A booming cash economy, new immigration and the early stages of urbanization and environmental change have resulted from the visits of Norwegian Cruise Lines ships to Fanning Island. "It goes without saying that the impact on the atoll is tremendous," said Bill Paupe, the Republic of Kiribati's honorary counsel in Honolulu. "There was nothing there before," he told Mike Liedemann of the Honolulu Advertiser.
In 1998, the 20,000 ton Norwegian Dynasty, carrying close on 800 passengers, became the first cruise ship to make scheduled visits to Fanning Island, nearly 1,000 nautical miles due south of Hawaii. Prior to Norwegian Cruise Lines regular visits, the atoll was among the most isolated dots in the Pacific Ocean, hardly visited at all. Its 1,600 residents were served only by a monthly cargo ship. The occasional sailing craft made a stopover on the long haul from the North American west coast or Hawaii to Tahiti, Tonga or the Cook Islands.
The island has few modern amenities. There is no power grid or phone service. A small airstrip is overgrown and unused. The residents are mostly self-sufficient or employed by an old copra plantation and, of late engaged in commercial harvesting of seaweed. Nearly 2,000 passengers aboard NCL cruise ships visit the island for up to six hours each week. Visitors have a chance to hike or bike along palm-shaded paths or be entertained by Gilbertese dancers.
Cruise passengers also have the opportunity to swim in the crystal-clear shallows of the lagoon, wonderfully warmed by an almost vertical sun at three degrees north latitude. NCL ships visit Fanning in order to comply with a U.S. federal law requiring foreign-built ships to visit a foreign port between U.S. stops.
The advent of cruise ship arrivals has brought economic opportunity to this once isolated isle. Dozens of residents have been employed by the cruise line, which has built a million-dollar visitor center. Hundreds of others have rushed to set up handicraft businesses.
Cruise Line personnel have rented the biggest homes, built new accommodation for their employees, set up Fanning's first large-scale electric generators and flush toilets, donated thousands of dollars to improve the island's only school, and even brought the first-ever helicopter to the island to take aerial shots for promotion.
NCL has very wisely kept to the Fanning Island name, although the locals do not refer to the atoll as Fanning. They are quite happy for visitors to call it Fanning.
