On this page:

Tapuaerangi (Fanning Island):

• Article by Butch
• N.Y. Times articles on the future of Fanning Island
• Fanning Island Photo Album (opens in its own page)

Destination Photo Albums (open in their own page):

• Town of Hilo, Hawai`i
• Town of Kona, Hawai`i
• North Side of Moloka`i
• Town of Lahaina, Maui
• Town of Kahului, Maui
• Kaua`i
• Tapuaerangi (Fanning Island)
• Ketchikan & Skagway, Alaska
• Glacier Bay, Alaska
• Juneau, Alaska
• SS Indy & MS Patriot
• Other Travels with The Music

In the Hawaiian language (olelo Hawai`i), an atoll is described as "ka mokupuni pa lahalaha" (island with an extended fence). Looking from afar, the coconut trees look like the extended fence surrounding the interior lagoon.

Tapuaerangi is a large atoll island belonging to the Emirate of Kiribati. It has a single passage to the interior lagoon. It is a beautiful isolated paradise near the equator that before the M/S Norwegian Star stopped here got a visit but once a year from a cargo ship.

Its people are Gilbert Islanders and are dark complected and friendly. When school is out, the people gather in groups in several places at the greeting area to sing and entertain the tourist visitors when they land on the island by tenders from the mother ship on Wednesdays.

Here is a warning, when buying the t-shirts make sure you buy a size larger than what you need. If you want to end up with a large, buy an extra-large, because it will shrink to a full size smaller. The t-shirts are not of the best quality on the island.

The culture is at a subsistence level where people grow their own food, catch fish for protein, etc. The money brought in by selling their t-shirts, shell lei, etc, helps them to get more simple conveniences like bicycles. They have no electricity. They live on breadfruit, coconut and fish. They live in thatched roof open houses. They mill the coconut trees into lumber when needed for building. It is common to find a person up a coconut tree singing or to see a person laying his nets for fish.

Some people have made the comment that it is a third-world country or 10th world economy. They can't believe that people still live that primitively. I would like to say that these people have no need for fast automobiles, or carpets that would get damp or mildewed. They have bicycles and weave their own mats from pandanus tree leaves (lauhala) and coconut fronds (launiu). If they need a basket, they simply weave it. They don't need a match to make fire; they make fire by rubbing two sticks together. They have all they need and they are happy. (There is a large passenger eating area near the landing and swimming area -- picnic benches and umbrellas. There are good toilet facilities built by NCL. Bike rentals -- $10.)

One should not drink the water on the island. It will give you a good "run" for your money. Food and water is provided by the ship. Other liquid refreshments are available from the ship at a charge. There is a large swimming area for all the passengers near the ship's tender landing. Beach chairs and towels are provided by the ship.

Tapuaerangi is a simple place with simple people uncluttered with the trappings of modern civilization that people think they need to survive in this world.

By any measure, Fanning Island is one of the most remote places on earth, an isolated speck in the vast South Pacific well over 1,000 miles south of Hawai`i and more than 500 miles north of Tahiti. Fanning is part of the Republic of Kiribati (formerly the Gilberts), and its capital, Tarawa, lies far to the west, more than 2,000 miles away, with nothing but open water in between. The 1,200 residents of Fanning (or it might be 1,600 or maybe 2,000; it keeps changing and no one has made an accurate count) exist amicably in the dreamy, time-honored fashion of South Pacific paradises. A handsome, brown-skinned people, they are polite, gentle and shy. They live in grass shacks, or, more accurately, shacks of coconut fronds and pandanus leaves. The traditional dress, for men and women, is a sarong. They live off the land and the sea: fish, coconuts, taro, pumpkin and papaya. They have no telephones, no running water, no electricity (and by extension, no computers, no television, no video games, no movies). A few enterprising inhabitants work for Tarawan seaweed and copra-harvesting companies. The average wage is $8 a month. Since 1914, when the German Navy destroyed a cable relay station that had been built by the British in 1902, contacts with the outside world have been limited to the three- or four-times-a-year cargo ships bringing rice, beer, flour, cooking oil, cotton fabric and a few other essentials, and to the occasional intrepid yachtsman. Or so it was before Norwegian Cruise Lines began making regular calls in December 2001. Today, while they are still polite, gentle and shy (well, maybe a little less shy), and while they have yet to encounter their first telephone, faucet or electrical outlet, the islanders have been introduced to ballpoints, wristwatches, ice, Super Glue, Palm Pilots, Frisbees and ice cream. Shorts and dresses now outnumber sarongs (but shoes have so far failed to catch on). Hamburgers, hot dogs and Cokes have been tried but found wanting.

