Line Islands

Kiritimati (pronounced [kiˈrɪsmæs], also known as Christmas Island) is a Pacific Ocean atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name is derived from the English word "Christmas" written in Gilbertese according to its phonology, in which the combination ti is pronounced s.

Nuclear tests were conducted on and around Kiritimati by the United Kingdom in the late 1950s, and by the United States in 1962. During these tests, the island was not evacuated, exposing the i-Kiribati residents and the British, New Zealand, and Fijian servicemen to nuclear radiation.

The largest atoll (and one of the largest in the world) is Kiritimati (Christmas) Atoll in the Line group, which has a land area of 150 square miles (388 square km)

The scheduled arrival time was 10:00AM. And we got our tender tickets at 10:00 to board the first tender boat. Unfortunately, it took them 1 and a half hours to figure out the logistics of getting to the island. The water is very shallow and Volendam never been in this area. As a matter of fact, not many ships been here.

Finally, after pretty rough boarding, we are on the tender boat. More than half an hour later we reached the shore.

There are no taxis on the island. There are few truck that were willing to take us to so called resort for $30 per person. It’s only 3 miles away. My negotiating skills did not produce better results. And I was not willing to pay $60 for the unknown beach.

After waking around for a few minutes, I spotted an old car with two people in it. I asked how much it would be to go to the resort and he asked for $10. Excellent! We got into the car and after driving 2.5 miles for 25min (the roads are in horrible condition) we came to a resort. Looked like a third world country resort, but there is a beach. No people anywhere around.

Twenty minutes later three women from the ship showed up. At least we had a company.
Because of the wind the water was very milky and extremely shallow. No snorkeling, but it was still very pleasant.

By 2:30 PM our “limousine” showed up and took us and two more women back to the tender boat location.

To our surprise, there were lots of people waiting for the tender boat.
What is going on?
They told us that one of the tender boats got stock in the shallow waters and is damaged. The rest of the tender boats can not operate because of the shallow low tides waters. We have to wait for the higher tides and then only 25 people can go on each boat. To keep it all organised, they distributed numbers on the sticky notes. When they run out of the sticky notes, the fishing boat went to our ship to get more sticky notes. Unfortunately, the fishing boat broke.

Finally, somehow they got sticky notes and we got our numbers. Still have to wait for high tide. Meanwhile locals were signing and dancing for us.
Then at 3:30PM we got an announcement that there is one boat that can take 8 people at the time. Since our number is 155 and 156, that will take a while.
At 3:45pm there was an announcement that the boat to transfer 8 people is ready, but there is no ⛽️. It will be delivered in 30min.
4:20PM….. 6 people went back to the ship on the fishing boat. Now I understand why ships do not stop here. Too shallow.

There is movement!!!! At 4:35pm another 15 people are boarding tender boat.

At 5:00 PM the second tender boat left with 20 people.

By 6:00PM we got on the tender and in 25 min very rough ride later we boarded our ship.

Shower and dinner and we are back to normal routine.Read more