Remote islands
As I wrote in my post in X (Twitter), I had a vague interest in remote islands such as Îles Kerguelen (a part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands).
Back in 2016 while planning my trip to Rapa Nui / Isla de Pascua (Easter Island) in Chile, I looked into other remote (or hard-to-reach) islands.
There're several (actually many) articles relative to "remote islands" of the world. For example, a Britannica article
refers to
The Kerguelen Islands,
Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago,
Pitcairn Islands,
Novaya Zemlya (Но́вая Земля́),
Tristan da Cunha,
Easter Island,
South Georgia,
Diego Garcia.
Frankly speaking, both Pitcairn Islands and Tristan da Cunha never interested me.
Another article by CNN Travel
refers to a different set of islands, which surprisingly mentions North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean's Bay of Bengal.
And the article by GeeksforGeeks
contains the following list of Top 10 most remote islands in the world:
This is an interesting list including Socotra Island in Yemen, a highly attractive island due to its very unique flora. However, this island is virtually inaccessible as suggested by U.S. Department of State - Bureau of Consular Affairs:
In reality, I came to know Bouvet Island only just recently. According to Wikipedia "the closest inhabited location is Tristan da Cunha island, 2250 km to the northwest".
Incidentally I was aware of Novaya Zemlya in 1969, 55 years ago. I clearly remember that I asked my teacher at the elementary school about this particular island in then CCCP (not Climate Change and Carbon Plan but Союз Советских Социалистических Республик = USSR). Because of another island called Severnaya Zemlya (Сéверная Земля́), it was obvious that the common Russian word zemlya meant something like an island (or just land). But such a question should never have been posed to an elementary school teacher... I've loved geography since I was less than 10 years old though my interest in geography did not cover Japan, most definitely thanks to my mother (explained in my note "On my memory of Tachikawa where I was born")…
Back in April, 1997, there was a very interesting occasion for me by a business meeting combined with a learning session in Hyannis, Cape Cod, MA, where I had an opportunity to study Ernest Shackleton. That's how I realized the location of South Georgia Island. Indeed, I love "South: Shackleton's Endurance Expedition".
Well, I suspect that Isla de Pascua (Easter Island) had better be the main theme of this note article...Indeed, the trip to Easter Island with my wife is unforgettable, though it's so remote with total flight time was about 26 hours one way...
My wife and I left Tokyo on 29th December in 2016 and arrived at Easter Island on 31st December 2016.
Roughly speaking, the itinerary in the island was the following:
12/31 : Ahu Akivi, Ana Te Pahu, Puna Pau, Ahu Vinapu
01/01 : Praya de Anakena, Te Pito Kura, Rano Raraku, Ahu Tongariki, Ahu Akahanga, Ahu Koteriku
01/02 : Rano Kau, Ana Kai Tangata, Tahai Complex
In the map above is found an islet Motu Nui which means a large island in the Rapa Nui language. It is referred to in the description of Point Nemo, an oceanic pole of inaccessibility and the place in the ocean that is farthest from land. It's a very interesting topic, but is not an island…
Since we had enough time for transit in Santiago de Chile, we visited the following places:
12/30 : Santiago de Chile - Palacio de la Moneda, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Catedral de Santiago, Iglesia de San Francisco and Cerro Santa Lucía
01/03 : Valparaíso
Here are some photos taken during our trip:
Here are the flights of American Airlines and LATAM which we used in the trip.
-International-
AA60 NRT/DFW 12/29/2016 18:15/15:00
AA945 DFW/SCL 12/29/2016 19:10/07:50+
-Domestic-
LA841 SCL/IPC 12/31/2016 09:55/13:35
LA842 IPC/SCL 01/02/2017 15:00/21:20
-International-
AA7722 SCL/LAX 01/03/2017 23:55/06:20+
AA169 LAX/NRT 01/04/2017 11:30/16:25+
The above shows how "remote" Isla de Pascua is…but not hard-to-reach at all compared to other islands such as Tristan da Cunha, Pitcairn Islands or Îles Kerguelen.
P.S.(1) 4 days after returning to Japan from Chile, I had a business meeting in Fort Lauderdale, FL:
NH174 NRT/IAH 01/09/2017 10:50/07:30
UA2040 IAH/FLL 01/09/2017 10:20/13:30
UA209 MIA/IAH 01/13/2017 08:00/09:30
UA7 IAH/HND 01/13/2017 10:50/15:30+
P.S.(2) In the same year 2017, I had a chance to take a ferry "Toshima" from Kagoshima to Naze (名瀬） in Amami Ōshima（奄美大島） merely to see 7 islands of Tokara Islands (吐噶喇列島) in the following sequence:
Kuchinoshima (口之島)
Nakanoshima (中之島)
Suwa-no-se Jima (諏訪之瀬島)
Tairajima (平島)
Akusekijima (悪石島)
Kodakarajima (小宝島)
Takarajima (宝島)
Needless to say, these islands are not hopelessly lonely islands in the middle of nowhere, yet they are not necessarily easy to access. The ferries operate twice a week, so there was no option of getting off at any of the islands along the way to Amami Ōshima.
The islands are self-deprecatingly referred to as the "King of Nothing" Islands. Akusekijima, one of the 7 islands, on the other hand is famous with Boze:
In addition, the solar eclipse on 22nd Jul.2009 caused Akusekijima (Akuseki-shima) to appear on a Wikipedia article and be mentioned by National Astronomical Observatory of Japan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_July_22,_2009
https://www.nao.ac.jp/en/news/topics/2009/20090622-eclipse.html
P.S.(3) Later in 2019 while reading "Age of Anger" (by Pankaj Mishra), I came to learn an Indian politician Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who was sent to the infamous Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which eventually led me to North Sentinel Island - a small patch of land in the Andaman archipelago...
P.S.(4) I used to read the book "The Big Stone Moai" to my elder daughter in the early 1990s.
この記事が気に入ったらサポートをしてみませんか？