The Journey, by Island
Seven of the thirteen Raphael grant islands, three beyond it, and several places that were not islands at all.
A note before reading
The Saint Brandon archipelago is legally divided into two parts. Thirteen of the islands sit under the Permanent Grant held by the Raphael Fishing Company since 1928 and confirmed by the Privy Council in 2008. The rest are administered by the Outer Island Development Corporation on behalf of the Government of Mauritius. We reached seven of the thirteen on the Permanent Grant, three islands beyond it, and a small unnamed sandbar that did not, strictly speaking, belong to anyone.
Observed: April–May 2023
Vessel: S/Y Tigoulou
Islands reached: 5 of the 13 on the Raphael permanent grant:
L’île du Sud
L’Île Coco
Avocaré
Île Raphael
Île Tortue
Of the wider archipelago:
Baleine
Chaloupe
Bouquet
On Île aux Fous
Petite la Farine
Features visited that are not formally islands:
The unnamed sandbar near South Island — the sandbar with one tree, where the hermit-crab community lived, which I affectionately named “L’Arbre Solitaire”, or translated, “The Lonely Tree”.
Sharks Point — the breaking wave off the eastern reef edge near South Island
The Yu Feng No. 67 Wreck Site, off L’île du Sud
Saint Brandon in numbers
The reef · 50 km long, 5 km wide at the principal flat
The archipelago · approximately 1,098 km² of protected area
Coral species · at least 36, with new species still being described
Fish species · at least 175, with the most recent (Novaculops alvheimi) described in 2013
Seabird species · 26 recorded, with at least eight breeding
Sooty terns at peak nesting · over one million birds
Green turtle nesting females · between 600 and 1,500 each year
Permits issued to non-Mauritian visitors · 200 per year
Distance from Mauritius · 430 km / 268 nautical miles
Crossing time · 24 hours by company transporter, around 60 by small private yacht
Raphael Fishing Company · 93 years old at time of writing
Total population of all islands · approximately 40 at peak season
Height above sea level of the highest point · 6 metres
Algal ridge · one of the longest in the Indian Ocean
Île Boisées (South Island)
Sharks Point
Day 3 · the eastern reef off South Island
The wreck of the Yu Feng No. 67
Coco
La Baleine
Chaloupe
Avocaire
Île aux Fous and Petit Fous
Day 8 · 16°35′ S
Île Tortue
Bouquet
Raphaël
L’Arbre Solitaire
The islands I did not reach
Of the thirteen islands of the Raphael Permanent Grant, I reached seven. Six remain unvisited: Île du Gouvernement, Grand Mapou, Petit Mapou, Verronge (closed to landing as a Roseate Tern protection site), Île aux Bois, and the smaller adjacent rocks.
Of the wider archipelago beyond the grant, I did not reach the northern Guano Islands — Albatross, Frégate, Île Perle, Île Sirène, Îlot du Nord, Puits à Eau, Île Poulailler, and Île Paul. These are the most ecologically important islands in the entire archipelago, supporting the largest seabird colonies and the most significant historical guano-mining and bird-poaching pressures.
The reason I did not reach them is that the trip was abridged. Three days of squalls and thirty-knot winds pinned us at Avocaire for an extended period. Equipment failure — the boat’s charging system was broken, and when it worked, inadequate to keep drone, GoPro, satellite phone, and laptop powered — meant that even when we could move, I could not always document. And the dynamic on board a small boat carrying three people across many weeks at sea became more difficult than I had anticipated. The trip I had planned would have taken six weeks and reached the northern islands. The trip that actually happened did neither. I left from Raphaël on a Wednesday morning, on the company supply boat, around the start of the third week, knowing it was the right decision even if not the planned one.
The trip ended at seven of thirteen on the Permanent Grant, plus three islands beyond it, plus Île Tortue, plus a sandbar. The maps are still wrong. The northern Guano Islands remain on a list I keep.
Editorial & Commissioned Work
If you would like to be in touch — for editorial commissions, place writing, long-form journalism, or design and brand work — write to me at river@welovethesea.co
I am available to be sent to places. I take a small number of commissions a year, for editors, publications, and brands who want a particular kind of attention paid to a particular place. Travel writing in the conventional sense is not what I do. My work is written from inside a place rather than across the surface of it, paired with original research and field notes from the ground.
A note on this site
The pages here are observational, not authoritative. Where I have drawn on the scientific record and research, I have cited it. Where I have written from my own watching, I have said so. For the formal conservation work being done at Saint Brandon — and there is good work being done — please visit the Saint Brandon Conservation Trust.
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