Republic of Kiribati, January 2002

In September of 1704 Alexander Selkirk was marooned on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, four hundred miles west of Valparaiso, Chile.

 It was this rather trivial event that inspired Daniel Defoe to pen his legendary Robinson Crusoe, and it was this event that launched a hundred thousand daydreams of passing stress-free days on an uninhabited tropical paradise in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The colorful adventures of the fictitious Mr. Crusoe, and many like his, still stir me to seek out these remote havens unmarred by humanity so that I may, however briefly, experience what Alexander Selkirk must have experienced. 

Untouched

View of the Sea

I recently found one such place: Fanning Island. Fanning Island ("Tabuaeran" to the handful of indigenous folks who permanently languish about on this speck of sand) sits very quietly about 1200 miles south of Hawaii in the republic of Kiribati. Completely devoid of electricity, running water, automobiles and civilized structures, this place is easily one of the most remote spots on the planet. Certainly the most remote that I've ever visited. A few adventurous yachties pop in every year on their way between Hawaii and Tahiti, but the bulk of lucky visitors alight upon her shores as part of the Norwegian Star's seven day Hawaiian cruise. While we aren't much into the cruise thing, this 5-hour stop on Fanning was the highlight of our Hawaiian sailing. Most of these zinc-oxide smudged walking hostess snack cakes that elect to stretch their pallid and misshapen legs on Fanning Island spend a leisurely afternoon within 20 feet of the dock throwing elbows over the stale fly-ridden cruise barbeque.

But for those very few that are more inclined to adventure, there are brand new beach cruisers available to explore the untamed interior of the island. Naturally, we couldn't resist.

In the three hours that we peddled along the virginal sand paths through the plentiful palm forests of Fanning, we ran into a grand total of four sunburned tourist and about 20 locals. That's it. The locals dressed their children in colorful festival garb and wooed the rare biker with fresh coconut water. They sold the coconuts for a dollar a piece, but it was happily clear that these people had no concept of money.

Fanning Estate

Pets? Dinner? Spouse?

On the lagoon side, the water is always shallow and very inviting. As the sun slowly addled our collective brains, Suzie and I would simply pull over and jump into the refreshing lagoon.

To say that we had the place to ourselves would be a laughable understatement. And a lie. You see, we were closely reconnoitered the entire afternoon by a more or less unremarkable, plain vanilla island mutt that we named "Biscuit" (just look at him - is there any other name?). Biscuit enjoyed our adventure (especially the slow tromps through the tropical shallows) nearly as much as we did. His was the one alliance that I truly regretted breaking on departure.

Biscuit

Because Fanning Island is a classic atoll, the land mass was rarely more than a few hundred yards wide, and we were assured that it was "impossible" to get lost on our little bike ride. Impossible is the wrong word. A shorter and more accurate term would have been: "possible" - and we demonstrated this with gusto. Apparently, no tourist had ever ventured as far inland as we had, so the proprietor of bikes did not think to warn us about the "Bridge of No Return" (pictured below). We should have known by the looks of the thing that it was time to turn around. Nonetheless, shortly after answering the three questions and crossing the bridge of peril, we wisely wandered off the path to forge a new route (to where? I dunno.) Alas, we found ourselves lost, hot, thirsty and in imminent need to return to the dock before the ship sailed off without us.  We were engaged in a true adventure at last. As the cocky, early 20th century polar explorer Vilhjálmur Stefansson said: "An adventure is really just a sign of incompetence. Every thing that you add to an explorer's heroism, you must subtract from his intelligence." Indeed, these words rung so true on that hot January day in the Republic of Kiribati. Our adventure was fuel by marked incompetence.

Suzie and Biscuit

"Must have lost 'em!"

Despite our naiveté, we managed to hack our way out of the steamy jungle only to find the path back to uncivilization.  With only minutes to spare,  we peddled at top speed and came sliding back to the dock just in time for a cool beer before catching the last tender to the Star. Damn.

Commercialism

Satellite Photo (Borrowed)

Fare Well!