Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument

November 3, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Koʻanakoʻa

The name Koʻanakoʻa literally means the settling of coral, referring to Maro’s expansive coral reefs. Another name, Nalukakala, describes surf that arrives in combers, such as the surf that froths over shallow reefs. (PMNM)

In 1820, the ships Maro and Rambler of Nantucket, commanded respectively by Captains Joseph Allen and Benjamin Worth, in company with the Syren of London, rendezvoused at the Sandwich islands.

At this same time, Honolulu was described as a scattered, irregular village of thatched huts, of 3,000 or 4,000-inhabitants. (Maly)

Here they met Captain Winship of the ship O’Cane, a veteran northwest coast merchantman, who informed them that while crossing on his many voyages from the Sandwich Islands to Canton, China, he observed a great number of sperm whales off the coast of Japan. (Allen on the Maro is credited with discovering the “Japan Grounds.”)

One of the principal benefits to the economy of the Islands was the rendezvousing of the Pacific whaling fleets from the US and other countries at the various ports of the islands for many years, and the transshipment of oil and bone from these ports.

By 1820, the calls of whalers at Honolulu were quite frequent. Americans were quick to see the superiority of the islands for recruiting and refitting over other stations in the Pacific, and very soon all the American vessels in the Pacific, and quite a few from other countries, were touching at the islands regularly. (US Commission of Fish and Fisheries, 1901)

It was that year, after his discovery of Gardner Pinnacles, that Captain Joseph Allen on the Maro, sighted and named the reef after his whaling ship, Maro.

Maro Reef has less than one acre of periodically emergent land; at very low tide, only a small coral rubble outcrop of a former island is believed to break above the surface. As a result, Maro supports no terrestrial biota.

In contrast, the shallow water reef system is extensive, covering nearly a half-million acres and is the largest coral reef in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.)

It is also one of the chain’s most ecologically rich shallow water marine ecosystems, with 64-percent coral cover over the entire area, among the highest percentage observed in the Monument.

Unlike the classic ring-shaped atoll, Maro is a complex maze of linear reefs that radiate out from the center like the spokes of a wheel.

The documented marine biota at Maro Reef includes 37-species of corals and 142-species of reef fish. Fish species endemic to the Hawaiian Archipelago make up half of all fish recorded here.

Maro’s reefs are intricate and reticulated (like a net or network,) forming a complex network of reef crests, patch reefs and lagoons. Deepwater channels with irregular bottoms cut between these shallow reef structures.

Because the outermost reefs absorb the majority of the energy from the open ocean swells, the innermost reefs and aggregated patch reefs are sheltered and have the characteristics of a true lagoon. Given the structural complexity of this platform, its shallow reefs are poorly charted and largely unexplored. (PMNM)

While Maro Reef has very healthy reefs, it may be ‘on the verge of drowning’ because the reefs are narrow, unconnected, and unprotected from storm waves. Others feel that the health of the corals suggest that Maro Reef is a complicated reef system on a large seamount, living in balance with the elements. (FWS)

As Chair of the Board of the Land and Natural Resources I made the recommendation to the rest of the BLNR (and we then voted unanimously) to impose the most stringent measures to assure protection of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

In helping people understand why, I have referred to my recommendation to impose stringent protective measures and prohibit extraction as the responsibility we share to provide future generations a chance to see what it looks like in a place in the world where you don’t take something.

That action created Refuge rules “To establish a marine refuge in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the long-term conservation and protection of the unique coral reef ecosystems and the related marine resources and species, to ensure their conservation and natural character for present and future generations.“ Fishing and other extraction is prohibited.

The BLNR’s action started a process where several others followed with similar stringent protective measures.

Koʻanakoʻa (Maro Reef) is now part of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a State and Federal (State of Hawaiʻi, Department of the Interior’s US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) co-managed marine conservation area.

The monument encompasses nearly 140,000-square miles of the Pacific Ocean – an area larger than all the country’s national parks combined.

On July 30, 2010, Papahanaumokuakea was inscribed as a mixed (natural and cultural) World Heritage Site by the delegates to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO.) It is the first mixed UNESCO World Heritage Site in the US and the second World Heritage Site in Hawaiʻi (Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park was inscribed in 1987.)

June 4, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Codebreakers – Secret to Success at Battle of Midway

Around 7:20 Sunday morning, a single-engine Japanese reconnaissance plane entered the cloud-streaked airspace over Pearl Harbor. Launched earlier that morning from the heavy cruiser Chikuma, the plane circled as the pilot studied the ground below.

