Oeno

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Oeno
NASA image from Oeno
NASA image from Oeno
Waters Pacific Ocean
archipelago Pitcairn Islands
Geographical location 23 ° 56 ′  S , 130 ° 44 ′  W Coordinates: 23 ° 56 ′  S , 130 ° 44 ′  W
Map of Oeno
Number of islands 2
Main island Oeno Island
length 3.8 km
width 3.8 km
Land area 65 ha
Lagoon area 8 km²
total area 16 km²
Residents uninhabited
Map of Oeno
Map of Oeno
Template: Infobox Atoll / Maintenance / HoeheFehlt

Oeno ( English Oeno Island , old name: Martha Island or Martha's Island ) is an atoll in the southeastern Pacific Ocean at 23 ° 55 ′ south and 130 ° 44 ′ west. The uninhabited island is located in the far west of the Pitcairn Archipelago , around 140 kilometers north-northwest of the main island of Pitcairn .

geography

Location of Oeno within the Pitcairn Islands

In the middle of an almost circular coral reef , the main island of Oeno, which is about 1.5 by 0.5 kilometers in size, lies in a shallow lagoon that is no more than five meters deep . Of the numerous reef rocks and sandbanks with which the lagoon is speckled, only the small Sandy Island rises above the sea surface as a low sand hill. The lagoon has only two shallow and narrow flow channels to the open sea. The total area of ​​the atoll is 16 square kilometers, the land area is 0.65 square kilometers.

flora

The flora of Oeno, although richer than on the island of Ducie , which belongs to the same archipelago , is relatively poor in species. The essay by Jaques Florence et al., Which is based on the investigations of the Sir Peter Scott Commemorative Expedition in 1991–92 and earlier studies. mentions only 16 native species, two of which (Asiatic hooklily and brown mustard ) were no longer found in 1991. Even the only endemic known for Oeno , Bidens hendersonensis var. Oenoensis from the genus of two-teeth , could not be found again in 1991 despite a careful search and may have become extinct in the meantime.

The dominant leaf is the velvet leaf ( Heliotropium foertherianum; synonyms: Argusia argentea and Tournefortia argentea ). In the inner areas of the island it forms light forests with bushes seven to nine meters high. The forest is interspersed with Pandanus tectorius , the ground is covered by Boerhavia tetrandra , Lepidium bidentatum , Hedyotis romanzoffiensis , Achyranthes velutina , Lepturus repens , Phymatosorus scolopendria , Cassytha filiformis and Scaevola sericea . The forest is framed by low-growing Suriana maritima bushes. At the south-western tip of the island there is a dense cluster of Pisonia grandis , interspersed with Asplenium nidus and the man- eater tomato (Solanum viride), which may have been introduced here by Polynesians . This is also where Bidens hendersonensis in the oenoensis variant was located . A new find from the 1991 expedition was Triumfetta procumbens . Other species found on Oeno such as the coconut palm were probably planted by the Pitcairners.

fauna

Murphy Petrel

Birds

Oeno - as Henderson and Ducie - an important refuge and breeding ground for many seabirds such as Murphysturmvogel (Pterodroma ultima) , red-tailed tropic bird (Phaethon rubricauda) , Feenseeschwalbe (Gygis alba) , red footed and masked boobies (Sula sula and dactylatra) or Noddi (Anous stolidus) . The Curlew (Numenius tahitiensis), classified as endangered by the IUCN, winters here. There is a significant colony of frigate birds (Fregata minor) on the island . The birds nest in low Argusia bushes in the interior of the island. Some Pitcairners take frigate bird chicks with them on their occasional visits and raise them tame. Frigate birds do not breed on Pitcairn Island.

Land fauna

The terrestrial fauna is, as with other coral islands, very poor in species and limited to a few species of snails, insects and lizards.

Marine fauna

The richest marine communities are on the outside of the fringing reef. The large number of killer or giant clams ( Tridacna maxima ) is remarkable . The lagoon is mostly covered with sandy soil and therefore comparatively poor in species. Biological communities have settled in particular under the overhanging reef rocks that are distributed throughout the lagoon.

history

No evidence of a permanent Polynesian settlement on Oeno has been found so far . It is unlikely because of the island's small size and biodiversity. At least the temporary presence of early Polynesian visitors is documented. 1858 Shipwrecked Members of found Wild Wave stone blade of an adze from basalt that of the 440 km distant island Mangareva comes. The find - now in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu - confirms the early contacts between Pitcairn and the Gambier Islands .

