Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean-Seychelles-Mahe  The main Island of the Seychelles. Excellent beaches. The water was like a bath ! 

Mailed Victoria General Post office. 

Indian Ocean-British Indian Ocean Territory  Visiting B.I.O.T is far from easy. It is very rare to have a card from here  let alone to visit.  The British Government decided after the tsunami of December 2004 to send down some scientists to check how the islands were effected.  I was lucky to find this out and was one of 14 passengers sailing from the Seychelles.  It took 5 days to get here. The first Island we landed on was Danger Island.  You had to jump into the blue warm waters and swim ashore .  It was fantastic and great white sand. I can remember all the bird life and the hermit crabs.  Other Islands visited on this 3 week trip were Egmont,  Three Brothers,Nelsons,Salamon and Peros Banhos . On these two Islands yachts can anchor off shore and stay on the island during daylight hours .  It was a sure pleasure every day to see how pristine these islands were. In fact they were hardly effected by the Tsunami .  A fantastic and rare trip. Now it is very difficult to get here due to restrictions as permits are rarely given. 

There is only one post office for B.I.O.T. That is on the Island of Diego Garcia. This is off limits except to military . So I mailed this postcard back to Diego Garcia when I got home. The Post office there is combined with Cable and wireless office. 

Indian Ocean-British Indian Ocean Territory   This is a map of Diego Garcia.  The Postmaster at Cable and Wireless sent me this card when he learnt that I was going to visit all the outer islands. He informed me how lucky I was as the they could not get permission to visit the outer islands. There is a bigger story here.  The islanders were all taken off the islands and were not allowed to go back.  I could write a story on this. But if you google Chagos Islands which is the correct name for these islands , you will find out what happened. B.I.O.T is a made up name. 

These stamps remind me of the wonderful diving I did here on these Islands. Some of the photos we took ended up being used on future stamp issues.  Rare to find mail from here .