Three remote islands for explorers of the third millennium

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We are sure that if you have been following the solo Vendée Globe around the world with us (and with our highly followed Vendée Trial on Youtube), seeing these sailors battling in the middle of the oceans, in remote corners of the globe (such as the Kerguelen Islands) will have stimulated your desire for adventure. And for exploration. Well, this article, divided into three installments, is dedicated to you: it reveals the remote islands to visit once in a lifetime to feel like a true explorer of the third millennium.

Three remote islands to explore – part 2

To suggest to you these “patches of land” scattered across the Oceans, we took a cue from Judith Schalansky’s book “Atlas of Remote Islands” in which the author, fascinated especially by the islands that dot maps, creates an archive-archipelago of patches of land. “Fifty islands where I have never gone and where I will never go,” this is the subtitle of the book, which collects fifty islands impossible for anyone to reach and “invisible even for Google Maps.” But maybe not for you. In this second installment: Napuka, Howland, Fangataufa.


Napuka

Islands of Disappointment (French Polynesia)

Area: 8 sq. km | 277 inhabitants
Coordinates: 14° 10′ S 141° 14′ W
Distances: 3990 km → from Hawaii 920 km → from Fangataufa 20 km → from Tepoto North Discovery: Late January 1521 → by Ferdinand Magellan

Lost Islands - Napuka
Lost Islands – Napuka

Why explore Napuka

“When they reached the great ocean on November 28, 1520 and set a course to the northwest, Captain Ferdinand Magellan announced that it would take them a month at most to reach the Spice Islands (Philippine Islands). But soon no one believes it anymore. The ocean is perfectly calm, so that they call it the Pacific Sea. Soon the crew does not have enough food, and madness breaks out on board. When, after fifty days, they finally sight land, they do not discover a seabed to drop anchor; the lifeboats they land on the islands find nothing to quench their hunger and thirst. They call them Islands of Disappointment and continue their journey.

Lost Islands - Napuka
Lost Islands – Napuka

The ship’s scribe, Antonio Pigafetta notes that such a journey will never be undertaken again.” This excerpt tells how these islands got their name from Ferdinand Magellan, who could not find a water source with which to replenish his ship’s supplies while en route to the Philippine Islands. Napuka is a small coral atoll in the Delusion Islands, in the northeastern part of the Tuamotu archipelago in French Polynesia. The atoll is 10.5 km long and 4 km wide.


Howland

Phoenix Islands (United States)

Lost Islands map - 2

Area: 1.84 sq. km | uninhabited Coordinates: 0° 48′ N 176° 37′ W Distances: 3030 km → from Hawaii 1750 km → from Pukapuka 1640 km → from Samoa Discovery: December 1, 1828 → from Daniel McKenzie

Howland

Remote islands – Why explore Howland

Amelia Earhart’s plane gives no more signs of life and allegedly crashes within 35 to 100 miles of Howland Island. It is July 2, 1937, and her goal was to be the first living being to circle the globe by flying along its maximum circumference. His disappearance does not go unnoticed and President Roosevelt himself, to search for his plane, mobilizes a “Task Force” made up of 66 planes and 9 ships, but after weeks of fruitless search, the mission must forfeit: it is July 18, 1937. The lighthouse on Howland Island, where the transwoman was supposed to land, still bears the name “Amelia Earhart’s Light.” Howland Island is an uninhabited atoll (2.3 km²) located in the Pacific Ocean just north of the equator. Some sources report that Polynesians had arrived on Howland Island prior to its discovery by European navigator Daniel McKenzie, and that they used it as a place to stop, rest or meet during their voyages across the Pacific. The atoll is part of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex and a special permit is required to visit it.


Fangataufa

Tuamotu Islands Archipelago (French Polynesia)

Area: 5 sq. km | 32 inhabitants Coordinates: 22° 15′ S 138° 45′ W Distances: 4410 km → from New Zealand 810 km → from Rapa Iti 40 km → from Moruroa Discovery: February 1826 → from Frederick William Beechey

Lost Islands - Fangataufa
Lost Islands – Fangataufa

Why explore Fangataufa

When Algeria and its deserts became independent, the French set out to find a place to continue their experiments for the nuclear bomb. For this terrible project, the choice fell on a picturesque place far from the eyes of the world: the uninhabited atoll of Fangatufa characterized by lush, unspoiled nature.

On August 24, 1968, after distributing protective masks and sunglasses to the inhabitants of nearby atolls, the French are ready for the big test: the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb with a force of 2.6 megatons. A hundred to a thousand times more powerful than an atomic bomb. The code name for this operation is Canopus, after the brightest star in the night sky, but invisible from France. After the explosion there is nothing left: the entire island is evacuated and for six years no one can set foot on it. The atoll is rectangular in shape, 8.5 km long and 7.5 km wide, with a total area of 45 km². It was discovered in 1826 by British Royal Navy sailor and geographer Frederick William Beechey while he was leading an expedition engaged in a search for the Northwest Passage from the east coast.


Lost islands, in the next installment

  • Iwo Jima (Japan)
  • St. George’s (U.S.)
  • Pitcairn (United Kingdom)

  • This article was published in the March 2014 issue of the Journal of Sailing.

  • The volume mentioned in the report, in its updated version (“Atlas of Remote Islands. New Updated Edition” by Judith Schalansky, Bompiani, 160 pages, 23.75 euros), you can purchase it here

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