A while ago I treated you to a dissertation entitled “Does The Sun Set On The British Empire?”, and concluded that it doesn’t. The UK’s widely scattered overseas territories, sparse though they are, mean that the sun is still always shining, somewhere in the world, over British territory.
The most important territories in maintaining this late-empire sunlight are the Pitcairn Islands, in the Pacific, and the British Indian Ocean Territory, in the Indian Ocean. To illustrate that, I offered the sunlight chart below, showing how Pitcairn and BIOT catch the sunlight when it’s dark in the UK.
In fact, as my map at the head of this post shows, BIOT is pivotal. There, I’ve plotted the distribution of light and darkness, across the globe, at 02:15 Greenwich Mean Time, during the June solstice of 2024.*
And here’s the situation at the December solstice:
Just after the sun sets in Pitcairn, it’s dark over every British territory except BIOT.
I’m revisiting the situation because the UK government has announced plans to hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago, which houses BIOT, to Mauritius. The announcement was made in October 2024, but the original agreement has now been contested by a new government in Mauritius. And the situation is further complicated by the fact that BIOT houses a large US military base on the island of Diego Garcia, so the new Trump administration also has a say in the process. (Meanwhile, the unfortunate Chagossians, evicted from their homeland in 1968 to make way for the military base, have so far been given no voice in the negotiations.)
The current proposal suggests that the military base would be maintained under a long-term lease agreement, in which case British sovereignty would be lost, and BIOT would cease to exist. At that point, the role of easternmost British territory would fall to the Sovereign Base Areas (SBAs), in Cyprus.
The SBAs are worth a few paragraphs, both because they’re relatively obscure, and because their existence, as sovereign military territories, perhaps has some slight relevance to how the situation on Diego Garcia might play out, should the Trump administration raise strong objections to the current plan.
The SBAs came into existence when Cyprus gained its independence from the UK in 1960. Under the Treaty of Establishment, the UK retained sovereignty over about 250 square kilometres of the island, in two separate areas—the Western Sovereign Base Area of Akrotiri, and the Eastern Sovereign Base Area of Dhekelia. These have extremely complicated boundaries, designed to avoid Cypriot settlements while including British military establishments. The Eastern SBA contains three Cypriot enclaves—the towns of Ormideia and Xylotymbou, and the area surrounding the Dhekelia power station (which is crossed by a British road). It also features a long northward extension along the road to the village of Ayios Nikolaos, which now houses a signals intelligence unit.
And the whole border situation became even more complicated after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, which has left the island traversed by a UN buffer zone. British territory, including the Ayios Nikolaos road, forms part of the buffer zone. Elsewhere, the Turkish-controlled town of Kokkina has its very own buffer zone. Here’s an overview map, followed by some detail of the SBAs:
Prepared in QGIS using data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission and the USGS Global Islands dataset
Prepared in QGIS using data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission and the USGS Global Islands dataset
(Interestingly, the British military settlements within the SBAs are referred to as cantonments, a military term which, to me at least, has something of a colonial ring to it, given its association with British rule in India.)
The relevance, here, to the current situation of Diego Garcia, is because the UK government made plans to hand the SBAs back to Cyprus in 1974, but were persuaded to retain sovereignty by the USA, which valued access to signals intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as a convenient location from which to fly, among other things, U2 spy planes. The difference, of course, is that the Cypriot government appears to have been compliant with that arrangement, whereas it seems unlikely, at time of writing, that the Mauritians would agree to such a deal.
We’ll see how it goes. Meanwhile, I’ve plotted another sunrise/sunset graph, showing how sunlight is handed off between the two key players in the absence of BIOT:
(For my sunlight calculation, I’ve plugged in the latitude and longitude of the easternmost part of the Eastern SBA—Ayios Nikolaos.)
It’s close—in June there’s less than an hour when it’s dark in both Pitcairn and the SBAs. But, if BIOT goes, when the sun sets on Pitcairn, it will also set on (what’s left of) the British Empire.
* I haven’t plotted British Antarctic Territory, because territorial claims in Antarctica are in abeyance under the Antarctic Treaty.
or
Rah Rah for the good old British Empire !
There’s a phrase you don’t hear every day.
I think that it is very doubtful that the October 24 proposal will go ahead. There are so many variables floating around, especially the change in two governments, that it seems likely that it will all be ‘too hard, for some years to come. So the sunset may still be delayed.
