Moyenne Island

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Moyenne [ mwajɛn ] (French moyenne, mediocrity ') is an island of the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. It is located 4.5 kilometers north of Mahé island, on which the capital of the Seychelles, Victoria, is located. Moyenne has an area of 0.089 km ² and currently only a fixed population. The island is just like the other islands of the Sainte Anne Marine National Park to the administrative district Mont Fleuri.

Terms and history

Prior to the current use of the island since around 1915 not regularly inhabited until the 1970s, and almost completely deforested during the colonial period. In 1962 she was bought by the British journalist Brendon Grimshaw for about 8,000 to 10,000 British pounds. After he had given up his job as an editor for various English newspapers in the former British colonies in Africa and his normal residence completely to the Moyenne, he began the island with the help of the locals René Antoine Lafortune reforest. Within this, on the formerly dry, covered only by sparse bushes island about 16,000 trees, including more than 40 endemic species such as the Coco de Mer, planted.

Moyenne is part of the Sainte Anne Marine National Park and since the 1970s a nature reserve. Under the name Moyenne Iceland National Park is the island that had been imposed after many years of efforts by Grimshaw and Lafortune, in 2009, the status of an independent National Parks - on the current state of the smallest independent national park worldwide. The status of the island as a protected national park is ensured by a specially formed foundation, the Moyenne Iceland Foundation.

Parallel to the status as a reserve Moyenne is used as a sustainable tourist destination. From a small beach bar, the Jolly Roger Bar, and the opportunity to swim in the sea and apart to snorkel, provide fauna and flora, as well as an old pirate cemetery the attractions of the island is, that can be explored on different paths.

Since Grimshaw died in 2012, the island is no longer permanently inhabited.

Geology & Geography

Moyenne Iceland, located in the area known as the Inner Islands, is volcanic in origin, that is one of the granite islands.

Directly adjacent are the islands round- Iceland (a former leper colony on an exclusive resort to be opened ) and Long Iceland (formerly the Quarantine Island, is currently the state prison ).

Climate

Climate and weather conditions are comparable to that of just 4.5 km away from the main island of Mahé.

Flora and Fauna

Apart from the, for the Seychelles flora and fauna typical of the population of Seychelles giant tortoises is particularly emphasized, which is counted with currently more than 100 animals at one of the largest contiguous populations of the world.

Trivia

It keeps the rumor of a hidden pirate treasure on the island; the "treasure of Labuse ", which was part of the loot of the legendary French corsairs La Buse, and according to various sources about 30 million pounds sterling to be worth today. Grimshaw myself have invested in the context of two large and several smaller excavations lot of time and energy into finding this treasure. He told this story too often tourists in the context of island tours, but he had to search for the treasure many years ago abandoned.

It also states, not least by Grimshaw's stories, on the island haunted the mind of a certain Mary Best, an Englishwoman who lived around 1910 on the island.

René Antoine Lafortune, adopted son of Grimshaw and temporarily also located on the island, at the beginning of the 2000s, died of cancer, and was buried on Mahé.

Brendon Grimshaw died in July 2012, at the age of 87 years, in Victoria on the main island of Mahé.

Gallery

View of the island Long Iceland