Welcome to Tern

I have made it to Tern. After four long days on the Kahana, fighting a cold, catching tuna, and scanning the ocean for rare seabirds, we finally anchored inside the crescent moon shaped atoll of French Frigate Shoals. I awoke to the sight of La Perouse, a pinnacle of rock in the middle of the shoal, standing tall as the red sun rose from behind a blue horizon. Morgan and I hopped off the Kahana onto a RHIB (Rigid hull inflatable boat) and disembarked at the landing dock on the southwest end of Tern. A small fixed crane aided in the loading and unloading of heavy gear, although the Kona winds were making the landing a bit hairier than normal. A string on juvenile masked boobies swung back and forth on the boom as large white pallet tubs full of the summer crew’s trash and personal items were loaded onto the RHIB. It took many trips to the Kahana and many hours to finish the landing by midday.

There is so much to say about the island and what I’ve experienced thus far, but I have little energy to type. So instead I’ll give a brief history of Tern Island based on Pamela Fiersnon’s book “The Last Atoll”.

French Frigate Shoals is a crescent shaped rim of reef, a sinking atoll formed as the ancient volcanic island beneath it dives into the tropical Pacific. It’s literally as remote as you can get in this ocean, roughly 2,000 miles from the nearest continent and 500 miles from Honolulu on the main Hawaiian Island of Oahu. Tern Island itself is an artificial stretch of land that supports a dense and varied swatch of marine life, from around 16 species of seabirds to a single highly endangered species of seal.

On November 6^th 1786, a French explorer by the name Jean Francois de Galaup aboard the frigate La Perouse had an unexpected encounter with the reefs of an unnamed and uncharted shoal. He and another frigate were en route to Macoa from of all places my home away from home Monterey California with a shipment of fur seal pelts when they came upon breaking waves in the dead of night. Within minutes his experienced crew and that of the second frigate managed to about face and avoid the jagged teeth of the shallow reefs without wrecking into the history books, leaving only the name “Basse de Fregates Francaises”, meaning the Shoals of the French Frigates in their wakes.

The newly named French Frigate Shoals remained off the radar for many decades until it was re-discovered in 1858 by a US schooner, and claimed as US Territory under the Guano Act of 1856. Guano was an important source of fertilizer and was heavily harvested in those days, a similar history to the Farallon Islands and many other bird crap laden rocks throughout the Pacific.

As tensions between Japan and the US intensified in the early 1930’s, the US began conducting military training exercises in the placid semi lagoon of French Frigate in preparation for a pending conflict. They would fly seaplanes 586 miles from Honolulu since there were no large islands within the shoals to land on. Eventually a major airstrip and community was erected on Midway Atoll further down the island chain, but fighter planes were unable make the long flight from Honolulu to the newly established base at Midway. Thus in 1943 the 53 acre Tern Island was born out of compacted crushed coral and sand, to serve as a refueling point for planes destined for Midway. Shaped like a large aircraft carrier, the island’s sole function was that of a runway, no birds were allowed to nest and no vegetation allowed to take root throughout the duration of World War II.

After the War had ended Tern Island, again like many other abandoned military islands, was handed over to the US Coast Guard. They occupied the island for several decades, and tried as best they could to maintain a normal life in the middle of nowhere, complete with dogs for moral and a tennis court for exercise. Despite these amities it’s rumored that a man hanged himself from boredom in the barracks I now live in, and his ghost still haunts the long corridors at night. It seems every island has its ghost stories.

Eventually the Coast Guard willingly forfeited possession of Tern Island to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who now serve of the active stewards of the island. Much has changed since those early days, as vegetation and seabirds they support have slowly taken over this precious oasis in a desert of blue.  Most of the seabirds out here rely on a native shrub called Naupaka for nesting habitat, a shrub that has not yet established itself on Tern. Tournefortia (if I’m spelling it correctly) however, a similar shrub not native to Hawaii but of which is found throughout the tropical Pacific, has established in place of Naupaka. Its rigid limbs and woolly broad leaves provide a critical substrate for seabirds to lay an egg on. Different seabirds use the plant in various ways. Frigatebirds at the very top and boobies a layer below build rudimentary nest platforms of collected sticks and guano atop the shrubs canopy, White Terns and Black Noddies lay their eggs on the branches within the shrub, and Christmas Shearwaters and Red-tailed Tropicbirds nest on the ground at the plants shady base. Although traditionally burrow nesters, Wedge-tailed Shearwaters will occasionally lay their egg beneath a heavy branch and in a dense shady patch of Tournefortia. Without this shrub, about 10 feet in circumference and 6 feet high, these birds would not be successful on Tern. It’s amazing what a little vegetation will do to spruce up and diversify a community.

The barracks left behind now serve as critical habitat for the researchers that inhabit this island year round. The building itself, split into two parallel hallways and one main living area, contain roughly 15 personal rooms, several offices, at least three bathrooms I have found so far, a large kitchen and pantry, storage for scientific gear, a shoe room, a patio, a shade house for native plant propagation, and a large recreation room complete with couches, 2 pool tables, a ping pong and foosball table, and a wide selection of books and movies. There’s also sheds for stowing boats and tractors, a warehouse with tools and construction material, and a large gym with weights and workout videos. The tennis court has been converted to a catchment pad for drinking water stored in aging redwood tanks, while large solar panels and a decent bank of batteries provide (in theory) electricity. We eat mainly canned food, and have enough rice, flower, and butter to keep us alive when our supply of Poptarts runs low. My room has a view of the ocean and is often coated with a film of salty air. Hopefully my computer survives the winter, if not Mom now you know what I want for Christmas.

Should be an interesting 5 months indeed – stay tuned.