Captain James Henderson, who sailed the South Seas with the merchant ship Hercules on behalf of the British East India Company , was probably the first European to sight the island in January 1819, but apparently failed to give it a name. Ralph Bond, captain of the brig Martha , visited the island in 1822 or 1823 and, believing he was the first to discover it, named it "Martha Island" after his ship. The island got its current name from the American captain George B. Worth, who visited it in December 1823 or January 1824 and named it after his ship, the whaler Oeno .

On December 23, 1825, Frederick William reached Beechey with the HMS Blossom Oeno. Lieutenant Belcher, an ensign, and a few sailors rowed a dinghy around the island to make soundings for a mapping. When they tried to land, the boat overturned in the heavy surf. The sailors saved themselves on the reef, but a cabin boy drowned. The survivors were rescued with a raft and a line stretched to the bank. Beechey made no further attempt to land and sailed away.

Numerous sailing ships fell victim to the sharp-edged coral reef, including the three-masted Khandeish from Liverpool on September 25, 1875. The ship under the command of Captain Skelly wrecked at 10 p.m., but the crew members were able to save themselves in two dinghies and sail to Pitcairn. They arrived safely there on September 28th and stayed 51 days as guests of the islanders until they were brought to San Francisco by the Ennerdale .

Other wrecked ships were the American barque Oregon on August 23, 1883 and the wheat-laden British merchant ship Bowdon on April 26, 1893.

The most dramatic story is that of the American clipper Wild Wave under Captain Josiah Knowles, who ran aground on Oeno in 1858. The sailing ship was on its way from San Francisco via Valparaíso to the American east coast. On board, Captain Knowles had, among other things, US $ 18,000 in gold and the remains of his brother Thomas Knowles, who died in 1852 and was initially buried in San Francisco, which were to be transferred to Orleans on the Cape Cod peninsula and buried there. On March 5, 1858, shortly after midnight, the clipper collided with the coral reef of Oeno and within a few minutes ran full of water. The 30 crew members and 10 passengers were able to save themselves on the island with a few essentials. The body of Thomas Knowles was also brought there and buried. When the castaways found that they were stranded on an uninhabited island off the beaten track, Captain Knowles sailed with six crew members in a small open dinghy to Pitcairn. There they found that the island was depopulated; the residents had been relocated to Norfolk Island two years earlier . Since the shipwrecked boat had been smashed by the surf a few days after landing on Pitcairn, they built a new boat from existing materials and burned down some of the abandoned huts to obtain fittings and nails. They mended the sail from pieces of fabric left behind. On July 23, Captain Knowles left Pitcairn with three men, the others stayed behind. On August 4, the boat reached the island of Nuku Hiva , which belongs to the Marquesas and is more than 2000 kilometers away . There, its crew received help from the US warship Vandalia , who happened to be present and took the remaining castaways on Pitcairn and Oeno (one had since died). A tombstone that Josiah Knowles put up for his brother on a return visit to the island can still be seen today. The body was exhumed again and finally transferred to Orleans.

Under the direction of Robert Teesdale Simons, the British Consul of Tahiti and Deputy Commissioner for the Western Pacific from 1894 to 1908, the Adventist cutter Pitcairn sailed from the island of Pitcairn to Oeno, Henderson and Ducie under the command of Captain G. F. Jones. On July 10, 1902, the crew left a plaque on Oeno that read: "This island is a Pitcairn colony and is owned by the British Government."

The British claim to Oeno was renewed shortly before World War II when the New Zealand light cruiser HMNZS Leander, part of the Pacific Squadron , visited the islands of Oeno, Ducie and Henderson. On August 6, 1937, Captain James William Rivett-Carnac hoisted the Union Jack and deposited a plaque that Oeno was the property of His Majesty King George VI. designated.

Once a year the Pitcairn people headed for the otherwise uninhabited island with their two open aluminum boats to spend a few days of relaxation swimming and fishing, as there is no sandy beach on Pitcairn itself. Pitcairn residents have built a few open, palm-leaf-roofed huts on the main island for cooking and living.

