Aono Raina High Sea

In the central Pacific, south of Hawaii, the Line Islands stretch for about 2,350 kilometres through a sea of long swells, reef shelves and shallow lagoons. Eleven atolls and coral islands make up the chain. Most have enclosed or partly enclosed water, while Vostok and Jarvis stand apart because they lack sheltered lagoons. Kiritimati, by far the largest, forms a conspicuous landfall in an ocean otherwise dominated by distance.

Coral platforms, village remains and marae discovered on several islands show that Polynesian settlement was present by the fourteenth century. Mariners had found small patches of fresh water, bird colonies, fish and turtle grounds across an enormous open horizon. These islands supported permanent or seasonal communities even though early European visitors often overlooked the traces left by their inhabitants.

Late in the eighteenth century the outer world began to name the chain: Cook called at Kiritimati in 1777, and Fanning reached Teraina and Tabuaeran in 1798. From 1822 whalers arrived for water, wood and provisions. The high sea therefore joined small island communities, coral anchorages and increasingly regular contact with ships travelling between the hemispheres.