By Jess Cramp
Henderson Island—a makatea, which means raised coral island—is in the middle of the South Pacific. It’s uninhabited except for Polynesian rats and four species of endemic land birds, whose presence afforded the designation of a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988. From miles away, I could see a long, skinny strip of white sand and steep palm lined cliffs that bordered the entire atoll. Although we were restricted by the Pitcairn authority from exploring the interior of the island, the excitement of stopping at this speck in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, checking out the beach for both birds and plastic and potentially surfing a reef in the middle of nowhere was filling me with nervous excitement. I was half asleep while taking tons of photos and dancing like a swirling jellyfish.
The boat anchored about 200 meters offshore in crystal clear water spotted with coral and sand. There were three of us frothing to surf, so the skipper asked us to check out beach accessibility. I launched myself off the deck of our 22-meter island with my surfboard in one hand and my diving mask in the other. Shallow and bleached, the reef was home to very few fish, which was immediately shocking considering the island was both remote and uninhabited. We struggled to find much in the surf, but I managed to stand up once, dragging my fins into a mass of coral close to the inside. Oops! Feeling excited about my first (and only) wave here, I washed up on the soft reef to explore the beach. Before even reaching the shore, it was easy to spot the numerous pieces of fishing debris and plastic buoys used on boats. Unlike most of the other beaches I’ve visited, I saw very little disposable plastic items like bottles, shopping bags, and flip-flops.
Leslie Moyer, a rep from 5 Gyres, beached soon after and asked me to help her hunt for at least 100 nurdles (remember the plastic precursor pellets?) to send to Japan, where a lab is studying the contents and chemical makeup of these ubiquitous beach dwellers. Covered in sand and equipped with a pair of tweezers, it became really easy to tell the difference between the nurdles and rocks. It was hard to comprehend just how these things made their way across thousands of miles of ocean and washed up on this very beach.
After a much-anticipated walk on solid ground and a very confusing and somewhat disturbing understanding of not only our impact from plastic, but also from over-fishing, it was time to paddle back to the boat. This is when I stared back at them.
My Dad is deathly afraid of sharks. Two of my best friends refused to snorkel with me in California because they’re afraid of sharks. So when Colleen, a fellow crewmate who was snorkeling with her boyfriend 100 yards away, calmly yelled, “Hey Jess, look down,” all I could see was one very beady, very close, shark-like eye looking back at me. I couldn’t help but think about how my loved ones would react and how I couldn’t wait to tell them… once I was safely on the boat.
At first I saw one and then, before I could decide whether I was afraid, there were three of them. They were curious and following me closely. Ecstatic that I brought my mask so I could check them out, I was surprised that I wasn’t completely panicked. I had never been so close to a shark before. In fact, it’s quite possible that they had never been so close to a human before either.
Needless to say, my 200-meter paddle back to the boat went fairly quickly. Garen Baghdasarian, our marine biologist who had to kick one of the sharks for his own safety, let us know that they were relatively harmless grey rock sharks that are territorial and only bite when provoked. Lucky for me, I left with nothing but new questions and memories.
