Tabuaeran, also known as Fanning Island or Fanning Atoll (both Gilbertese

Gilbertese language

-External links:**** with Gilbertese – English Translations from – The Rosetta Edition**...

 and English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 names are recognised) is one of the Line Islands

Line Islands

The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands, is a chain of eleven atolls and low coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands, that stretches for 2,350 km in a northwest-southeast direction, making it one of the longest islands chains of the world...

 of the central Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, and part of Kiribati

Kiribati

Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population exceeds just over 100,000 , and is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, straddling the...

. It is an atoll

Atoll

An atoll is a coral island that encircles a lagoon partially or completely.- Usage :The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu OED...

 located at 3°51′36"N 159°21′52"W. The maximum elevation is about 3 m (10 ft) above high tide.

History

At some 900 miles distant, Tabuaeran is one of the closest landfalls to the Hawaiian Islands

Hawaiian Islands

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...

, and the atoll was possibly used as a stopover by the Polynesian

Polynesian culture

Polynesian culture refers to the indigenous peoples' culture of Polynesia who share common traits in language, customs and society. Chronologically, the development of Polynesian culture can be divided into four different historical eras:...

s who first settled Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

. Artifacts have been discovered that indicate possible early settlements by people from Polynesia

Polynesia

Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...

—probably the Cook Islands

Cook Islands

The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...

 or Tonga

Tonga

Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...

.

Historically the first recorded mariner to sight Tahanea atoll was American captain Edmund Fanning

Edmund Fanning

Edmund Fanning was an American explorer and sea captain, known as the "Pathfinder of the Pacific."-Life:...

 of the American ship Betsy on June 11, 1798, and was named for him. At the time, the atoll was uninhabited, and like all of the Line Islands

Line Islands

The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands, is a chain of eleven atolls and low coral islands in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawaiian Islands, that stretches for 2,350 km in a northwest-southeast direction, making it one of the longest islands chains of the world...

, has no truly native population. After Fanning, it was visited by whalers

Whaling

Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

 of several nationalities.

Prior to 1855, Captain Henry English and 150 laborers from Manihiki

Manihiki

Manihiki is an island in the Cook Islands known as the Island of Pearls. It is a triangular atoll north of Rarotonga.- History :Polynesians are believed to have lived on Manihiki since at least 900 or 1000 AD. Kupe was the first to explore Aotea Roa. Kupe came from Manihiki, also known as...

 settled, and began producing coconut oil for export. He put the island under British protection, when it was visited by W.H. Morshead in HMS Dido on October 16, 1855.

Fanning was formally annexed to Great Britain by Captain William Wiseman of HMS Caroline on March 15, 1888. A deep opening was blasted, thereafter called the English Channel, on the west side of the atoll. Tabuaeran hosted a cable station on the Trans-Pacific Cable
between Canada and Australia, a part of the All Red Line

All Red Line

The All Red Line was an informal name for the system of electrical telegraphs that linked much of the British Empire.It was inaugurated on 31 October 1902. It had this name because on many political maps, British Empire territory was coloured red ....

, beginning in 1902. In September 1914 (World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

), the Cable Station was shelled

Bombardment of Fanning

The Fanning Raid was an action of the First World War. The British All Red Line cable station on Fanning Island was raided by Germany's SMS Nürnberg and SMS Titania. A German landing party was sent ashore, to cut the communications cable....

 by a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 cruiser, the Nürnberg

SMS Nürnberg (1906)

SMS Nürnberg, named after the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, was a Königsberg class light cruiser of 3,450 tons laid down in 1905 and launched in 1907. Nürnberg's was similar in both size and appearance to the famous , differing mainly in its uneven funnel spacing. She was armed with ten guns, eight...

, and was slightly damaged. A landing force went ashore to complete the destruction. In 1939 the atoll was incorporated into the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands

Gilbert and Ellice Islands

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were a British protectorate from 1892 and colony from 1916 until 1 January 1976, when the islands were divided into two different colonies which became independent nations shortly after...

, and later, in (1979), gained independence, becoming part of the Republic of Kiribati .

Tabuaeran features in John Updike

John Updike

John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....

's short story "The Blessed Man of Boston, My Grandmother's Thimble, and Fanning Island."

Present

Tabuaeran has a population of 2500, principally Gilbertese settlers brought from Kiribati by Fanning Island Plantations, Ltd., to work in the copra

Copra

Copra is the dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut. Coconut oil extracted from it has made copra an important agricultural commodity for many coconut-producing countries. It also yields coconut cake which is mainly used as feed for livestock.-Production:...

 industry (copra is the meat of the coconut

Coconut

The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is a member of the family Arecaceae . It is the only accepted species in the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which is not a botanical nut. The spelling cocoanut is an old-fashioned form of the word...

