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Living between time zones, Little Diomede Island balances two worlds
Between two nations and on the lip of the Arctic, Little Diomede Island rises from the Bering Strait with a blunt, improbable steepness, a mass of dark rock surrounded by moving ice, violent currents, and one of the most politically charged stretches of water on earth. In clear weather, the view from its shore reaches…
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Guano, coral and wind govern the stark ecology of Rawaki Island
A low line in the Phoenix Islands Far from the usual traffic of the Pacific, Rawaki Island lies in the Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, a narrow, uninhabited strip of coral land once more widely known as Phoenix Island itself. It is not large. The island rises only slightly above the surrounding ocean, an atoll islet…
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Standing apart, Disappointment Island rewrites expectations of remoteness
A name earned in rough water South of New Zealand, where the Southern Ocean strips away any illusion of softness, Disappointment Island sits as a hard, cliff-bound outlier of the Auckland Islands group. It is small, uninhabited, and difficult to approach, a place whose title sounds theatrical until the surrounding facts make it plain. The…