Having seen all he needed to see, at precisely 7:35 the recon pilot radioed his report to the striking force, which quickly relayed the information to the Japanese planes now approaching Oahu from the north: “Enemy formation at anchor; nine battleships, one heavy cruiser, six light cruisers are in the harbor.”

The attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion a series of battles in the Pacific between the Japanese and the United States.

With the fall of Wake Island to the Japanese in late-December 1941, Midway became the westernmost US outpost in the central Pacific.

Midway occupied an important place in Japanese military planning. According to plans made before Pearl Harbor, the Japanese fleet would attack and occupy Midway and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska as soon as their position in South Asia was stabilized.

Defenses on the atoll were strengthened between December and April. Land-based bombers and fighters were stationed on Eastern Island. US Marines provided defensive artillery and infantry.

Operating from the atoll’s lagoon, seaplanes patrolled toward the Japanese-held Marshall Islands and Wake, checking on enemy activities and guarding against further attacks on Hawaiʻi.

The turning point in the Pacific came in June 1942, when the US surprised and overpowered the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway.

That victory was possible, in large part, because of the work of a little-known naval codebreaker named Joe Rochefort. (Rochefort, responsible for the Pacific Fleet’s radio intelligence unit at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, felt immense guilt at the failure to predict the Pearl Harbor attack.)

The Japanese Combined Fleet depended on a complex system of codes to communicate by radio. The codes were regularly modified to avoid detection, but in the confusion of the rapid Japanese expansion in the South Pacific the change scheduled for early-1942 was delayed.

The course to Midway started not on a map in a top secret chart room with top strategists and tacticians contemplating Japan’s next move, but was set by the deciphering of messages from the Japanese Fleet.

This was done by a handful of US Navy intelligence officers stationed at Pearl Harbor.

In the spring of 1942, it took cryptanalysts in Australia, Washington, DC and Hawai‘i to achieve the breakthrough that made an American victory at Midway possible.

The Japanese naval code, known as JN 25, consisted of approximately 45,000 five-digit numbers, each number representing a word or a phrase.

Breaking this code, which was modified regularly, meant finding the meanings of enough of these numbers that a whole message could be decrypted by extrapolating the missing parts.

According to one of the leading codebreakers involved, it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with most of its pieces always missing.

Leading the codebreaking effort was Station Hypo, the code name for the combat intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor under Commander Joseph Rochefort.

Rochefort included members of the band from the battleship ‘California,’ damaged at Pearl Harbor. He thought their musical skills might make them adept codebreakers in much the same way that Marine bandsmen used to serve as fire control technicians on ship — the ability to quickly read and play music made them excellent mathematical problem solvers.

By May 8, Rochefort knew that a major enemy operation, whose objective was sometimes called AF, was in the offing and that it would take place somewhere in the Central Pacific.

When they checked this against their partially solved map grid, the found that “A” represented on coordinate of Midway’s potion and “F” represented the other.

His superiors in Washington weren’t convinced; they devised a test that would flush out the location of AF.

The radio station on Midway dispatched an uncoded message falsely reporting that the water distillation plant on the island had broken, causing a severe water shortage. Within 48 hours, a decrypted Japanese radio transmission was alerting commanders that AF was short of water.

Several days later, he was sure the target was Midway. As a result, the Americans entered the battle with a very good picture of where, when and in what strength the Japanese would appear.

On June 4, 1942, armed with information from Rochefort and his team, American planes caught the Japanese by surprise and won the decisive battle – it marked the turning point in the war in the Pacific.

In the four-day sea and air battle, 292 aircraft, four Japanese aircraft carriers – Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six carrier force in the attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier – and a heavy cruiser were sunk. There were 2,500 Japanese casualties.

The US lost the carrier Yorktown, the destroyer USS Hammann, 145 aircraft and suffered 307 casualties. (The inspiration and information in this summary comes from NPS, NPR and Naval History)

April 26, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Shipwrecks at Holoikauaua (the Pearl and the Hermes)

Holoikauaua (literally, Hawaiian monk seal that swims in the rough) is an atoll now known as Pearl and Hermes. Its modern name reflects the twin wrecks of British whalers, the ‘Pearl’ and the ‘Hermes,’ lost in 1822.