). The capital is Napari (Paelau) in the northwest. The former capital is Napia (English Harbour) on the western side, south of a passage into the lagoon. Other villages are Tereitaki, in the northwest, Aontena, a resettlement area just south of Napia, and Manuku, a resettlement area in the south.

No.	Village	Population (Census Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...  2005)
1	Napari Napari ' is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran. It is the new capital of the island....  (Nabari)	194
2	Tereitaki Tereitaki ' is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran....	438
3	Betania Betania, Kiribati Betania is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran....	260
4	Paelau Paelau ' is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran. It was the former capital of the island, under the British, then known as English Harbor....  (Napia, English Harbour)	250
5	Aontenaa Aontenaa ' is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran....  (Aontena)	177
6	Tenenebo Tenenebo ' is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran....	461
7	Tereitannano Tereitannano ' is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran....  (Tereitaki)	249
8	Aramari Aramari ' is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran....	358
9	Mwanuku Mwanuku ' is a settlement in Kiribati. It is located on the island of Tabuaeran....  (Manuku)	152
	Tabuaeran	2539

Reef fish and shellfish, babai (Cyrtosperma chamissonis), coconut, pigs, chickens, and seaweed

Seaweed

Seaweed is a loose, colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthic marine algae. The term includes some members of the red, brown and green algae...

 (limu) grown in a lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

 are local foods, supplementing a main diet of imported rice and tinned meats.

The island's major exports are copra and hand crafts (including cowrie shell, shark tooth knives, and Kiribati

Kiribati

Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population exceeds just over 100,000 , and is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, straddling the...

 stamps). A supply ship from Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 calls two or three times a year.

Cruising

Tabuaeran was a weekly port of call for Norwegian Cruise Line

Norwegian Cruise Line

Norwegian Cruise Line is a company operating cruise ships, headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida. It began operations in 1966 under the name Norwegian Caribbean Line. The company is best known for its Freestyle Cruising concept, which means that there are no set times or...

, who had ships based in Honolulu

Honolulu, Hawaii

Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...

. Due to federal regulations requiring foreign-flagged ships to call in a foreign port, the ships cruised to Tabuaeran. It was also more cost effective for the cruise line to visit a foreign country than to pay port charges as a consequence of the U.S. Passenger Services Act

Passenger Services Act

The Passenger Vessel Services Act of 1886 is a piece of United States legislation which came into force in 1886 relating to cabotage. Essentially, it says:...

.
In 2007, the Norwegian Wind left Norwegian's fleet, and they introduced 3 cruise ships specifically to cruise in Hawaii. These three ships were all US-flagged ships, and thus were not required to visit foreign ports. The Pride of Hawaii and Pride of America

Pride of America

MS Pride of America is a cruise ship partly built in the United States, now a member of the Norwegian Cruise Line fleet. Inaugurated during the 2005-2006 cruise season, she is the first new U.S...

sailed 7-day sailings, and the Pride of Aloha

Pride of Aloha

Norwegian Sky is a Sky class cruise ship owned and operated by Norwegian Cruise Line. She was originally ordered by Costa Cruises as Costa Olympia from the Bremer Vulkan shipyard in Germany, but she was completed in 1999 by the Lloyd Werft shipyard in Bremerhaven, Germany for the Norwegian Cruise...

took over the 10 and 11 day sailings which included Tabuaeran. In the fall of 2007, Norwegian announced that the Pride of Hawaii would be reflagged and renamed the Norwegian Jade and sail in Europe. http://www.ncl.com/nclweb/pressroom/pressRelease.html?storyCode=PR_041607
Due to this change, Norwegian announced that the Pride of Aloha and the Pride of America would both sail 7-day cruises in Hawaii, and eliminate cruises to Tabuaeran. In the late spring of '09, NCL decided to only have the Pride of America in Hawaii, and the Pride of Aloha was relocated. Fanning has been suffering since this decision by NCL. Starting in January of 2010, the Holland America Cruise-ship Rotterdam, September 2011 Westerdam, April 2011 Volendam and January and February 2012 Seaborne Cruiseline sailings have been scheduling visits to Fanning and that is beginning to allow the island to regain some income and help from a visiting cruise-ship. Helpful organizations with concerns for the local schools, churches and healthcare needs are Pacific CARE Missions and Pacific Island Aid.

External links

• Map of Tabuaeran
• Fanning Island on Jane Resture's Oceania Home Page A strong resource including geography, history, photos, and links.
• Fanning-Island.com
• Ancient Polynesian remains
• Atoll Institute, proposed Field Station
• Edmund Fanning in Explorers of the Pacific by Buck (eText)