Chapter IV: Stop at 2nd rock to the left

We arrived at our second stop today- Necker Island, aka Mokumanamana. Like Nihoa, this one is a big rock jutting up out of the sea. It's really not very big (46 acres), nor particularly high (276 ft), but it's all relief - I think the largest flat spot on the island is slightly smaller than a size 10.5 Converse All-Star high top.

I had the privelege to go ashore today along with veteran monk seal maven, Brenda B., and Kehau S. We were safely shuttled to the island by Sette crew members, Doug and Ray, after which we three went our own ways. Brenda surveyed the seals near the landing site and I served as climbing guide to cultural guide Kehau, leading her up a nice basalt scramble to the first of many areas of upright stones emplaced by her ancestors.

Good enough for the ABA,
but no match for Necker.

I carried on picking my way across the island, down and up the ridge line, being careful not to trod on the thousands of seabird nests, chickies and eggs that carpet the route. No one is happy to see me. Booby parents and even their large gawky fuzz-headed chicks protest (the masked booby call, I'm certain, was the inspiration for the sounds made by the martians in the classic film, Mars Attacks - best movie of the 90's, by the way). I'm aware of an ominous shadow approaching, hovering, and then WHAP!, a great frigate bird (think evil incarnate with a 7 ft wingspan) urges me to move along with a gentle tap on the head from her long beak shaped like some medieval flesh-gouging weapon. I comply.

Finally, I drop back down to an intertidal shelf where 5 monk seals are relaxing. Seems to be a boys hangout, as all 4 of the 5 I could check were male. One was a 4-yr-old, an adolescent that was tagged as a pup at French Frigate Shoals, 85 miles to the west.


Reluctantly, I must leave the relative peace of this rocky shelf and suffer the indignation of several hundred more irate birds as I make my way back to the west end of the island. On the way I meet the intrepid Kehau on the last peak and she gamely follows me as I down-climb the final sketchy bit, oblivious to the fact that I am renowned among family and friends as a spectacularly poor route finder with questionable judgment. Nevertheless, without incident we arrive back at the landing spot and, one by one, hop into the inflatable as Doug deftly maneuvers it up to the intertidal shelf. On the way back to the Sette we are escorted by a pair of bottlenose dolphins. Not too shabby a morning - and I feel that lunch is the first meal I've earned in many days.