Christmas Island Kiribati Pacific

Susan watching coconuts dry

Susan on the Beach with the Aurora

Roy at a Fale

                                           Christmas Island- Kiribati 16 March 2011

(Latitude: 1 52’North   Longitude: 157 25’ West)

(Time -10 GMT)

Christmas Island is a tick in the box of, “things to do today”. The island is in the shape of a crab claw with a town called London on one tip and Paris on the other. I could not mistake Paris as it had a radio mast; that perhaps looks like the Eiffel Tower. Christmas Island is an atoll island meaning that is it flat, flat, flat (10 ft over most of the island, 40ft overlooking the Bay of Wrecks). Over the years, the volcano has disappeared. A breeze and a high tide might obliterate the whole island. We questioned what happened following the recent Japanese earthquake and they reported, “Only a high tide”.

What a fiasco landing at Christmas Island, we needed to be tendered ashore in shallow water. The tender could only carry 15 people to keep the draught shallow but  the tender was usually meant to carry 90 people. When we got on the tender I asked for a return ticket to London. Fortunately, we got in line early enough to get tickets 61 and 62 or the 4^th tender ashore. As the first tender came ashore, it got stuck we came ashore number 3. Over 1,200 tickets were issued but only 740 came ashore. Of course there were those who insisted, “Well, We didn’t want to go, anyway”. In the scheme of things, we were lucky to have come ashore.

Christmas Island from the ship looked adorable with blue seas, white beaches and swaying palm trees. However, we find that we need to keep an open mind as when we got ashore the white beaches are strewn with shards of coral the size of footballs and the ground around the palm trees are littered with piles of coconuts and trash. There are no roads but crushed coral paths, discarded cars and trucks litter the front yards. Life on Christmas Island is simple; it seems there is no need for heat only for cooking. Dwellings are simple, raised platforms with a roof and no walls; woven matting is used for beds. In fact we found a shop with a bed in the store front. Privacy and burglary do not seem to be an issue

Pigs are tethered in the yard, chickens pervade the area and water is collected in huge tanks, the origins of which are doubtful. It seems that their needs for food, water and shelter are met but unfortunately not their civic pride. The crushed coral roads are kept clear for the big assed trucks that are parked outside their very simple shacks.

As we wandered along the coral strewn shoreline watching the red crabs (quite small, we thought that there were some monsters) scurry away, we wondered whether we might glow in the dark after we left if we were to pick up a shell or coral memento as 50 years ago the British and Americans conducted thermonuclear experiments, albeit 30 or 40 miles from the island.

We are glad that we had the opportunity to visit the island, when hundreds of our fellow passengers were denied, but as I said at the beginning, it turned out to be, a tick in the box of, “things to do today”. I am not happy to disparage the Island because it has a charm all of its own, however, it has taught me a lot about the contentment in other people’s lives, what they may expect and my perception of Happiness.

We are now heading for Hawaii on Saturday 19^th and we will leave the ship and rejoin in San Francisco. We will stay on Waikiki beach for one night then we will fly to San Francisco the next day to be with our son and daughter-in-law for the following few days until we return to the Aurora in San Francisco, then we will be heading for Acapulco in Mexico. While in Honolulu we plan on visiting the Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor.

Susan watching coconuts dry

Christmas Island from the Aurora

Roy with Fale

Susan on the beach with the Aurora

Archaeological evidence suggests that Christmas Island had been settled in very much earlier times but it was Captain Cook who came to the island on Christmas Eve of 1777 in HMS Resolution during his third voyage of exploration that he named it Christmas Island and he was not impressed. Christmas Island adopted the name Kiritimati (pronounced kee-rees-mass where the “”ti” is pronounced as “s”), the Gilbertese spelling of Christmas.

At least 18 species of tropical seabirds breed on the island and up to 6 million birds can be seen during the breeding season. This has been happening for many years and there was guano mining (40ft of bird droppings) going on at one time. Father Rougier, a French Roman Catholic priest, leased the island from 1917 to 1939. This imposing, bearded figure not only planted 800,000 coconut trees, but also founded Londres (now called London) as a port to export copra (dried coconut meat). It was during his time as the uncrowned king of Christmas Island that the island was incorporated into the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony under the British administration.

On 15 May 1957, the British government detonated the first of a series of nuclear tests in the atmosphere about 35 miles south of Christmas Island. The United States carried out further tests in 1962, and on both occasions more than 3,000 personnel were stationed on the island. Extensive tests in the 1960 and 1970 revealed no abnormal radioactive levels and life for the island’s inhabitants continued as normal. There are unfortunate reminders as old trucks and rusting piles of military hardware can still be seen of the British and American presence on the island.

Independence was achieved in 1979 and the Gilbert Islands became the Republic of Kiribati, a Micronesian culture, within the British Commonwealth. There are just over 5,000 inhabitants. There is no television station at present.

Kiritimati is as far (2,050 miles) from Bairiki, the capital of kiribati on Trawa Atoll, as Southampton is from Cyprus. The International Date Line runs through this widely scattered country, but everywhere is on the same day to save confusion (take a look at the map).