Most important, the islanders have cheerfully, or at least politely, adapted to a weekly influx -- twice a week during the winter season -- of 2,000 N.C.L. passengers, mostly American, mostly in their 60's and older, who come swarming ashore swathed in tank tops, flip-flops, sunglasses and sunscreen. Most of these visitors don't know it, but they have seen Fanning Island before (the picturesque, palm-treed atoll served for years as the closing shot on ''Gilligan's Island''). Few of them, however, had ever heard of it until they looked at their Hawaiian cruise itineraries and saw to their surprise that they would spend four days at sea just to pass seven hours there. When they arrive, most of them look understandably bewildered. Why, after all, would N.C.L. expend almost 50,000 gallons of fuel, to say nothing of the several tons of on-board food, to get them to this far-off ribbon of sand and coral -- fewer than 1,500 feet wide at its broadest point and nowhere more than 10 feet above sea level -- without a single restaurant, theater or museum, to say nothing of espresso bars and Internet cafes? The reason is a world-class example of unintended consequences. In 1886, worried that Canadian vessels on the Great Lakes were encroaching on the business of United States-owned passenger ships, Congress passed the Passenger Services Act, which prohibits foreign ships from traveling between United States ports, unless they include at least one call in a foreign country. The statute is still with us, so if N.C.L. wants to cruise the Hawaiian Islands, it has to make at least one foreign call, and the nearest foreign country to Hawaii happens to be the Republic of Kiribati. And that is why the people of this once inaccessible, still-undeveloped little atoll now find themselves playing host to close to 200,000 day-trippers a year.

To its credit, N.C.L. is working hard to be a good neighbor. Its ship's officers meet regularly with the Island Council of Chiefs and Elders to head off potential problems. They are working with the council on educating the islanders, who have traditionally either burned or simply discarded their garbage, in safe ecological practices. They provide decently paid employment for 60 local people in construction and maintenance jobs at the N.C.L. compound. Their ship's medical teams treat injuries and even perform surgery ashore. (A boy who had a cast put on his arm -- something not seen there before -- was the talk of the island for several weeks.) They organized and supervised the renovation and expansion of the primary school, and crew members from the various ships donated their own money for supplies. In appreciation, the elders named it the N.C.L. Primary School.

Probably the greatest potential cultural impact of this peaceful invasion lies in the introduction of capitalism and entrepreneurship. Two years ago, barter was essentially the only form of commerce. Now many families participate in the straw market set up to greet incoming ships, selling their crafts -- shell jewelry, bone knives, baskets, carvings -- for anywhere from $2 to $20. The atoll's population has grown as people from even smaller islands come to participate and get rich. An occasional moped now zips past the battered old bicycles that until recently had the island's only road to themselves. An occasional house of concrete blocks can be seen among the thatched huts. And Johnny's, the island's first general store, opened a few months ago. What this will all mean to Fanning Island in the end is anybody's guess, but right now the council members are anxious to catch up with the outside world, and they see N.C.L. as their ticket there. For the moment, at least, everybody's happy.

Most of the cruise passengers who visit the island never get beyond the scrupulously maintained N.C.L. compound. This is understandable. The rest of the island, while picturesque, is hot, humid and devoid of things anybody might reasonably call ''attractions.'' The compound, on the other hand, has a lot going for it: shade, swimming, beach chairs, cold drinks, spotless restrooms, a bar. You can get your passport stamped (or not). You can get a $50 massage in the massage hut. You can nosh at the all-day barbecue, where 1,000 hot dogs, 500 pounds of hamburger, 50 pounds of pickles and 9,000 ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise packets have been unloaded from the ship. You can watch the singers and dancers in traditional dress performing on an open, thatch-roofed stage, and you can poke through the straw market, which is blessedly free of hawking and haggling. Spending a few hours there is pleasant enough.

On the other hand, if you decide to leave the compound and rent a bike or take a walk down the dirt road (your only other choices of activities), what do you see? An exotic world -- the world of Hawaii 300 years ago -- of taro patches, thatched huts, kelp farms, land crabs scuttling underfoot, hand-carved outrigger canoes. Since there is only one road, you also encounter a good many islanders, all of whom will reply to your ''hi'' with a polite ''mauri'' (the native language is Gilbertese) or even a bashful ''hi'' of their own, especially from the youngsters. There is no begging, but kids happily accept a ballpoint pen or a dime-store plastic toy and practically faint with pleasure if offered an ice cream bar. They always say ''thank you,'' too, and should they forget, their mothers remind them. If you're in the mood, you can make a stop at Johnny's for some postcards of Tarawa, because no one has made one of Fanning Island yet. Is that worth four days at sea? You bet, if what you want is the once-in-a-lifetime experience of coming face to face with a lovely, unspoiled South Seas people at the very moment they have dipped their toes into the hurly-burly of the 21st century. But you'd better do it in a hurry. The government is already talking about basing a commercial seaplane in the lagoon, renovating the old British airstrip and even building a small hotel for adventurous sport fishermen. And the first ''Fanning Island'' T-shirts (made in Tarawa, I'd guess) have already begun to appear among the pretty shell necklaces and woven baskets of the market.