I was looking at my server logs the other day, and noticed that the top search phrases that led people to my site are “Greenland” and “Diego Garcia”. As far as I can tell, this is because images from this site come in near the top of the list when doing a Google Image Search for these terms. There’s even an image of (a somewhat younger) thedude himself near the top spot. Ha!

Google image search for “Greenland”, “Diego Garcia”.

By the way, for some inexplicable reason, the number three search phrase is “chuckie”.

A reader who saw one of my entries about Diego Garcia suggested I take a look at an award-winning story which details the despicable treatment forced upon the 2,000 original inhabitants of Diego Garcia. The fact that there were any inhabitants other than the workers on the copra plantation came as a shock to me. Although I was never actually told this by anyone of authority on the island, it was “common knowledge” that the island had no indigenous population.

Eventually, I read about this shameful story at various Internet sites, but this video offers much more detail about the horrible treatment endured by the original inhabitants of this beautiful island. I found the video quite disturbing. I wonder how I would have felt about going if I had known this story in advance.

I was looking through my old blog entries today and discovered that the good folks at Google Earth have added high-resolution images of Diego Garcia. Check it out! Have a look around – you can clearly see the well-stocked ships in the lagoon, B-52’s on the tarmac, the (nuclear?) weapons storage bunkers and if you click this link, you will fly directly to the barracks I lived in for a year. I was on the lagoon side – as you can see, just a few feet from the Indian Ocean. I fell asleep to the sound of gentle ocean waves every night. Fantastic!

I’ll let you know when they finally add high-resolution imagery of Thule, Greenland.

I ran across these images while scanning Greenland photos and just had to put them on the blog. The contrast is nice. These images of me and my friends lounging in the Indian Ocean may give you some idea why I chose to spend a year in Diego Garcia after my 17 months in Greenland.

UPDATE: Google Earth does not seem to know about Diego Garcia, but I do. The resolution of the satellite imagery in the middle of the Indian Ocean is very poor, but this Google placemark does at least give you a sense of the location of this remote U.S. military base.

One more thing. I found this eerie recording of last year’s 9.3 earthquake. (3.2 megabyte mp3 file.) It was “captured by underwater microphones located in Diego Garcia, more than 1,700 miles from the epicenter.” Listening to it with headphones sent a chill up my spine. Additional info about the recording can be found at the Columbia University web site.

Diego Garcia seems to have escaped unscathed. Tsunami’s are something we talked about on the island whenever the earth shook. We always joked that a 9.0 earthquake had just occurred off the coast of Sumatra and laughed nervously – awaiting a huge wave that thankfully never came. Diego Garcia has an average elevation of four feet. The thousands of U.S. military and Philippine workers who live there are very lucky.

We caught these beauties while fishing in Diego Garcia. It was not uncommon to catch hundreds of pounds of yellow fin, barracuda and tuna – as well as the occasional shark or sail fish – in just a few hours on the Indian Ocean. The majority of the catch always went to the Philippine workforce on the island – we could never eat all of one day’s catch ourselves.

This shot was taken on board the American Cormorant – one of a dozen or so “Maritime preposition ships” permanently stationed in the lagoon. This ship, affectionately known as “Big Red” for obvious reasons, had the unique ability of submerging itself to a depth sufficient to off-load the smaller boats sitting on its deck.

I was on board to install a ship-to-shore communications antenna for my part-time employer – Cable and Wireless, Diego Garcia. I really wish I had taken more pictures of the work I did, because it involved climbing to the top of the tallest mast on the ship with a 10 foot antenna and a heavy coaxial cable in one hand. I suppose I must have been wearing some sort of safety gear, but I don’t remember . I installed these antennas on several of the ships stationed here.

I’m working at home today. We’re having the tub refinished, (results) and someone needs to be here. Of course this is cool, because it gives me a moment to post another image from my past.

I know you’re all dying to see a picture from my year in Diego Garcia. I believe this was taken in 1987. Yup – that’s me! Thin AND tan – a combination that you are not likely to see again any time soon, because – as many of you already know – I hate the sun.