Seychelles - Cosmoledo Atoll - Astove Island

Astove Island is 38 km SSE of Cosmoledo Atoll, located at (10°06S, 47°45E). It is a raised atoll with just one island forming a nearly closed ring of land around a shallow lagoon with a maximum depth of 3 meters, leaving a passage only in the southwest. The atoll measures 4.5 km north to south and is 2 km wide. The land area is 4.96 km2, and the total area including the lagoon 9,5 km2. The only settlement, on the western coast, has been abandoned since the 1980s. There is a grass airstrip on the north east point of the island. There are remnants of a former plantation of coconuts and sisal. In places, it is difficult to penetrate to the lagoon through the mass of pemphis and bwa matlo scrub. Dunes of up to 18 metres line the windswept eastern rim of the atoll, also covered mainly in bwa matlo. Mangroves line much of the southern half of the lagoon rim. The lagoon is extremely shallow. The near-vertical drop-off from the outer reef edge is excellent for diving.

The atoll hosts four species of landbirds: Madagascar White-eye, Souimanga Sunbird race buchenorum, Madagascar Cisticola and Pied Crow. There are few seabirds, probably due to the presence of rats and feral pigs, left behind when the settlement was abandoned.

Also, unlike the other two atolls of the group, Aldabra and Cosmoledo, there are no predator-free islets (except for a few small sandbanks close to the lagoon entrance). At the lagoon, Caspian Tern will often be seen but it is not known whether or not they ever breed on the sandbanks, where Sooty Terns and Black-naped Terns have also been reported. Green turtles remain very common here despite years of exploitation and remarkably high numbers will be seen on dives or from tender trips to the lagoon entrance close to high tide.
Wikipedia - Astove Island