I probably have flown over, or anyway very near to, these islands on a flight from Doha to Perth – Australia of course – a few years ago.
The island of Diego Garcia has a subtly horrifying predator trap that catches unaware humans with alarming frequency.
But it’s a paragragh or two and I have to leave in 15 minutes. Getting a CT of my heart in an hour. (To measure its progress in healing, fortunately!)
Sorry.
Had to take a time out for a bit.. (And I won’t “Uncle Saul” everybody with the boring details.)
Now where was I? Ah yes, the very diffenition of “the middle of nowhere” Diego Garcia. (We need a stronger word than remote for this place.)
Been there at least seven times, if not more. Never got to set foot once on it. Could only admire it from the flightdeck as we cruised slowly around it taking on personel and supplies.
Now about said predator trap.
A very good friend of mine was a Navy Deep Diver, a branch of the Navy’s Special Forces. (We lost him last year.) And he was stationed there for a while. Had all sorts of stories, including this one. (With pictures!) So when anybody turned up missing he was one of the people tasked with locating them. And when he was informed of their last known whereabouts he often knew it wasn’t going to end well.
So what happens is this. The atoll has a beautiful reef and tide pool system lining the inner lagoon. And the tides are such that at low tide, nearly 100 meters of reef is exposed. The inner lagoon is also about 400 feet deep, down past the photic zone.
New people or folks that didn’t get the word would be overjoyed at all the pristine reef life and hand and spear fish all day long. (New Phillipino contractors were the most common victims.) And they would wander all the way to the inner edge.
And then the tide would come in. Most people expect the tide to come in like it does with a normal shoreline. But what you have here is a coral reef, which are *porous*. So while you’re looking at the tide come in, you don’t realize the beach is still 100 meters *behind* you! And you suddenly find yourself in deepening water. No problem right? It won’t get any deeper than four feet.
Except as the tide comes in, young great hammerheads, which had been lurking in the deep water, come up with the incoming tide in pursuit of various reef fish stunned by being in tidepools. And as when they do this their dorsal fins are obvious, sometimes people panic and try to run.
Which attracts more of them. And the faster you go, the more you splash, the more aggressive the hammerheads become. Woof.
He had photos of five sets of flippers and swim trunks, torn to shreds. Sometimes near hibachis and spear guns, proving they “almost” made it. But policy states that without dirtect proof otherwise, they were drowning victims who were scavenged.
I saw a solitary hammerhead once, while snorkelling off the edge of a reef in the Maldives. Didn’t pause to identify the species. They don’t bother people often, but they’re not something you want to notice out of the corner of your eye unexpectedly.
I finned gently back into shallower water, and it just went on about its business.
Next up. Coconut crabs!
(If you want to hear it.)
Ah, coconut crabs. Bit of a menace for golfers on Christmas Island, among other things.
I’m sure your story will be good.
One small correction to the above story. I meant to say “flip-flops” and not flippers. One doesn’t usually wear flippers tidepooling on a coral reef. (Coral reefs are like walking on broken glass. You very much want to protect the soles of your feet. I know from experience.)
So when I was in there were two protected species. And protected from the sailors for different reasons. Those were:
The local chickens. Which were considered British citizens. I kid thee not.
And the coconut crabs, which were/are freaking obnoxious to the extreme. They are “agressively defensive”
If you were found out killing either one, it was a *court marshall* offense! Not captain’s mast or an Article 15, but court marshall. That’s how obnoxious these crabs are. (And how delicious free range chickens are.)
If not for these rules the sailors would have exterpated them in a month.
So getting to have shore leave here was done on a lottery system. (Which I never won) All maps show Diego Garcia as way too big by the way. I could see the whole place from 85 feet up. (Flightdeck height)
Though its apparent small size could be an illusion due to its flatness. So you couldn’t give everyone shore leave. (My ship and the escorts numbered 10,000 people. We would have eaten everything like locusts)
But everybody got the safety lecture. With pictures!
No preserve the coconut crab videos ever mention the fact these very poor teddybear analogs, when aroused, can jump forward in three foot hops and when they jump on you they latch on with their claws and then drive their pointy legs into your flesh repeatedly. All eight of them. The victims look like someone took double ought buckshot to their legs.
