Fanning Island is a picturesque place in the middle of nowhere.
It is one of 33 islands (many uninhabited) that collectively constitute Kiribati, a little-known nation in the middle of the Pacific near the intersection of the international dateline and the Equator. Fanning Island is so far removed from anywhere that even the capital of Kiribati is 2,000 miles away. The best know - at least by name - island in Kiribati is "Christmas" Island, its actual name being Kiritimati Island.
Fanning Island comes over the horizon quickly since it's highest point is 10 feet above sea level.
Although there is little of it above water, Fanning Island rises so steeply from the ocean floor thousands of feet below that ROTTERDAM could not anchor outside the atoll. Since the ship was much too big to fit through the passage into the atoll it had the drift, using its engines to keep it in a favorable location for running tenders to and from the shore.
Functionality trumps comfort in the tenders. Each tender can hold as many as 150 people packed tightly together on hard plastic benches. They do not fill the tenders to capacity when shuttling passengers ashore, but at three degrees above the equator, the tender has the ambiance of a packed NYC bus with a broken air conditioner during a heat wave. As for the paddle in the picture, each tender has two but I can only theorize why given the size of the tender.
The ROTTERDAM is the only cruise ship to visit the island and has been there only twice before in the last year. While our arrival, or more accurately the arrival of our wallets, was much anticipated by inhabitants who live in a generally subsistence level economy, there was little forwardness for a handout. In other words, the inhabitants worked hard to separate us from our money with the operant word being "worked".
Buckets were present in front of people singing, dancing or dressed as warriors and in classrooms and by displays of sand crabs. We were told that while people appreciated being given a dollar if you took their picture it was not demanded. Near the pier a wide variety of handmade souvenirs were being sold.
For $5 you could get your passport stamped. Even the post office had set up a booth on the beach, selling postcards and stamps.
Although Kiribati mail is notoriously slow, the postcards we sent may have gotten a helping hand. Pam spotted a bin label for mail to the United States. We suspect that mail is now aboard ROTTERDAM. [NOTE: This theory proved completely false - the postcards arrived in July.]
The two exports of the island are copra (coconuts) and dried seaweed.
In addition to tourists, ROTTERDAM brought to the island a stack of donated materials.
The emphasis was on things that would not add to the pollution of the island. Even the cardboard boxes would be recycled by the inhabitants. Refreshingly, unlike the primitive San Blas Islands off Panama we visited two years ago, trash is not indiscriminately thrown into the water making the shoreline filthy. A positive sign - outside every classroom at the elementary school were containers for recycling.
After about three hours of sightseeing under a hot tropical sun with only the water we brought ashore and no restroom facilities other than the bushes we queued up to return to the ship.
While awaiting our turn to board a tender, Pam took advantage of one more photo opportunity.
Once all passengers were accounted for and the last tender was back aboard, ROTTERDAM shaped a course for Kiritimati (Christmas) Island. We will arrive there about midnight, standing off the island only long enough to transfer ashore a passenger who needs to be hospitalized. This was announced before we reached Fanning Island and shortened our stay there by two hours.
Christmas card 2012?
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