Europa Island

Europa Island lies in the southern Mozambique Channel, a ring of dry forest and dunes around a shallow lagoon fringed with mangroves. Its beaches are one of the largest green turtle nesting grounds in the Indian Ocean, and on summer nights the females come ashore by the thousand. Great and lesser frigatebirds and red-footed boobies nest in the forest, and goats left by settlers still run loose. The ruins of a short-lived colonists' camp lie near the landing. A weather station and a military detachment are the only residents, and visits need a permit.