Christmas came early
For those of you who don’t already know - because I certainly didn’t before this trip! - Christmas Island is a remote Australian external territory, located about 850miles northwest of Australia’s mainland. (This dot of land in the Indian Ocean got it’s name when it first sighted by Europeans on Christmas Day back in 1643.) It’s famed for its incredible biodiversity, especially the annual mass migration of millions of red crabs to the sea to spawn, earning it the nickname “the Galápagos of the Indian Ocean.” Back in 2021, when we first decided that we would take on this whole adventure, we spent many weekends pouring over the atlas and talking about the destinations we’d explore. Christmas Island was one of the locations immediately caught our attention with its remoteness and with the stories of all those crabs!
So it felt a bit surreal to pull into Flying Fish Cove a few weeks ago. The phosphate mine that drives most of the economy of the small island loomed large over the bay, yet our little corner of the anchorage felt remote and untouched. The water was clear and we could see from the deck that the snorkeling right off the boat would be incredible.
We secured Pure Joy to the mooring ball and were toasting to another successful passage when we were greeted by a couple who were swimming in the bay. We got to chatting and found that they were both teachers at the school on the island, which edcuates all 234 kids who call Christmas Island home.
We were itching to be called into the port to be cleared by Australian Customs and Immigration because we had just 48 hours to explore the island. The reason for this was down to capacity. There is one anchorage on Christmas Island (as the rest of the perimeter is made up of rugged volcanic rock, making the shoreline inaccessible) and that anchorage has just 7 mooring balls. With all of this in mind, the World ARC organised for the fleet to be split into 2 groups of 14. In each group, 2 boats would buddy up and share a mooring ball. We were in group 1, we were buddied with sailing yacht Pelican (which is coincidentally captained by another David Poole!) and we had 48 hours to enjoy Christmas Island before it was time to move on and make room for group 2.
We certainly could have spent more time there, but it is a pretty small place and were able to get a good feel for it in the time we had. The scuba diving and snorkeling we did there was phenomenal for the variety of coral and fish and the clarity of the water. We were able to scuba right off the back of Pure Joy using our own gear - a pretty cool day date for David and I. We also did a guided dive/snorkel trip with the local Dive Master that was fantastic as well.
We spent half a day on a tour of the whole island, where we explored the coastline and the jungle. We were 6 weeks too early for the red crab migration, but we did manage to see one - ha! We learned about how the whole island navigates the migration by obeying road closures, raking crabs to the side so they can walk and building crab ‘overpasses’ - all so the crabs can make it to the sea to spawn and so the baby crabs can come back up into the jungle.
We saw lots of other kinds of very entertaining crabs and Elliot climbed up ‘the coolest tree ever’, This ‘Strangler Fig’ tree had taken over another tree 400 hundred years ago and the host tree inside died, enabling the brave and nimble (including Elliot!) to climb up the INSIDE.
We could see why this place was called the ‘Galapagos of the Indian Ocean,’ but what also delighted me was the uniqueness of the community. Only about 1,600 people live on the island, but the diversity of that population is remarkable. There are distinct Chinese, Malay, and European influences to be found everywhere, all operating harmoniously. The island still celebrates Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, and Christmas as public holidays.
There’s a large chalkboard at the center of ‘town’ where you can write your announcements. There’s one proper restaurant open at the moment and that’s also where the high school had their prom, of course. There’s a supermarket and a post office which doubles as a sort of tiny general store, and that’s that for shopping. And just when you think the place couldn’t get more quirky, you find out that there’s an area on the outskirt of town with a bunch of chickens running amok that they call the ‘Chicken Library’ where you can leave your rooster if you no longer need it and would rather not be woken up by it any longer.
When our 48 hours was up, it was time to go and about 5 days later, we found ourselves approaching something very different to the volcanic terrain of Christmas Island. Cocos Keeling is an atoll - a completely flat semi-ring of land - similar to what we found in the Tuomotus Islands. This one though, is all by itself, in the middle of the huge Indian Ocean. As we approached, I couldn’t help but think - this will be the last land we are going to see for over 2 weeks, and as far as land goes… it’s not much!
What it lacked in mass, it made up for in beauty. The atoll is broken up into 3 main islands:
Direction Island (where we were allowed to anchor) - completely uninhabited, crawling with hermit crabs of all sizes and flanked on one side by ‘The Rip’ - a fast current that you can drift snorkel to feel like you are in Finding Nemo - and on the other by a Manta Ray cleaning station.
Home Island - Where most of the Malay (Muslim) population lives and enjoys a small grocery store, a coffee shop and a pharmacy
West Island - Where the Aussies live, home to the airport, a small supermarket and a few small restaurants, all of which open on a rotation so that hopefully when you are there, something is open.
The water that surrounds these islands is the absolute clearest, aqua blue we’ve seen. It looks exactly like a swimming pool from above.
Moving between the islands is a bit of a mission. You can take your dinghy to Home Island but need to get a ferry and a bus to get to West Island from there. The wind and rain were plentiful while we were there, which made moving between the islands extra fun, but we also had some sun that really allowed us to enjoy the phenomenal snorkeling and some social time with the rest of the fleet.
An entrepreneur named Tony who lives on West Island took the World ARC fleet under his wing while we were there, hosting the Prizegiving BBQ and then a pizza night, both on Direction Island, where we were all anchored and quickly getting tired of our own food aboard. He and his team brought all the goods for these evenings over to Direction and kept everyone fed and watered for hours, then camped out as there was no way to get back to the inhabited islands after dark.
Tony also went out of his way to order extra provisions for us, which was MUCH appreciated. I can’t tell you how strange it felt to be preparing our 2-week passage to Mauritius, with very little opportunity to stock up on fresh supplies. Normally this process would entail at least two trips to a mega super market - one for staples and non-perishables, one for fresh veg, fruit and protein and then a random trip to get all the odds and ends we might possibly need. Not this time. We’d of course tried to plan ahead all the way back in Australia and Indonesia so that we had as much of the shelf-stable food as we would need. But that’s hard to estimate! And then there was the distinct lack of anything fresh on the boat. We did pop to the small supermarkets on West and Home islands and picked up what we could from their limited stores (and hours! - supermarket was closed on our last day there because the entire island was attending a wedding). But then the extras Tony was able to bring to the fleet gave us a few luxuries - a loaf of fresh sourdough, some tomatoes, lettuce and apples and two lemons that made us feel just a bit more ready for the journey.
At the time of writing, we are 10 days into our 14-day sail from Cocos Keeling to Mauritius. Everyone said that the Indian Ocean would be one of the toughest, and they weren’t lying. The first week was grey, rainy, very bumpy and not all that fast. Every day felt like the last. We actually watched ‘Groundhog Day’ to commemorate the mood.
But conditions improved and right now, it’s pretty bumpy, but sunny and FAST, so we’re not complaining! We’re watching the miles come off of the ‘Distance to Destination’ count on the dashboard and catching up on all those things we won’t have time for once we are doing our happy dance on land. We’re getting (re)organised on the boat, planning our time in South Africa over the holidays and even starting to think about the logistics of returning to ‘normal’ life in April. 🫢 With the help of Francesca, Elliot is staying right on top of the year 5 curriculum so that he can hopefully slide back into school without too much struggle in the spring.
But still, there’s so much yet to experience on this adventure, and we’re committed to soaking it all up! Africa, here we come!
Coming up: Mauritius & Reunion Island