ÃŽle aux Fouquets (also known as ÃŽle au Phare, Lighthouse Island) is an island off the south-east coast of
Mauritius.
The island is of pure coral origin and has had Islet National Park status since June 5, 2004.
It is located about five kilometers off the south-eastern coast in the vicinity of the islands of Ilot Vacoas and
ÃŽle de la Passe. South of the islands is the only opening in the coral reef through which larger ships can pass. The size of the ÃŽle aux Fouquets is 2.49 hectares. According to the German zoologist
Karl August Möbius, the name of the island goes back to a species of
tern that bred in caves there and was called fouquet by the fishermen.
Around 1694, refugee
Huguenots lived for a few years on the ÃŽle aux Fouquets under the direction of the Frenchman
François Leguat
François Leguat (1637/1639 – September 1735) was a French explorer and naturalist. He was one of a small group of male French Protestant refugees who in 1691 settled on the then uninhabited island of Rodrigues in the western Indian Ocean. T ...
. They had previously tried to establish a Protestant republic called Eden on the island of
Rodrigues
Rodrigues (french: Île Rodrigues, link=yes ; Creole: ) is a autonomous outer island of the Republic of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, about east of Mauritius. It is part of the Mascarene Islands, which include Mauritius and Réunion. Rodr ...
, 580 kilometers to the east. However, they broke off the project on the quite fertile island out of loneliness and decided to sail to Mauritius on a self-built barge without anchor and compass. Having safely arrived there, for unknown reasons they came into conflict with the Dutch governor, who banished them to the treeless ÃŽle aux Fouquets. Only years later were the men taken from there to the island of
Java.
In 1810, not far from the ÃŽle aux Fouquets, the naval
battle of Grand Port took place, which the French won. A good fifty years later, long after they had conquered Mauritius, the British erected a lighthouse on the island. The building from 1864 is now a ruin but is a listed building.
The island offers a good view of the surrounding islands, the coast and the prominent
Lion Mountain.
See also
*
Geography of Mauritius
Mauritius is an island of Africa's southeast coast located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. It is geologically located within the Somali plate.
Statistics
Area (includes Agaléga, Cargados Carajos (Saint Brandon), and Rodrigues):
''tot ...
References
{{Mauritius territories
Uninhabited islands of Mauritius