Ni'ihau is the northern most of the 8 main Hawaiian islands and is the smallest of the inhabited islands. It is often referred to as "The Forbidden Island," because it has been privately owned by a single family since 1864. The island has no electricity, TVs, hospitals, or other amenities. They live a traditional lifestyle and speak Hawaiian as their first language. The Ni'ihau incident occurred during attack in WWII when a Japanese pilot crashed on the island and committed a load of chaos before being killed.
Presently, Keith Robinson fights to preserve the way of life for the islands residents and continues to cultivate endangered Hawaiian flora. The island is also an important refuse for various endangered indigenous fauna including several bird species and the Hawaiian Monk Seal.
Robinson Crusader, a short documentary about the island's current owner and caretaker:
Yesterday I had more fun than I have for awhile. I went down to Sand Island to try and sell some old army crap to the surplus store and to check out the old bunkers at the park. I wanted to do the surplus store and then the park, but I accidentally drove past my turn off and decided to do the park first. I didn't think that I'd be there for nearly as long as I was, but I covered a lot of ground and saw some pretty weird sights. I've been to the park maybe twice, but only did a drive through- I'd never gotten out of the car to do a proper walk about. I don't recall seeing anything particularly notable in my past visits. Recently, I heard that there were some old WWII bunkers out there so I decided to do some investigating. Well, the bunkers are there and right out in the main area of the park so I don't know how I didn't notice them on the past trips or maybe I didn't realize what they were. Also, I don't know how the hell I didn't notice the big tower as it's a rather giant feature right in the midst of the park grounds. I followed the road as far as I could drive and then parked my car and set out on foot through the wastelands. Sand Island is an industrial harbor area of Honolulu. There are a lot of shipping warehouses and other things of that nature. The first thing that I came upon was a set of derelict baseball fields. After that I found a muddy lot of rubble on the shore with a set of weirdly cryptic log arches and a bunch of semi-abandoned construction vehicles. Continuing down the shore of the wastelands I came across two separate nude men, two homeless encampments, a BMX track, a mysterious island with several anarchic squatter type houses on stilts, and a yard full of outrigger canoes. On the way back I walked along the beach around the point rather than trekking through all the brush back through the baseball fields. I saw several more nude or semi-nude men including one older Asian man who was incredibly tan and wearing one of those 80s style wireless AM/FM headsets with the antenna on it. He was staring at me. It was very sketchy. The whole place was sketchy and weird and absolutely, totally heavenly. The park afforded some spectacular views of Honolulu and Diamond Head and the surrounding areas.
No one's keeping score:
Looking back:
