Known on old maps as the Islas de los Manglares (Mangrove Islands), the islands are located in the Caribbean about fifty miles off the coast of Nicaragua, and are under Nicaraguan sovereignty. Like its antipode, this archipelago is made up of two small islands strung together by white coral and covered with coconut palms. In this case, too, the northern island is the smaller one, and is inhabited only by a few families of fishermen. The southern island, bigger and much more densely populated, had a large copra industry that was completely destroyed by Hurricane Joan in 1988. Its inhabitants, who come from many racial backgrounds, have developed a culture that mixes African-American, Latin and English elements. They speak Spanish and English interchangeably, and some of their customs are similar to those of the Jamaican world. The music is reggae and their drink for big nights is rum. Life goes along peacefully, without the tensions that have been a feature of Central American for so many years. The climate, vegetation and landscape are those typical of Caribbean islands. Palm trees and mangroves, white beaches, turquoise waters and an extraordinary richness of marine life. Currently, after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Joan, lobster fishing and a budding tourist industry are the principal economic resources of the islands. These islands bear a truly remarkable resemblance to their antipode, the Cocos Islands. This is true not only in their geographic configuration - a large southern island and a smaller one to the north - but in the mythic stories which arose in these regions, despite their remoteness from each other, surrounding the plants that gave their names to the islands.