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| Yemen's Socotra Island |
Yes, it is true: There are indeed some lonely islands out there in the wide open spaces of our huge oceans where the unwanted Virus has not encroached into their communities. And yes, there are several island locations where visitors and tourists have been inadvertently caught by the enactment of local laws and regulations and they are therefore under lockdown for a period of time. In our program today, we present the story of two or three locations where this has happened.
The very popular 29 year old TV and travel hostess from Poland, Eva Zu Beck, was suddenly and unexpectedly caught in a virus lockdown situation on the island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Yemen. She travelled to Socotra for an unpublicized marathon run, expecting to stay no more than two weeks.
Socotra is an isolated, windswept mountainous island, 80 miles by 30 miles, which is largely inaccessible from anywhere. The local coastal people are mainly fisher families, and the inland people are generally semi-nomadic animal herders.
The citizens of Socotra trace their ancestry back to early settlers from Europe and Arabia, and they speak their own form of a pre-Arabic language. The Nestorian version of early Christianity was introduced into Socotra in the year 535, though these days they worship according to Moslem rites. Over the years this island has been occupied by Portugal, England, Germany and Arabia.
One third of the plant life on Socotra is not found anywhere else on Earth; there are more unique forms of life on this island than what the famous English naturalist Charles Darwin discovered in his historic visit to the Galapagos Islands. Among the strange types of trees growing on Socotra is the strange umbrella-shaped Dragon's Blood Tree, the Elephants Leg Tree, and the so-called Floating Tree.
Travel specialist Eva Zu Beck arrived in Soctra on a specially chartered flight from Cairo Egypt with forty other marathon runners on March 11 (2020). They spent their time in preparation, and yes, they did run their planned marathon race.
Just before their scheduled time to leave the island, the local government announced the closure of all travel into Socotra as a precaution against the Virus, and they asked all tourists to leave as soon as possible. Eva, together with four others, decided to remain on the island; it was safer to remain there than to return to Virus ridden Europe.
On a daily basis she sent out her vlogs for dissemination by youtube, radio and TV. She showed her local adventures; mountaineering, boating, camping, hunting for seafood, and her brief hospitalization to due to a hiking fall. Finally, after an unintended two month stay, Eva Zu Beck was evacuated on a cargo ship, back to the delight of her one million avid followers.
The first application of wireless communication in the environs of Socotra occurred more than a hundred years ago, in the year 1915. The French cargo/passenger liner Euphrate, callsign FNE, was wrecked off the east coast of Socrota, and as a result of emergency wireless signals, two nearby ships responded.
Interestingly, in the same year 1915, an English ship with the same name, Socotra, was wrecked off the French Coast at Boulogne. A disaster message from the Marconi wireless equipment aboard the ship, callsign MSJ, also brought others to the rescue.
It is known that there is a shortwave transmitter in the island capital of Socotra (Hadibu) for communication with the homeland Yemen; and it is known also that there is a radio broadcasting station in Hadibu which provides entertainment programming and information. The island governor sometimes makes a broadcast on important occasions. However, nothing more is known about their radio broadcasting scene, and a search of the city via Google Earth shows no radio towers anywhere. It is probable that their local radio broadcasting station is an FM operation.
(AWR-Wavescan/NWS 592)
(photo-ME Monitor)