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Life on Laysan 
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Fui'adira Pacific 70(9)2X^15 
Cq?t. 1953 
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away from domesticity , men find adventure 
and new friends on a tiny pacific island 
husband dropped an idea into the post-supper 
calm about ten months ago that was a real stunner. He's 
always getting ideas, and many of them remain just that, 
but this one showed the results of both luck and deter¬ 
mination. It concerned a journey and adventure that 
didn't include me except as I could check supply lists and 
be a sounding board for enthusiasms. 
About ten days after the momentous announcement, 
our seven-year-old Michele and 1 watched the man in our 
lives sail out through Kewalo Basin off Honolulu on a 
blue sampan into a world where women don't exist and 
aren't even missed. • 
The crew of the seventy-five foot Koyd Maru , skipper 
Dick Shiroma and seven island boys, were tolerant and 
most kind to the two who sailed as passengers. My hus¬ 
band Al had not had much trouble persuading Al La- 
brecque, another nature enthusiast, to accompany him, 
and the magic word he used as persuasion was “Laysan." 
Laysan is an island about 850 miles from Honolulu, 
of the stepping stones that a mythical giant would 
one 
use if he were to walk northwest from Kauai to Midway, 
it has achieved fame among ornithologists as a bird 
island because of the vast and varied feathered popula¬ 
tion it houses on its tiny area. To my bird-photographer 
husband, Laysan had always been a mecca beyond his 
dreams. Then while he was snooping around Kewalo 
Basin one day to see if he could hitch a ride at least as 
far as French Frigate Shoal, Dick Shiroma offered to 
take him to Laysan and drop him off while the Koyo 
Maru fished the waters in that area. 
So it was that the two Als, after obtaining permission 
from the Division of Fish and Game, set off on the blue 
Pacific to live for almost a week with a multitude of their 
feathered friends. What they told us upon their return 
by Lois Stoops 
SKETCHES BY AL STOOPS 
^ The ill-fated Koyo Maru at berth in Kewalo Basin was 
the link with leeward islands of the Hawaiian Archipelago. 
** The Frigate Bird, pirate of the Pacific skies, contem¬ 
plates his next exploit against his neighbors. Although he 
cannot swim or walk, he is notorious for his plundering. 
is a story of a part of our Hawaiian world that few men 
see, but most men dream of at least once in a lifetime— 
the desert isle in all its unbroken isolation. 
Laysan is a small island, and unlike many in the chain 
of Leeward Islands, almost fiat. It is a ring of white sand 
around a .“lake” of brackish water. The vegetation up 
from the beach is profuse and includes morning glories, 
beach naupaka, and edible pickle weed. It has one tree 
and a small lagoon for swimming (if one can isolate the 
mind from the picture of vertical fins gliding about not 
too far from shore). But the attraction of this little island 
is not the flora, or the changing blues of the water around 
it, or the unobstructed view of sky and sea, but the bird 
life. ' 
For here, day after day, are carried on the multi¬ 
tudinous activities of some of the most interesting sea 
. birds in the world. It was the men’s privilege to watch 
and photograph creatures who had little fear of them, 
and seemed only occasionally annoyed at having this new 
specie of long-legged gooney invade their privacy. ■ 
The living was primitive but adequate, and days were 
spent tramping through the sand, putting up with food, 
and checking on the wildlife. 
Around the lake the colony of Laysan Albatrosses 
made their homes. This is the gooney bird which has 
caused so much consternation to the military on Midway- 
These really handsome birds were in the process of rear¬ 
ing myriads of unattractive adolescents with patch) 
feathers, rasping voices, and uncouth manners. 
The Frigates sat watchfully on clumps of naupaL 
. ready to spread their huge black wings and soar into the 
sky, the pirates of the sea. And in contrast, down near 
the protecting rock jetties sat the queenly Bed-tailed 
Tropic Birds, creatures of such fearless gentleness that 
the joy of holding their silken white bodies and stroking 
the glistening, almost translucent feathers was a dait) 
reality. These birds are exotic beauties with large black 
