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Less than a day after leaving Honolulu Harbor yesterday evening, Rapture was anchored off of Nihoa, the largest and highest of the NWHI, about 150 miles past Kaua'i. Its name means "toothed" or "serrated," and it looks like a jagged molar rising from the sea.
As we approach the 156-acre island, signs of its abundant wildlife began to appear: booby birds, then terns, then soaring high above the island, dozens of frigate birds. In the water schools of needlefish swim near the surface and small aku are jumping. Once the ship is anchored off the south side of the island, we notice a group of about 15 monk seals sunning themselves on the island's only beach? about thirty yards of sand on the west side of Adam's Bay. Another seal is swimming off the port side of the ship.
The island is high cliffs on the east, north, and west sides. 600-800 foot peaks to the east and west slope down to the rocky shoreline on the south. Rainwater has cut five ravines down the amphitheater. The island appears mostly brown, except for the yellow green leaves of loulu palms in two of the ravines. There are three known "seeps" (water seeping from the ground) on the island. The only other water source is from passing squalls and winter rains. It's been a dry summer.
A first priority is to get Beth Flint and Gordon Nishida of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service off the island, so the first zodiac leaves to pick them up. In rough weather it is too dangerous to attempt to get on and off the island. Luckily, the seas are calm. Beth and Gordon were dropped off twelve days ago by the Townsend Cromwell, which went ahead of the Rapture to do a tow-board survey of the NWHI-dragging a camera under the surface of the water to find the best dive sites for the fish, coral, invertebrates, and limu experts on board the Rapture.
Beth and Gordon have spent their 12-days on Nihoa surveying the animal and plant populations. Beth is a bird expert. One of her main concerns was the numbers of Nihoa Millerbirds - a small gray-brown and white warbler found only on this remote island. There are only 100-200 Nihoa Millerbirds in the world.
Gordon studies bugs. He said there are several found only on Nihoa, including a large orange and black spider, and a large cricket and katydid-the largest insects in the Hawaiian islands. Gordon set bug traps both day and night, since some bugs come out in the day and some in the night. He camped one night near one of the peaks and said it was spooky, with the wind blowing, the terns crying, and rocks falling.
The dive teams, who were out surveying populations of marine animals, were out this afternoon, to begin surveying the populations and assessing the condition of sealife around Nihoa. Our videographer Cal Hirai brought back some awesome footage of a monk seal playing at the sea bottom just below the ship. The seal was very curious, cruising right up to the camera and peering into it with its large eyes. He swam away a couple of times to chase off another seal, then returned to the camera.
At night the lights of the ship attract the fledgling Bulwer's Petrels which live in rock crevices and burrows on the island and they start crashing onto the deck. The crew gathers them up and puts them in boxes and buckets - 46 birds in all. Beth launches those that are willing and able to fly on their own back to the island. We'll take the rest back to the island tomorrow. The education and media team ('Aulani Wilhelm of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Mary Gullickson-Gray of the University of Hawai'i, Dennis Kawaharada of Kapi'olani CC, and video documentor Cal Hirai) plan to land tomorrow with Beth and Gordon to get a closer look at the Nihoa wildlife and visit some of the 88 archaeological sites on the island.
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