Holoikauaua is a large oval coral reef with several internal reefs and seven sandbar/islets above sea level along the southern half of the atoll. The land area is just under 100-acres (surrounded by more that 300,000-acres of coral reef) and is 20-miles across and 12-miles wide.

The highest point above sea level is about 10-feet. The islets are periodically washed over when winter storms pass through. Its estimated age is 26.8-million years.

As American and British whalers first made passage from Hawai‘i to the seas near Japan, they encountered the low and uncharted atolls of the NWHI. There are 52 known shipwreck sites throughout the NWHI, the earliest dating back to 1822 – the Pearl and the Hermes.

During the night of April 26, 1822, these British whaling ships ran aground almost simultaneously. The 327-ton Pearl (with Capt. E. Clark) grounded into a sandy coral groove, pressing its wooden keel into the sediment, while the smaller 258-ton Hermes (with Capt. J. Taylor) hit the hard sea bed.

The British whaler ‘Pearl’ was originally built as an American ship in Philadelphia at least as early as 1805. At some time after that, the ship may have been captured by the French during the aftermath of the Quasi-war and renamed La Perla.

She was subsequently taken by the British privateer Mayflower and from there put into service in the British South Seas whaling industry out of London.

The two ships had been making a passage from Honolulu to the newly discovered Japan Grounds, a track which took them through the uncharted Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The Pearl and the Hermes (wrecked to the west of the Pearl) are the only known British South Sea whaling wreck sites in the world.

The Hermes was not cradled by the reef, but disintegrated as she pounded across the sharp reef. The Pearl, sailing close by and striking the reef only a few minutes later, was more fortunate. She seems to have lodged firmly in place in a deeper groove with her stern seaward, and then she broke up more gradually over time.

Ship’s carpenter James Robinson commented in a letter to his mother, “When the vessel (Hermes) struck she was thrown on her beam end and being endangered by the masts falling – but God ordained it otherwise.”

The combined crews (totaling 57) made it safely to one of the small islands and were castaway for months with what meager provisions they could salvage.

Using salvaged timbers and other parts of the lost ships, one of the carpenters on board the Hermes, James Robinson, supervised the building of a small 30-ton schooner named ‘Deliverance’ on the beach.

Before launching the beach-built rescue vessel, the castaways were rescued by a passing ship.

Though most of the crew elected to board the rescue ship, Robinson and 11 others were able to recoup some of the financial losses from the wrecks by sailing the nearly finished Deliverance back to Honolulu, and eventually selling her there for $2,000.

From there, Robinson went on to found the highly successful James Robinson and Company shipyard in 1827 (the first shipyard at Honolulu) and became an influential member of the island community (his descendants became a well-known island family and his fortune founded the Robinson Estate.) (This family is different than the Robinson’s associated with Niʻihau.)

In 2004, NOAA divers in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands came across the two whaling vessel wreck sites at Pearl and Hermes Atoll.

The wreck of the Pearl lies seaward of the reef crest, but in the proximity of the surf zone, the Hermes site was to the west of the Pearl.

Artifacts were found at the sites, however they are quite deteriorated. Large iron try pots (for rendering the whale blubber into oil,) blubber hooks, anchors, brick and iron ballast pieces and fasteners were found around each site.

Cannons (four from the Hermes and two from the Pearl) and numerous cannon balls indicate the nature of hazards faced during early 19th century whaling voyages to the Pacific.

October 15, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Papaʻāpoho

Papaʻāpoho describes a flat area with a depression or hollow, which is how the island of Papaʻāpoho is shaped. It’s over 1,000-miles from Honolulu.

This 23.4-million-year-old island is over 1.2-miles across and has a land area of approximately 400-acres, making it the third largest island within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (to the northwest of the Main Hawaiian Islands.)

Like its name, the island has an elevated rim (its highest point is a 40-foot-high sand dune) surrounding a broad central depression; its lowest point is a depression to the south that runs as a channel toward the ocean.

“This is a low, sandy island, elevated from 20 to 40 feet above the sea. It is about 1 1/4 miles long, and the northern part one mile wide; the surface is covered with green coarse grass.”

“There is what has been a lagoon near the southern part of the island, in the centre of which fresh water was found by digging 5-feet. Birds, fish, seal and turtle abound here, but not so plentiful as at Laysan Island.” (Paty, Polynesian, June 6, 1857)

At 10 pm, October 15, 1805, Urey Lisiansky (Yuri Fyodorovich Lisyansky,) an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy and commanding officer of the exploratory sloop-of-war Neva, ran aground on the island. Captain Lisiansky jettisoned some of the ship’s cargo to free themselves from the shallow waters.

