Finding Nemo in Kiritimati

We found Nemo on Christmas Island.Not Jules Verne’s insane captain of the deadly submarine Nautilus, but Nemo, the clown fish star of the animated film that delighted kids and adults with its fishy characters sweeping down to Sydney Harbour in the East Australian current.

Little Nemos are trapped and collected by the thousands in the shallow coral seas around the island, the largest coral atoll in the world and the biggest piece of real estate in tiny nation of Kiribati. The local people, the overwhelming majority of whom are originally from Tarawa in the former Gilbert and Ellice Islands well to the West, trap tropical fish the which are flown weekly to Honolulu for the aquarium trade. It’s a big business and around our anchorage near the village of London (there is another called Poland but Paris is now abandoned, and Cassidy Airport is near Banana) men in outrigger canoes tended little traps set among the coral heads throughout the day. Two paddled over curiously shortly after we had set the anchors to ask about Van Diemen. They showed us the Nemos and they had brought up and an angel fish before paddling home. Later they returned with two coconuts and what they called a milk fish which they gave us. When skipper Robbie Vaughan, Ross Sellens, Wizza Wise and Bob Story went ashore leaving me on anchor watch, several others paddled by to talk about the fishing as they passed. One man was setting his nets for flying fish, not butterfly nets, but nets in the water, which he tended from 4pm till well after dark. Ashore, the islanders were just as friendly, eager to shin up a palm tree and offer a drink of the coconut sap they were collecting from the chopped end of flower and fruit stems and pleased to talk about their pigs, their gardens (pumpkin, water melon, yams, tomatoes) and the economic prospects of the island. The global warming lobby generally cites Kiribati as one of the nations most threatened by the yet-to-be-seen but always-coming-soon rising sea levels but not a citizen on Kiritimati (the Gilbertese transliteration of Christmas) Island was concerned about the possibility that their low-lying atoll was about to be submerged. One storekeeper made the point that he had just moved to Christmas Island from Tarawa with his wife and young daughter to start his business there – not a decision taken lightly and not one taken by a person losing sleep over global warming. Australian currency is used, the minimum wage is $1.50 an hour or $10 a day. Strategically located just north of the equator, it has been privately owned, occupied by the US during the war, used as a nuclear bomb test site and now has been given as is to Kiribati, which doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. Perhaps 2000 to 3000 people live on the island, no-one seems sure and there is little tourism apart from some who come for the excellent bonefishing in the lagoon, which occupies about as much area as the island, approximately 322 square kilometres, and birdwatching. The copra crop does more for the locals than any green tourism. The one official Robbie spoke to seemed unenthusiastic about discussing immigration, customs or other issues. Passports were not requested. The villages and homes are as basic as any in the Pacific. Thatched palm roofs or rusting corrugated iron, old cars seem to have been abandoned where they finally stopped. To the Western eye it might look like a dump but the homes are clean and the people smiling and welcoming, frangipani and other tropical plants perfume the air, there is good surfing on some beaches, swimming and diving almost everywhere. There’s not much cash in the economy but there didn’t seem to be much stress in the community, either. One mechanic who made a cigarette out of shaved plug tobacco wrapped in a thin piece of leaf from a pandanus palm, said he had pretty much all he needed, fish, a garden and some money. A young woman (pictured) with a sweet-smelling tiare flower in her hair, said much the same, as did several other women tending a cooperative store. Now, like the thousands of Nemos, we have left Christmas Island to its contented people and are sailing a course almost due North to Hawaii at about 8knots, banana smoothies (the backstay bananas have ripened) with rum. As that other Nemo found when he arrived in Sydney, the bustle of civilisation in Honolulu might be quite a contrast.