Bouvet Island (Norwegian Bouvetøya) is
an uninhabited sub-antarctic volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, south-southwest of the
Cape of Good Hope (South Africa).
Geography
Bouvet Island is located at 54°26′ S
3°24′ E (http://kvaleberg.com/pac/index.php/Special:Mapsources/54_26_S_3_24_E__1000000). It is
58.5 km² large and almost entirely covered by glaciers. It has no ports or harbors, only offshore anchorages, and is difficult to approach.
The glaciers form a thick ice layer falling in high cliffs into the sea or onto the black beaches of volcanic sand. Also, the 29.6 km of coastline are often
surrounded by an ice pack. The highest point on the island is called Olavtoppen and peaks to 780 m above sea level.
Bouvet Island is one of the most remote island in the world, only Pitcairn Islands are more remote. The nearest land is Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, over 1,600 km away to the south.
History
Bouvet Island was discovered on January 1, 1739 by Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier, who commanded the French ships Aigle and Marie. However, the island's position was not accurately fixed and Bouvet
did not circumnavigate his discovery, so it remained unclear whether it was an island or part of a continent.
The island was not sighted again until 1808, when it was spotted by one Lindsay, who was
the captain of a whaler. Though he didn't land, he was the first to correctly fix the island's position. The first successful
landfall dates to 1822, when a captain Morrell landed, hunting for seals. In 1825, one captain Norris
landed on the island, named it Liverpool Island and claimed it for the British Crown. In 1898, the German Valdivia expedition of Carl Chun visited the island,
but didn't land. The first extended stay on the island was in 1927, when a Norwegian crew stayed for about a month; this is the basis for the territorial claim by
Norway, who have named the island Bouvetøya (Bouvet Island in Norwegian). The UK waived
its claim in favor of Norway the following year.
In 1971, Bouvet Island and the adjacent territorial waters were designated a nature
reserve. The island remains uninhabited, although an automated weather station was set up there in 1977 by the Norwegians.
On September 22, 1979, satellites
detected a flash of light (which was later interpreted as having been caused by a nuclear bomb explosion) in a stretch of the southern Indian Ocean between Bouvet Island and Prince Edward Islands. This detonation, since dubbed the Vela Incident, scattered radioactive debris over a wide area (it was detected by
scientists in the Australian Antarctic
Territory). No country has ever admitted responsibility for the test, though it is widely believed to have been carried out
by South Africa or Israel.
Despite being uninhabited, Bouvet Island has the Internet country code top-level
domain (ccTLD) .no (.bv is allocated but not used (http://www.norid.no/domenenavnbaser/bv-sj.html)). A handful of amateur radio expeditions have gone to this remote location. The callsign used here begins with 3Y. In case you need to reset your watch on arrival, Bouvet Island falls within the
UTC Z time zone. For the more precise Atlantic/St_Helena is the zone used
in the time zone database.
Bouvet in Literature
Bouvet, redundantly called "Bouvetøya Island," was the setting of the 2004 movie
Alien vs. Predator. It also figured prominently in the book, "A
Grue Of Ice".
External link
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