienced travel agents in the U.S. and you are likely to be greeted by vacant stares. 
Very few visitors come here from the U.S. and in fact special permits are needed to visit all but a few of the Lakshadweep Islands.
After a 90 minute flight from the subcontinent, our small group was met on the island of Agatti by Seacology's newest field representative, Vineeta Hoon. We were escorted to our boat by several locals performing a traditional knife dance (pictured right). We then boarded a boat for a two hour ride to Bangaram Island, our home for the next few days.
I just returned from an interesting and exciting trip to French Polynesia. The main purpose of my voyage was to attend the official opening of Seacology's latest project on the beautiful island of Moorea. But on this trip I was wearing many hats. In addition to my role as executive director of Seacology I was also an island "expert" lecturer on a Zegrahm Expedition cruise throughout French Polynesia. Zegrahm is one of the world's leading exploratory cruise companies. What makes a cruise an exploratory cruise as opposed to the more typical drink, eat and gamble 3,000 passenger cruises? As the name implies we stopped at many remote destinations including islands that had not received tourists for many years. An exploratory cruise also features numerous snorkeling, diving, hiking, birding and cultural events. Furthermore an exploratory cruise such as the one I was on has many lectures throughout the day on the history, geography, culture, fish and birds of the many places we visited. Finally, exploratory cruises take place on smaller ships such as the Clipper Odyssey which I traveled on with a maximum capacity of 110 passengers (pictured above left).
According to the Lonely Planet guide, "Among the 115 islands that make up the Seychelles are some of the most beautiful island getaways in the Indian Ocean, or indeed the world. Here you can find the lush tropical paradise you may have seen in seductive advertisements." The group of islands around Mahe (home of the international airport and the capital city of Victoria) are made of granite while the remaining islands are coralline atolls. The Seychelles lie 1,600 kilometers off of East Africa, its nearest neighbor. As a result of this isolation the Seychelles are rich in rare plants which flourish nowhere else on the planet. Perhaps the most famous of these is the coco de mer, the world's largest coconut weighing as much as 20 kg. In addition to their prodigious size the coco de mer is famous for its rather erotic shape (pictured right). I will let readers' imaginations run wild on this but if you want to see this coconut in person head for the beautiful Vallee de Mai on the island of Praslin. I recently led a Seacology group to visit the Seychelles and some of us are still blushing after seeing these rather evocative coconuts. The Seychelles visitors bureau knows a good thing when it sees one and the coco de mer not only appears on posters and brochures everywhere but the Seychelles official passport stamp is in the shape of this naughty coconut.
Because it is close to Europe the Red Sea attracts more dive boats than any other region of the world. The Red Sea's frequent encounters with thresher and hammerhead sharks and the beauty of its hard and soft corals help account for its popularity. However, if not managed well, too many divers and dive boats could ironically help destroy this beautiful dive destination. Every time a boat drops an anchor on a coral reef a large section of the reef is damaged. Multiply this by the large number of boats in the Red Sea every day and the potential for significant damage is great. However, by tying up to mooring buoys, boats no longer have to drop anchor.
To help preserve this beautiful marine environment a local ngo called HEPCA has installed the world's largest mooring buoy system. Nonetheless more mooring buoys were needed around five islands in the 494,100 acre marine reserve adjacent to Wadi El Gemal (Land of the Camel) National Park off the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea. Seacology, an international ngo with the sole purpose of preserving the environments of islands throughout the globe, provided the funding needed to help HEPCA install 25 mooring buoys in the Wadi El Gemal area.
In August 2008 a Seacology group traveled to Fiji to open two new projects. In Ketei Village, located on the Fijian island of Vanua Levu Seacology funded the construction of a community center in exchange for the creation of a 900-acre forest reserve. Our visit to Ketei began with a traditional kava ceremony. Kava is the ground up root of a pepper plant which acts as a calming agent. It has been the center of Fijian traditional life for hundreds of years. (Right, water is being poured into a kava bowl to begin the kava ceremony.)
Wow. The hype is not hype; Madagascar delivers on its promise of exotic animals, dramatic landscapes, rare botany and friendly people. This island lost in time keeps alive the dream of a faraway land with mystical creatures and magical landscapes.
Seacology's 15 person expedition began with a brief stint in the capital of Antananarivo ("Tana"), and the architecture did not disappoint. A bustling city of nearly two million people, its history is rich with dynasties boasting some of the longest names in the world. To the left is King Andrianampoinmerina's palace which sits on the highest of the capital's 12 hills, standing as a sentinel overlooking the city.
We flew to the extreme south of the island to begin our trek to the project site, a Seacology supported nursery for rare and endangered plants at Ft. Dauphin. Riding for hours over seriously rugged roads, we shared the terrain with a constant chain of Malagasy people traveling on foot -- generally barefoot -- carrying their impossibly heavy wares from market to home and back. The indigenous plant nursery was thriving and we spotted a grove of Madagascar's unusual pitcher plants (right) and a small stand of critically endangered water palms along the way; only four remain in their original habitat.
Duane, our executive director, and I will be taking a group of donors on a Seacology expedition to Madagascar in a couple of weeks. We're going to check in on three of our conservation projects: two in the central highlands and one in the far south. We're only there for one week, but it will be a week of wild travel from the High Plateau to the East to the Southern Dry Forest (see map at right). We'll visit two preserves, an orchid mountain and several villages that are safeguarding the Madagascar flying fox.
Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world, and I imagine it seems like a small continent when you're on it. To put it in perspective, if you've ever been to England, it doesn't really seem like an island when you visit. It feels like another charming European country, and the distances between its cities are long. Well, England is 95,000 square miles in total compared to Madagascar's 227,000 square miles, or roughly two and a half times the size of England.
In my last entry I talked about how important it is for many of the communities Seacology works with to create a community center or public building in exchange for the decision to establish a conservation area. In these cases, when the building is finished, an opening ceremony is held at the center followed by a celebration and shared meal. If Seacology expedition participants are able to attend one of these ceremonies during a Seacology trip, they often describe it as an incredibly significant and moving event.
Going back in time from this opening ceremony to when the project began we can understand how such an event can be so moving. Over the course of the previous year or more community members were discussing the project, thinking over the details, drawing plans, meeting with officials, and volunteering their own labor to make sure the construction and conservation process would result in a useful and successful change for their own generation and the next.
What does Madagascar have to do with Mantas, one might ask after reading the title of this blog. Generally speaking not much. You are not likely to see a lemur or chameleon frolicking with a manta ray after all. But on this island travel blog anything is possible. Loyal readers of this column know that I have been writing about a recent Seacology trip to Indonesia. While diving there we had several close encounters with manta rays. Seacology board member Jim Sandler took some terrific videos of these magnificent creatures.
As I have indicated in my first two Indonesia Diving blogs, diving in the Raja Ampat section of Indonesia offers some of the most spectacular marine biodiversity on this planet. This is especially true for small critters. Don't believe me? Then take a look at these photos by Seacology supporter Jason Marks.