The pictures make a true believer out of you right away. You don’t mess with the crabs. (The Seabees station had a three legged black cat as a mascot. Missing the left front leg. He didn’t mess with the crabs either. Anymore.)
Mind you I did hear a rumor…
Best way to deal with an aggresive CC, barring firearms, is the two stick method. Have a stout 4 four long cudgel in each hand, present one and the crab will grab it. When both of its claws are thus occupied, you now have a free hand with the other stick.
And you have to hit it like you mean it. Most people don’t have a problem with that, at that point in the encounter. This was only nessasary in dense growth, when you would surprise each other.
So you had at least one guy so equipped when your group was making its way to the beach. (Fortunately other coconut crabs make excellent Jimmy Hoffa devices and get rid of the evidence for you.)
I have more, but this is way too long already.
Oh! I hope the above wasn’t too graphic for everyone!
I forgot I wasn’t speaking to just Dr. Grant.
Apologies for the nightmare fuel.
Wow. Double checked the wiki article on coconut crabs.
Seems there are apologists writing these articles.
Humans don’t exterpate CC’s because they’re “delicious”.
They barely rate as survival food. And most of them are loaded with botanical cardiotoxins so even under survival conditions you’re taking a risk. Are you familiar with those Dr. Grant? A combo sugar molecule. Especially appealing to heart tissue through ways I used to know, but have forgetten. The heart cells cleave off the sugar molecule and are then left with a molecule of Prussic acid.
Bad news for anything that utilizes oxygen. Excellent metabolic boobytrap.
Cyanogenic glycosides. I don’t think they’re particularly given to binding to heart muscle—in fact, the cyanide can be released by gut bacteria.
You’re maybe thinking of cardiac glycosides, derived from sea mangoes, which have caused fatal poisoning after eating coconut crab meat. The heart drug digoxin, now rather fallen from favour, is a cardiac glycoside, and sea-mango poisoning is effectively a digoxin overdose.
Other plants too. Some are rather common garden plants so I won’t list them. (My trust in human nature has been low lately.)
That whole chemistry sidetrack is a story telling lapse, in my book.
I should have went with: I know because of survival classes, and have spoken to people who have taken miltary survival *courses*, tropical version, which are much more extreme. CC’s just taste bad.
I know, it’s shocking. Someone on wiki posted wrong and slanted information! Who knew? (The slant being humans are bad, always. Never the obnoxious, dangerous creatures.)
This thread needs some levity.
Something Einstien never got to cover as well as he did gravity, but I would have liked to have seen his equations on the subject.
Wry observations I’ve made that inadvertintly made the strangers around me laugh.
I told my favorite barkeep once what my father told me when I was a young man; “If you’re playing poker for money, with strangers, never win more than five hands in a row. If you draw a sixth winning hand, fold!” The lady sitting next to me asked; “Was your father a professonal gambler?”
My reply: “No ma’am, he was a homicide detective.”
I was standing on a crowded street corner on a warm day with my best friend “Ol Weird Bob”, who’s has been giving me straight lines inadvertently my entire life and as we were waiting for the light to change one couldn’t help but notice on the far corner that the very tall, very slim woman wearing a tight tank top and painted-on jeans was WELL into her third trimester. As we passed each other Bob had to say;
“Do you think she was pregnant?”
My reply? “Either that or she just shoplifted a frozen turkey.”
And a nearly embarrassing amount of people starting laughing so hard two had to lean against buildings.
And lastly a friend who has never heard a ufo conspiracy he didn’t like was asking me various aspects of life and nature over lunch at a nice restarant. I was answerin the best I could. Very quiet place dispite the crowd so the conversation carried. Some people were actually listening in.
Then he told me at length about an episode of Ancient Aliens, all the while I was looking at him and keeping a blank face like I was taking this seriously. And then my friend up and asked me; “What do you think?”
After I paused about five seconds to look like I was thinking about it I calmly replied:
“What do I think? I think I lost three IQ points just listening to that.”
Oh my lord. The two silk suited businessmen sitting next to us both did spit takes into their plates. and most other people in the room broke out laughing. I did felt bad afterwards.
But I did break down the “information” for him in a few short sentences.
“Everytime you hear “aliens built “whatever” for humans!” what you’re really hearing is racist nonsense. Or, another way to say what they’re saying is “There’s no way these ignorant wogs could have built this!” I could see this clicking in the heads of the people around me and I got several nods of approval.