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The Forbidden Island

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Written by Phyllis Wheeler

Wednesday, 30 April 2008

Those who love mysteries will love a vacation on Kauai, Hawaii.

by PhyllisWheeler

Those who love mysteries will love a vacation on Kauai, Hawaii.

The mystery involves the neighboring island of Ni'ihau, Hawaii. The Robinson family has owned this island since 1864 and does not allow tourists. Ni'ihau is the westernmost of the main Hawaiian islands, measuring 550 square miles.

Ni'ihau (Nee-ee-how) is separated from Kauai by a 17-mile strait. Standing on the Kauai shore, you can see Ni'ihau slung low on the horizon. If you could go to Ni'ihau you would hear native Hawaiian spoken. In fact, it's the only place you can go to hear native Hawaiian spoken as a living language. Hawaiian is taught in the island's K-8 school.

Ni'ihau residents regularly cross the strait to Kauai to buy provisions. Ni'ihau is short on provisions because it is a desert, lying in the rain shadow of the tall mountain on Kauai, Mt. Wai-ale-ale, drenched with 460 inches of rainfall every year. It is often called the wettest spot on earth.

Sheep ranches have historically supported the people of Ni'ihau, under the ownership of the Robinson family.

A stunning form of folk art comes from Ni'ihau. These are Ni'ihau shell leis, tiny shells strung from many strands. These tiny luminous shells come in various colors, and so whole families collect them and sort them for size and color. Then the artist, usually a woman, sets to work, punching a hole in each shell using an awl often made from a bicycle spoke (there are no cars on the island). About half the shells shatter at this point. She chooses colors in such a way as to make a final product that is textured with color.

These tiny shells are still found on Ni'ihau, but not on neighboring Kauai where agricultural runoff has tended to kill off the shell-makers. The resulting shell leis are rare, hard to find, and precious.

Hawaiian legend has it that Ni'ihau is the oldest Hawaiian island: the volcano goddess Pele had her original home on Ni'ihau. Then she traveled to Kauai, Oahu, and moved eastward until she found the Big Island of Hawaii, where she is today. But scientists say Kauai was formed before Ni'ihau, which is sort of a side vent from the volcano that formed Kauai. The Hawaiian islands were formed as a plate of earth's crust moved slowly across an active lava vent. As the crust moved slowly, Kauai was formed, then Oahu, and so on. Ni'ihau's current form is as an eroded lava dome on the eastern side of the island. Much of the rest is flat and sandy, with a couple of freshwater lakes.

Mysterious Ni'ihau lies in the distance. You'd love to go there. So you look for maps and pictures of the place. But what if you just have to go there? In fact, the Robinson family will let you come, for a healthy fee. A few helicopter tours to remote teaches are allowed now, as well as some hunting safaris to cull feral bighorn sheep and Polynesian boars. You can always scuba dive offshore, too.

All that is available from Kauai, Ni'ihau's big sister island 17 miles away. Kauai has immense charms of its own; not only does it have the usual beaches and surf, but it has incredible beauty on its northwest coast, called Na Pali, or The Cliffs.

About the Author:

If you adore a puzzle, you'll come to Kauai for a Kauai Hawaii vacation. You'll want to read all about Niihau, the off-limits Hawaiian isplace, as well as about Kauai, place of vibrant natural beauty, from writer Phyllis Wheeler.