After 15 days at sea with almost no wind, we finally drifted into Midway Island, almost the last island in the Hawaiian chain, about 1,500 miles north of Majuro. The island has had a colorful history - starting life as a bird colony, then becoming the final link in the first telegraph cable, then a stopover on the flying boat (China Clipper) route, then a turning point for WWII (the battle of Midway), and finally a naval base and emergency landing strip for commercial aircraft. In the 80’s the island was returned to the birds, so now it’s a wildlife refuge. It is home to around 1.5 million Laysan Albatross, plus thousands of Black Footed Albatross, Red Tailed Tropicbirds, Terns, Noddies, Frigate birds, Petrels, a large Monk Seal population, hundreds of Green sea turtles and around 40 people.
As visitors, we must participate in the program by cleaning up the beaches and cutting scrub. It’s a great way to see the place. Right now the Albatross chicks are about 3 months old, and still dependent on their parents to bring them squid dinners. The parents fly to Alaska and back to fish (4 day round trip – wish we could do it that fast!). Unfortunately, they are unable to distinguish between squid and plastic. What can’t be digested is regurgitated. So we see balls of squid beaks mixed with bottle caps, lighters, tooth brush handles, and all sorts of other garbage. The experts here estimate up to 8 ounces of plastic comes out each time. Birds who have died from eating plastic that can’t be expelled have up to 16 ounces inside them. So that gives you something to think about where your garbage is going! The chicks are quite large and just starting to lose their baby fluff. They will be ready to fly in another month or two. We really enjoy watching their antics, and listening to the variety of clicks, squeaks and whines they come up with. They each have their own spot, and seem to be evenly spaced around 1 to 3 feet from each other.
Boobie chick
Everyone gets around the island on bicycles, which makes a challenge navigating, beaks snapping inches from your ankles. The ‘sub adults’ (adolescents) are practicing their mating dances with a complicated series of head shakes, footwork, and howling that has been largely responsible for their nickname – Goony Birds. The facilities here, many left over from the past, are amazing. There is a bowling alley, movie theater, gym, library, internet café, shop, museum, wildlife center, games room, pub and restaurant. We eat the buffet style meals for lunch and dinner, which means we don’t have to run down our provisions, and the food is excellent. There are sheds full of equipment no longer in use, to – even a decompression chamber! So it is a real R&R stop for us here, before the next 2,500 miles to Prince Rupert. We are traveling in the company of two other boats who have stopped here with us (Costa Vida and Pegasus) and another two who didn’t stop and have almost arrived in Seattle (Red and Camira).
