NOWRAMP
2002
Disharmony
and the Fairy Tern
Written by Carlos
Eyles
September 20, 2002
Passage
last night was tolerable, that is to say no one was tossed
out of their bunk. We arrived at Midway on schedule around
7:30 am, only to learn that we had entered another time
zone and it was actually 6:30. But time for all intent and
purpose had lost its meaning somewhere between Nihoa and
French Frigate Shoals. Most have no clue of the time, or
the day, I know I don't. We only know when we have fifteen
minutes left before launch and how long we've been down
on a dive, after that it's anybody's guess.
It
is one of those pastel mornings, soft light and colors in
tangerines and pinks. Sparse clouds on a flat sea, petrels
on the wing as we approach Midway's channel. Upon entering
the channel the first thing I notice is a rusted out shipwreck
protruding fifteen feet out of the water. The island itself
is a green sea of iron wood trees, red and white checkered
fuel storage tanks, and a checkered water tower. Barrier
reefs exposed themselves in white water waves on either
side of the channel. We turn a corner and a breakwater comes
into view then a pier with two big tug boats at rest, it
is jarring to see man's presence, unlike all the other islands
we have visited. It has a military feel to it, though there
is no direct evidence, no uniforms, no naval ships, I don't
even see the American Flag; perhaps it's the ghosts of its
history that manifests the atmosphere.
Spinner dolphins jump on the bow and ride our wake to the
entrance. Large buildings come into view, one as big as
a gymnasium, more trees and illusion of tranquility. All
is orderly and clean. All is quiet. There is a weird feeling
to the place. I suppose it's because we have been traveling
in such a vast wilderness and here we are so very far from
anything and civilization emerges out a bunch of ironwood
trees.
A
tour is set up for us and after all forty of us collect
bicycles we peddle our shaky sea legs away like a bunch
of drunks out to explore the island. What I am struck with
first is that this island is much like a war memorial for
the sea battle that was named after the island, and was
a major turning point in the naval war with Japan. In fact,
the island is officially the National War Memorial to the
Battle of Midway as well as the Midway Atoll National Wildlife
Refuge. This island at one time housed nearly 5,000 military
personnel, they had a K-12 School here, The George Cannon
School, Mike May had a friend who graduated from this High
school, we could travel to Morocco and Mike would know the
butcher there. Midway was a complete village; with everything
a village would have, a barber shop, a library, bowling
alley, and of course bars. This island was many things at
different times over the course of the last one hundred
years. The Navy was the first to come in 1867 when Captain
Reynolds of the Lackawanna took formal possession of the
Atoll for the United States. Later the Commercial Pacific
Cable Company laid their cable through here, which was a
major undertaking. In the mid-thirties the rich and famous
flew in Pan Am clipper air ships that had to stop here and
refuel on their way to the Orient. They built a 40-room
hotel with screened-in porches, solar-heated water, and
electric lights and offered gourmet meals to their prestigious
passengers. When the war broke out in 1941 it ended the
short clipper ship era. Midway was attacked twice, first
on December 7, 1941 and again on June 4, 1942 (there are
still bullet holes in the seaplane hanger.) The military
moved in full force and turned this atoll into a virtual
fortress, the seabirds paid the price as did the monk seals
and all marine life in general. The Navy remained here until
1996 when they turned the atoll over to the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
Biking
along the roads that crisscross the atoll I saw evidence
of every undertaking by man in his intrusion on paradise.
At the end of an old runway lies a beautiful white sand
beach, fine like powdered sugar, upon which rolls lapping
waves issued from a turquoise sea. Fairy terns dance in
the wind, and rusting rebar and debris protrudes out of
that same sea. Such contrasts are everywhere. The beautiful
exists with the ugly, the wild with the tame, and the tranquil
with the machinery of death. I struggle to make sense of
it all and have come to the conclusion that this atoll is
a microcosm for the folly of man in his mindless war against
the natural world, against himself. All about lay the debris
of failures, dreams, schemes, and war. All his arrogance
is represented here, all his greed, his shortsightedness,
and lack of humanity, his foolishness, and stupidity. Yet
despite it all the white sand invites, the Fairy Terns fly
in dreamlike loops, wings in a blur of perfect symmetry,
the colors of the sea reflect off alabaster clouds turning
the undersides the color of emerald green where they hover
over the lagoon.
Like this atoll man has laid his heavy hand on this island
earth. Only a few are keeping the gossamer threads of the
natural world intact. If that thread breaks, if the few
cannot keep it together, we will suffer the same fate as
the rusted out machinery, the plastic shards. We will be
the debris of another time that is no longer needed or useful.
We will be cast upon shores of our own making, disconnected
and in disharmony and the Fairy Tern will do its dance but
there will be no one left to enjoy it.
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