For Christmas
p. 33 · Read in the full issue
You Don’T Need A Visa
If you are a Finn, a Dane, an Uruguayan, or even a Turk, Greek, Tunisian or Swiss, and if you happen to be planning a holiday on Christmas Island (Pacific Ocean), then you’ll be pleased to know that you won’t have to bother to get yourself a visa to go there.
As with British and British Commonwealth passport holders, and citizens of Belgium, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Spain, a valid passport is all you need.
This information on im migration requirements for Christmas Island is among the exotica to be found in a new, 88-page book, The Christmas Island Story, by Eric Bailey.
Mr Bailey is, or was until recently, based on Christmas Island as District Officer of the Line and Phoenix Islands, the farthest-flung outposts of the soon-to-be-independent Gilbert Islands. He is a Christmas Island enthusiast, who has undertaken to tell the world what the island is all about.
It is, among other things, the world’s largest coral atoll.
It lies just over 3 220 km from Tarawa, the Gilbert Islands capital; 6 440 km from Sydney; 2 415 km from Apia,
and a little less from Tahiti and Honolulu. It owes its name to Captain Cook, who discovered it on Christmas Day, 1777.
Mr Bailey tells the story of Cook’s discovery in detail and outlines the island’s history since then. One of his chapters concerns (but does not tell us quite enough about) the celeb rated and somewhat mysterious Father Emmanuel Rougier, who owned the is land for about 20 years until his death in 1932.
Other sections deal with the island’s part in World War II and its role in British and American nuclear tests in the ’fifties and ’sixties.
Now, Mr Bailey says, tour ism is being encouraged. The island has a 48-bed hotel, and one may reach it once a week in a Boeing 727 of Air Tungaru, an air service op erated by the Gilbert Islands Government from Tarawa to Honolulu via Christmas Is land.
However, Mr Bailey believes that tourism should remain modest. This is because huge seabird colo nies, which are the island’s outstanding attraction, should be ‘guarded against excessive disturbance.’
One of the most interesting
sections of Mr Bailey’s book concerns the brine shrimp, a tiny marine creature, which may be important in the future economy of the Gilbert Is lands.
Brine shrimp are in cons tant demand by fish farmers and aquarium owners as food for newly, hatched fish. Con ditions on Christmas Island seem to be ideal for breeding them on a large scale. A scheme currently afoot in the island may well become the world’s first full-scale attempt
at intensive culture.—
Langdon.
Robert
(The Christmas Island Story. Eric
Bailey. Published by Stacey Intemetional, 128 Keasiu|tea Church Street London. W 8 4BH. £2.50)