“This island promises nothing to the adventurous voyager but certain danger in the first instance, and almost unavoidable destruction in the event. It stands in the middle of a very perilous coral bank, and, exclusive of a small eminence on the eastern part, lies almost on a level with the sea.” (A Voyage Round the World, Lisiansky, 1805)

“As there is no water, so neither are any trees to be seen on this island. We found, however, several large trunks of trees on the beach, which, no doubt, had been thrown up by the sea. … They were like the red-wood tree, that grows on the banks of the river Columbia in America. I am at a loss what conclusion to draw from the appearance of these trunks of trees in so remote a place.” (A Voyage Round the World, Lisiansky, 1805)

“I also found on the beach a small callabash, which had a round hole cut on one side of it. This could not have been drifted from a great distance, as it was fresh and in good preservation.” (A Voyage Round the World, Lisiansky, 1805)

Before leaving, Lisiansky named the island and shoal; “To the south-east point of the bank where the vessel grounded, I gave the name of Neva; while the island itself, in compliance with the unanimous wishes of my ship’s company, received the appellation of Lisiansky.” (A Voyage Round the World, Lisiansky, 1805)

The spelling Lisianski (not Lisyansky) was officially adopted by the US Geographic Board, October 1, 1924. Other names by which the island has been called include: Lisiansky, Lysianski, Lassion and Pell. (Thrum)

In 1857, King Kamehameha IV asked Captain John Paty to make a voyage of exploration to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. In part, he was sent to investigate the possibility of guano deposits on islands there (for fertilizer for the growing agricultural economy back on the Main Hawaiian Islands.

In addition, he confirmed or corrected the existence (or not) of many islands noted on old charts; “A considerable portion of the time absent has been consumed in looking after islands and banks which do not exist, or are erroneously marked on Blunt’s charts.” (Paty, Polynesian, June 6, 1857)

In the course of his voyage on the schooner “Manuokawai,” on May 11, 1857, Paty took possession of Lisianski Island for the Hawaiian Kingdom (he had previously annexed Laysan, its nearest neighbor, on May 1, 1857.)

In 1890, George D Freeth, an Englishman who had visited the area as early as 1864, and George N Wilcox, who had previously managed a guano operation on Jarvis Island, formed the North Pacific Phosphate and Fertilizer Company.

March 31, 1893, the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands adopted Act 22, confirming the contract between the Minister of Interior and North Pacific for a license for the removal of guano and phosphates from Lisianski (and Laysan.)

Guano mining (1890s,) the release of rabbits (1903) and mice caused ecological damage to Lisianski, as well as the loss of a breeding population of land birds (the Laysan duck was first reported on Lisianski Island in 1828.)

Feather collecting began on Lisianski about 1904. In response to public outcry about the feather trade, Theodore Roosevelt established the Hawaiian Island Bird Reservation, which included Lisianski, in 1909.

An armed party landed on the island in 1910. They arrested feather poachers and confiscated and destroyed about 1.4 tons of feathers, representing 140,400 birds. (NOAA)

Today, with poaching at an end, the rabbits exterminated, and the vegetation again spreading over its low sandy surface, Lisianski once more is becoming a populous bird sanctuary. (janeresture)

It is home to a large Bonin petrel colony (over three-quarters of the Bonin Petrels that nest in Hawaii nest here) and sooty tern colony, as well as a variety of other seabirds.

Lisianski has the only grove of Pisonia grandis trees in the entire Hawaiian Archipelago; this tree is dispersed by seabirds and is favored as a nesting site for many tree-nesting seabird species.

The reefs of Lisianski and surrounding Neva Shoals are called “coral gardens” by some scientists because of their abundance of coral and the variety of growth forms assumed by their colonies, including structures resembling spires, castles, and a variety of other shapes.

Hawaiian monk seals and green sea turtles are common visitors to Lisianski’s sandy white beaches. Migratory shorebirds seen on the island include the kolea (golden plover,) ulili (wandering tattler,) and kioea (bristle-thighed curlew.) The volcanic island is undergoing the slow process of erosion. (NOAA)

Click HERE for a link to a ‘street view’ of Lisianski.

August 16, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hot Spot

Kupuna means elder, grandparent or ancestor. The islands to the northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands have been referred to as the Kupuna Islands. The Hawaiian chain is made up of volcanic islands.

