Kanemilohai Atoll

Kanemilohai is the atoll known as French Frigate Shoals, northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiian tradition places it within Pele's journey through the archipelago: the goddess left her brother Kanemilohai there as a guardian before continuing southeast. This cultural connection gave the distant reef a place in Hawaiian accounts of the islands.

On the night of 6 November 1786, La Pérouse's ships Boussole and Astrolabe narrowly avoided the reef. The pale, guano-covered pinnacle was mistaken for the other vessel's sails before breakers revealed the danger. A later encounter ended differently. On 11 February 1823 the Nantucket whaler Two Brothers, commanded by George Pollard, struck the reef during stormy weather. Its crew abandoned the vessel in small boats and survived the night. They were rescued by their companion ship Martha and returned towards Oahu. The atoll thus linked Hawaiian sacred geography with voyages of exploration and whaling, whose crews could find both anchorage and severe danger among its shoals.