Ben landed in Tunisia,which is in Africa. But you are right - Charlotte was in Tunisia when she looked at the Dharma-collared polar bear skeleton.

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`Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!'

-- Alice, from “Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland”

I think the island is going to be physically moved and not moved through time. If the island moves through time, the same problem will keep happening. The island will be in the same spot at a different time. If it is the future, Widmore would make sure someone would use the previous info on the island to find it. If it is the past, Widmore would figure where it is eventually just like he found it now. Physically moving it would mean guaranteed safety cause no one would know where it is.

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When will I learn? The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV!

I tend to agree, and I don't think it will be the first time the island has been moved to hide it either. At the end of 'The Shape of Things to Come' Widmore says to Ben - "I know everything you have, you took from me.....that islands mine, it always was and it will be again" this makes me think that Widmore once knew the exact location of the island and how to get there UNTIL it was moved, and I'd hazard a guess that it was Ben who moved it.

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Go then, there are other worlds than this.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's not the island itself that is going to be moved (again?), but the route to the island. It requires a very specific heading (325) to get to and from the island. Well, ok, we only know that it's require to get away from the island, but it makes sense that there would have to be a specific heading to get to the island.
If they change the route to get to the island, it would be the same as moving it wouldn't it? Plus, if there is anything in the ledger about the location of the island, it would still apply. Which is why Widmore still wanted the ledger even though the island has been moved several times.

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I don't think so. It seems that the only safe ways is either heading on the 305 bearing to the island and 325 from the island. But the doctor's body washed up on shore and floating dead bodies can not follow any bearings. Any other bearing puts you at a different time on the island (I assume because the doctor washed up prior to dying on the freighter) But what is to stop Widmore from hiring a lot of people and send them at different bearings until they get it right? Seems too easy for Widmore to get back to the island.

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When will I learn? The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV!

Well, coming and going to and from the island on the wrong bearing seems to have some unpleasant consequences. Such as uncontrolled time-jumping and death. Maybe the doctor was able to float to the island because he was already dead, and maybe that's why he arrived before he left. because his dead body did a little time jumping while it was floating in.
I don't know, I'm just making guesses

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The Lost writers have a lot of explaining to do before this season wraps up! Good thing we still have several hours left to get to the bottom of this "move the island" thing. The easiest thing to do would be, as some mentioned above, to change the bearing at which one reaches the island. This could be acheived by sheilding or amplifying the EM field around the island either at some central location or at the individual stations.

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I have to ask...was that a "Day of the Tentacle" reference with the hamsters?

This is my theory about "move the island".

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"Jesus Christ...is not a weapon"

Put this in your pocket and sit on it for a minute. If they physically move the island, whether it's some David Copperfield trick or whatnot, think about the Slave ship in the middle of the island. What if in the past they moved the island and the ship just so happened to be located where the island moved to, so the island filled in around the ship - explaining how there is a ship in the middle of the island.

Kyle

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