Web links

Commons : Oeno Atoll  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Irving, Terry Dawson: The Marine Environment of the Pitcairn Islands . A report to Global Ocean Legacy, a project of the Pew Environment Group . Dundee University Press, Dundee 2012, ISBN 978-1-84586-161-2 , 3.3 Oeno - Key Facts, pp. 29 (English, pewtrusts.org [PDF; 3.6 MB ; accessed on June 14, 2020]).
  2. ^ A b Jacques Florence et al .: The flora of the Pitcairn Islands: a review . In: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society . tape 56 , no. 1-2 . Oxford University Press, September 1995, ISSN  0024-4066 , pp. 79–119 , p. 79: Abstract and p. 97–100: Oeno Island , doi : 10.1111 / j.1095-8312.1995.tb01079.x (English).
  3. ↑ Steve Waldren, Naomi Kingston: Bidens hendersonensis var. Oenoensis. In: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources , 1998, accessed September 3, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Dieter Mueller-Dombois , F. Raymond Fosberg: Vegetation of the Tropical Pacific Islands (=  Ecological Studies . No. 132 ). Springer Science + Business Media, New York 1998, ISBN 978-0-387-98313-4 , The Tuamoto Archipelago: Oeno Atoll, p. 441 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ Michael de L. Brooke: The modern avifauna of the Pitcairn Islands . In: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society . tape 56 , no. 1-2 . Oxford University Press, September 1995, ISSN  0024-4066 , pp. 199–212 , p. 205: Great frigatebird - Fregata minor , doi : 10.1111 / j.1095-8312.1995.tb01085.x (English).
  6. ^ Marshall I. Weisler: Henderson Island prehistory: colonization and extinction on a remote Polynesian island . In: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society . tape 56 , no. 1-2 . Oxford University Press, September 1995, ISSN  0024-4066 , pp. 377-404 , pp. 384-385: Oeno , doi : 10.1111 / j.1095-8312.1995.tb01099.x (English).
  7. ↑ Kenneth P. Emory: Stone Implements of Pitcairn Island . In: The Journal of the Polynesian Society . tape 37 , no. 146 , 1928, pp. 125-135 , pp. 131-132: The Adzes used for comparison (English, online ).
  8. ^ A b Steve Dehner: The Armchair Navigator I - Supplements to Post-Spanish Discoveries in the Pacific Ocean . Bad Tattoo Inc., 2019, Oeno Island, p. 2–4 (English, full text in Google Book Search).
  9. ↑ a b Frederick William Beechey : Narrative of a voyage to the Pacific and Beering's strait, to co-operate with the polar expeditions: performed in His Majesty's ship Blossom, under the command of Captain FW Beechey, RN, FRS & c. in the years 1825, 26, 27, 28 . tape 1 . Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, London 1831, Chapter V, p. 137–168 , here pp. 137–140 (English, full text ).
  10. ↑ Steve Dehner: The Armchair Navigator I - Supplements to Post-Spanish Discoveries in the Pacific Ocean . Bad Tattoo Inc., 2019, Captain Bond of the “Martha”, p. 5–7 (English, full text in Google Book Search).
  11. ^ Herbert Ford: Pitcairn Island as a port of call: a record, 1790-2010 . 2nd Edition. McFarland & Company, Jefferson, NC 2012, ISBN 978-0-7864-6604-7 , pp. 49 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ^ Rosalind Amelia Young, Mutiny of the Bounty and story of Pitcairn Island, 1790-1894 . Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View / Kansas City / Alberta / Portland 1894, Chapter XXI: The Wreck of the Oregon , pp. 224-228 (English, online ).
  13. ^ Board of Trade (Ed.): Wreck Report for "Bowdon" . Liverpool August 11, 1893 (English, available online at PortCities Southampton ).
  14. ^ Nauset and vicinity: ID 16041 - Thomas Knowles. In: RootsWeb's World Connect Project. Ancestry Corporate, accessed September 5, 2017 .
  15. ^ Josiah Nickerson Knowles: Wreck of the "Wild Wave" - ​​The Crusoes of Pitcairn Island. The diary of Capt. Josiah N. Knowles . In: Edward Everett Hale (ed.): Stories of the sea told by sailors . XI. Pitcairn's Island. Roberts Brothers, Boston 1898, p. 195-226 (English, online ).
  16. ↑ # 10 Headstone of Thomas Knowles. Photo of Thomas Knowles tombstone on Oeno. In: Oeno Photo Tour. Pitcairn Islands Stucy Center, accessed September 5, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Thomas Knowles. Located in: Cape Cod (Barnstable County), Massachusetts Gravestones. Robert Paine Carlson, accessed September 5, 2017 .
  18. ↑ James S. Wallace: The 'Pitcairn' Ship and Her Six Voyages , Berrien Springs (MI), 1972