Hmmm... Interesting. Don’t know if you noticed but the article right below the one referred to (about the eclipse) talks about a native swimming out to the ship from “Gardner Island”. Which of course is Nikumaroro Island. It does not say the date but Gardner Island should have been uninhabited around June of 1937 (unless AE and FN landed there a month later). The article could of course be in error, wrong island, wrong date, etc. I’m not the best speller or always use the best grammar myself, but if those would be requirements for that Gardner article to equate to accuracy, that article might be suspect… But interesting anyway. Here is the text right below the “eclipse text” you have the link to, which says it is the Sydney Morning Herald dated June 8, 1937.
-Chuck
GARDNER ISLAND ANNEXED.
The manner in which the Phoenix Group was annexed is not without interest. When Captain Gibson, in command of H.M.s. Cura- coa, arrived off Gardner Island he found that the natives already regarded themselves ai subjects of Queen Victoria. The naval ofUcer found, owing to heavy seas breaking on the reef, that it was Impossible to land. He had departed from Sydney on a mysterious voya»e similar to that undertaken recently by H.MS Leith. However, a native of the island swam off to the wnrshlp, and he informed Captain Gibson that Sir John B. Thurstan, well known as High Commissioner in the Western Pacific had already annexed the group, nnd leased Gardner Island to Arundel and Company st a rental of £ 25 per annum. Consequently, tin native Inhabitant.-, considered themselvei British subjects. Nevertheless, Captain Gib. son solemnly read a deed of protection to tin visitor, and presented him with a Union Jack, following which the native swam ashore with the tidings. "But not without difficulty," says a record of the historic proceeding in tfij Mitchell Library. "Of course, there is ona short time in the year when Gardner Island can be approached in safely, and it is dunn? such season that the copra is shipped, but there Í3 no opening In the reef at all,"