During the storm on January 19, 1609, the British merchant ship "Ascension" under the command of Captain Alexander Sharp, having lost contact with the rest of the fleet, docked near an unknown, unspoiled island in the Indian Ocean. On board was a John Jurdain, an agent for the East India Company. He wrote an enthusiastic account, the first known description of the Seychelles archipelago:
"This is a great place to replenish wood and water," he wrote. There are coconuts here that no one has seen before, fish and birds that are not afraid of people because it seems that there was no one before us. "
For the next 133 years, the world forgot about this place.
In 1742, Bertrand Francois Mahe Labourdonnais, the administrator of Mauritius, sent Lazar'ea Picault at the head of a French expedition to map the islands northeast of Madagascar in more detail. On November 21, 1742 the ships "Elisabeth" and "Charles" dropped anchors on the west coast of the largest of the islands, opening up a land of plenty
