Morphology and marine ecology of Boudeuse, Amirantes, Seychelles

The Amirantes group, Seychelles, comprises 24 islands and islets lying between 5 and 6 south of the equator on the Amirantes Bank, western Indian Ocean. The group extends over a distance of 138 km, from African Banks in the north to Desnoeufs in the south. The islands were discovered by the Portuguese navigator Vasco de Gama on his second voyage to India in 1502, soon after acceding to the rank of Admiral, and the islands were subsequently named Ilhas do Almirante or Admiral's Islands. Boudeuse is one of the two sand cays which rise up from the Banc de la Boudeuse, approximately 60 km south-west of Poivre atoll. The other sand cay, Etoile, lies 30 km north-east of Boudeuse. The two islands are believed to have been named after the two ships of Bougainville's circumnavigation (1766 - 1769), being explored by the Chavalier du Roslan in 1771 (Lionnet, 1970). The difficulty of landing in even calm weather, as noted by H.M.S. Alert in 1882 (Coppinger, 1885), and the lack of commercially viable guano deposits, have meant that Boudeuse has never been permanently inhabited.