Kilauea Volcano has been erupting since 1983. Mauna Loa is also an active volcano. Off the coast, to the southeast, Kamaʻehuakanaloa Seamount (previously known as Loʻihi) is forming. (It is currently about 3,000-feet below sea level and is estimated to emerge above sea level in the next 10,000 to 100,000 years.)

Some of the other recent eruptions include Hualālai that last erupted in 1801; Haleakala that last erupted in about 1790 and Mauna Kea that last erupted about 4,000 years ago. (SOEST) (The first three volcanoes are considered ‘active’ and the latter three ‘dormant.’)

Hawaiʻi sits over a ‘hot spot,’ the Hawaiian hot spot.

It’s one hot spot, but lots of volcanoes have formed over it. The Islands are above a moving sea floor of the North Pacific Ocean (the Pacific Ocean is mostly floored by a single tectonic plate known as the “Pacific Plate.”)

The Pacific Plate is moving over the layer in the Earth known as the Asthenosphere. This movement takes it to the northwest. As the plate moves over a fixed spot deeper in the Earth where magma (molten lava) forms, a new volcano can punch through this plate and create an island.

As the plate moves away, the volcano stops erupting and a new one is formed in its place. With time, the volcanoes keep drifting westward and getting older relative to the one active volcano that is over the hot spot.

As they age, the crust that they sit on cools and subsides. This, combined with erosion of the islands, once active volcanism stops, leads to a shrinking of the islands with age and their eventual submergence below the ocean surface.

Each island is made up of at least one primary volcano, although many islands are composites of more than one. The Big Island, for instance, is constructed of 5 major volcanoes: Kilauea, Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, Hualālai and Kohala (the island is still growing, but is basically about 400,000-years old.)

Maui is made up of two volcanoes, Haleʻākala and West Maui (about 1.32-million years ago.) Kahoʻolawe and Lānaʻi were each formed by a single volcano of their respective names.

Molokai was formed by East and West Molokai volcanoes (about 1.8-million years ago.) Oʻahu is also formed by two, Koʻolau and Waianae (about 3-million years ago.) Kauai and Niʻihau were formed by volcanoes of their respective Island names (about 5.1-million years ago.)

They are all part of the Hawaiian-Emperor Volcanic Chain. About 40-million years ago, the Pacific Plate changed direction from north to northwest – so the Emperor Seamounts run more north-south, the Hawaiian Ridge north-westerly.

Midway Island is 27.7-million years old; Meiji Seamount the northern part of the Emperor Seamount (near the end of the Aleutian chain) is about 80-million years old.

All of these are still youngsters, when you look at the perspective, say, of the dinosaurs. The Islands weren’t even a glimmer in anyone’s eyes when dinosaurs walked the Earth; sixty-five million years ago the last of the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, after living on Earth for about 165-million years. (USGS)

If all of Earth time from the very beginning of the dinosaurs to today were compressed into 365 days (1 calendar year), the dinosaurs appeared January 1 and became extinct the third week of September.

Using this same time scale, the Earth would have formed approximately 18.5-years earlier. By comparison, people have been on earth only since December 31 (New Year’s eve.) (USGS)

When I was at DLNR, President George W Bush created the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument on June 15, 2006. Seeking a more appropriate Hawaiian name for the monument, suggestions for a name change were submitted.

We selected the name Papahanaumokuakea; it was submitted by Pua Kanahele. Pua and the First Lady, Laura Bush, attended the ceremony announcing the new name (March 2, 2007.)

The Kumulipo, the creation chant, tells of the history of how all life forms came and evolved from Papahanaumokuakea, beginning with the coral polyp – the building block for all life.

Papahanaumoku is a mother figure personified by the earth and Wakea is a father figure personified in the expansive sky; the two are honored and highly recognized ancestors of Native Hawaiian people.

Their union resulted in the creation, or birthing, of the entire Hawaiian archipelago. The naming of the monument is to honor and preserve these names, to strengthen Hawaii’s cultural foundation and to ground Hawaiians to an important part of their history.

Thus, the genealogy of Papahanaumokuakea tells the story of Native Hawaiians’ ancestral connection with the gods who created those coral polyps, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands or Kūpuna Islands, and everything else in the archipelago. (Lots of information here from the UH-Manoa SOEST, USGS and Papahanaumokuakea.)