Subject: Re: An Indian Ocean high seas enclave
Date: Dec 10, 2001 @ 11:57
Author: acroorca2002 ("acroorca2002" <orc@...>)
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--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., granthutchison@c... wrote:
> Attached is an EEZ rendering of the Indian Ocean north-east of Madagascar,
> with one nice high seas enclave I'm prepared to hang my hat on, and another
> tiny little thing I really wouldn't swear to at all.
>
> The "big" enclave is defined by the 200nm limits of:
> Northwest - Farquhar Atoll (Seychelles)
> Northeast - Agalega Islands (Mauritius)
> South - Ile Tromelin (France, administered by Reunion)
> All of these islands are visible on my map, though Tromelin is just a pixel.
> The enclave's size can be judged by the fact that the image is rendered at
> one pixel per minute of arc; so the centre of the enclave (12 28 S 53 43 E)
> is ~10nm outside the various bounding EEZs.
> Now I know it's there, I can see a hint of this enclave on our favourite
> maritime boundary map (http://www.maritimeboundaries.com): the hypothetical
> equidistant lines don't meet up in this area, leaving a little blur of 200nm
> limits. This looks slightly elongated towards Madagascar compared to my
> version, and I could certainly buy that - the distance from Farquhar to
> Tromelin by my calculations is 390nm, so slight differences between reality
> and the map could potentially lengthen that end of the enclave quite markedly.
> The other little patch of blue is bounded by Tromelin, Agalega and another
> little-known Mauritian dependency, the Cargados Carajos / St Brandon Shoals.
> (Despite the name, these do support a population, though I think it's largely
> seasonal.) This possible enclave is only a couple of nautical miles across,
> so it falls within the demonstrated error of my mapping program, and I ain't
> going to vouch for it.
>
> I have a gorgeous Admiralty Chart of Cargados Carajos, BTW: I'm sitting
> smiling at it as I type.