Beautiful weather has returned to Chagos. Yesterday Gromit caught yet another load of fish. We went out too, but caught nothing—indeed we lost a lure after hooking a large fish that we think was then

eaten by a shark, together with our hook! But Gromit suggested a barbeque on the beach in the afternoon, they providing the fish and we and Smoke the trimmings. Shortly afterwards the authorities arrived

in the form of the British Indian Ocean Territories fisheries vessel, and anchored some way away. So we checked whether the rules allowed a fire on shore—seemed ok, no reference to it. Then Michael on Gromit

had the truly inspired idea of inviting the crew of the BIOT vessel to the BBQ---and her master accepted the invitation on behalf of himself and a couple of his officers. Inspired—yes. They came over to the beach in

their big launch (plus a couple of crew to drive them) and brought loads of steak, chicken, beer and.......about 10 litres of chocolate ice cream in a cool box packed with ice. For us here, having a diet heavy with

fish since arrival, the sight of delicious fillet steak grilled was....irresistible!! I limited myself to three---and then enjoyed the ice cream. The BIOT people were very pleasant and helpful—and we learnt a lot about Chagos,

its history and wildlife

Another nice day today---spent a lot of time snorkelling on various coral reefs—some lovely coral and a lot of fish life on one particular reef.

We’ll stay a while longer.