A Monumental vacation

The Northwest Hawaiian Islands could be opened to ecotourism by next summer

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MIDWAY ATOLL, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands » If a remote Pacific island with millions of resident seabirds, historic remnants of World War II and an aqua-blue lagoon teeming with marine life sounds like a dream vacation, start saving.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service hopes to reopen limited ecotourism at its Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge by next summer.

Although prices aren't set yet, a week here probably will cost as much or more than a luxury cruise because of the cost of getting people, food and supplies 1,250 miles northwest of Honolulu.

A fact-finding mission by U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, his staff, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara, her staff and a couple of journalists on Wednesday and Thursday provided a sampler of what visitors might experience here in the near future.

Last month President Bush designated the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as a marine national monument.

Bush's proclamation said commercial fishing in the 140,000-square-mile area surrounding the northwestern-most islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago will be phased out in five years.

Bush called for conservation and scientific research as primary uses of the area and for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to jointly manage the area, in cooperation with the state of Hawaii.

The proclamation also left the door open for low-impact visits to Midway Atoll, the former Navy outpost that became a National Wildlife Refuge in 1996 and in 2000 was also named the Battle of Midway National Memorial.

Thirty-six hotel rooms in a renovated former Navy barracks on Sand Island are utilitarian, with decent beds, hot running water and air conditioning. Food is three buffet meals per day, with quality reminiscent of a good cafeteria. Getting around is by foot, bicycle, golf cart or boat.

About 50 employees of the Alaska-based Chugach Industries Inc. provide the basic infrastructure services for the island, including maintenance of the runway and airport as an emergency mid-Pacific landing spot.

At dawn on Thursday, the sunlight shone on thousands of black-and-white Laysan albatrosses sitting on the ground among the aging buildings that remain after the Navy pulled out in 1996.

Though the albatrosses are huge -- about 7 pounds, with a wingspan of 6 1/2 feet -- the vast majority were born this year and haven't yet learned to fly.

Over the next month, they will shed the last of their chick down and learn to fly -- or die.

Because the fledglings' parents have stopped feeding them, more each day are driven by hunger and by instinct to the water's edge. There they make a running start into the wind, flap their wings and, if they're lucky, fly away.

Ever since the Navy completed its pullout in 1996 and handed the atoll over to the Fish & Wildlife Service, the albatross numbers have been climbing. This year's count of albatross at Midway was a record 511,000 pairs, said refuge biologist John Klavitter.

Midway is also home to increasing numbers of threatened green sea turtles and endangered Hawaiian monk seals. About 250 spinner dolphins call the 5-mile-diameter lagoon home.

Other birds that nest here include the great frigate bird, red-footed boobies, brown and black noddies, sooty terns, shearwaters and red-tailed tropic birds. A small population of endangered Laysan ducks have been relocated to Midway Atoll and are thriving in freshwater wetlands that are planted with native grasses by Fish & Wildlife Service volunteers.

There's even a naturalized flock of canaries, descended from cage escapees.