Isla Non Grata (Cont.) | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Travel >> Isla Non Grata (Cont.)

Today's Question
Where should I camp in Switzerland with my kids? answer

What's the best volcano to hike up in North America? answer

How can I plan a trip around riding the biggest, fastest roller coasters? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine's 2002 Travel Guide

Page:

Isla Non Grata (Cont.)

I stumbled upon Navassa one dreary afternoon in New York as I stood daydreaming before the DMA 400 chart of the Caribbean. I had never noticed that speck of U.S. territory lying between Haiti and Jamaica before. I made some phone calls and, in a couple of hours, found that Navassa is completely uninhabited. Naturally, I began to dream of unspoiled waters, pristine reefs, and swimming with endangered turtles. But more than anything I dreamed of undertaking a voyage of discovery at a time when nothing seemed undiscovered. A year later, I found myself aboard Lucy with my wife, Lani, heading toward Navassa.

"We're calling it 'the Galapagos of the Caribbean."

"Navassa is a complete treasure house," said Joseph Schwagerl over a bad connection from Puerto Rico. "We're calling it 'the Galapagos of the Caribbean.'" Schwagerl works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which took over management of Navassa from the Coast Guard in 1998 and sent a team of biologists to the island to survey the plants and animals. What they found was mind-blowing. "Four new species of fish, one of the largest pristine sponge forests in the Caribbean, and hundreds of spiders," says Schwagerl with infectious wonder. "Spiders rule the island. The arachnologist catalogued 40 new species."

But what makes Navassa important to science aren't just the 40 new spiders; it's the 760 other plant and animal species, at least 250 of which were unknown to science, crammed onto the island's two square miles. In terms of evolutionary biology, this is astounding. No sea captain with a ship full of critters and seeds crashed here hundreds of years ago. Instead, life evolved in a mad rush of speciation atop a five-million-year-old pile of guano phosphates, or bird shit, accumulating on a coral reef.

Page: