Île Desroches or Desroches Island is the main island of the Amirante Islands

Amirante Islands

The Amirante Islands , a group of coral islands and atolls, belong to the Outer Islands of the Seychelles. They stretch about 155 km from the African Banks in the north to Île Desnœufs in the south, all on the shallow Amirantes Bank , except the main island Île Desroches in...

, part of the Outer Islands

Outer Islands (Seychelles)

The Outer Islands or Coralline Seychelles is a collective term for those islands of the Seychelles that are not on the shallow Seychelles Bank which defines the location of the Inner Islands. They are located at distances of 230 to 1150 km from the main Seychelles island of Mahé, and are all...

 of the Seychelles

Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....

. It is located 230 km southwest of Mahé

Mahé, Seychelles

Mahé is the largest island of the Seychelles, lying in the north east of the nation. The population of Mahé is 80,000. It contains the capital city of Victoria and accommodates 90% of the country's total population...

, the Seychelles' main island. It is 6.2 km long and has a land area of 3.24 km². Along its circumference of 15 km is a beach of fine sand.

History

Desroches was named by Chevalier de Roslan, commander of the ship L'Heure du Berger, after the Chevalier des Roches, the Governor of Mauritius

Mauritius

Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...

 (then Île de France) and Réunion

Réunion

Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...

 (then Bourbon) from 1767 to 1772.
It was explored by the Chevalier de la Billioère in 1771. The British had originally named it Wood Island because of its dense tree vegetation. The island was an important producer of copra

Copra

Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...

.

Along with the remaining Amirante Islands, Desroches had been a part of the Seychelles since it became a separate colony in 1909. On November 8, 1965, the United Kingdom split Desroches from the Seychelles to become part of the newly created British Indian Ocean Territory

British Indian Ocean Territory

The British Indian Ocean Territory or Chagos Islands is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Africa and Indonesia...

 together with Farquhar

Farquhar Atoll

The Farquhar Atoll is part of the Farquhar Group of islands in the Seychelles that are part of the Outer Islands. From 1965 to the independence of the Seychelles in 1976, they were a part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The atoll is located at . The total area of the atoll, including the...

, Aldabra

Aldabra

Aldabra, the world's second largest coral atoll, is in the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean that form part of the Seychelles. Uninhabited and extremely isolated, Aldabra is virtually untouched by humans, has distinctive island fauna including the Aldabra Giant Tortoise, and is...

 and the Chagos Archipelago

Chagos Archipelago

The Chagos Archipelago , is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean; situated some due south of the Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands are the southernmost archipelago of the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge a long submarine mountain range...

, but returned it to the Seychelles

Seychelles

Seychelles , officially the Republic of Seychelles , is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar....

 with the first two. The purpose was to allow the construction of military facilities for the mutual benefit of the United Kingdom and the United States. On June 23, 1976, Desroches was returned to Seychelles as a result of it attaining independence.

Geography

Desroches has a population of about 50, a settlement in the middle of the northwestern shore (looking to the lagoon), a small luxury hotel with 20 rooms in the south (Desroches Island Resort), built in 1988 and a paved airstrip 1372 m long in the southern part. It is located 36 km east of the Amirantes Bank, and separated from it by water over 1300 meters deep. It lies on the southern edge of a reef of atoll character. At the northern edge of the atoll are the Shark Rocks, with least depths between 3 and 6 meters. There is a lighthouse

Lighthouse

A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

on the northeast end of the Desroches Island. The island is fringed by a drying reef which extends 1.6 km offshore from the northeastern extremity and 0.8 km from the southwestern extremity. The island is low and is covered with coconut palms and tall hardwood trees. A deep channel, about 1.6 km wide, leads into the lagoon. The least depth in the channel is 18.3 m, and it crosses the atoll in a position about 11 km northwest of Desroches.

External links

• An Article on the Desroches Island Resort - a Hideaways article about the one resort at Desroches.