CLIPPERTON ISLAND (part 1) Clipperton island, also known as ‘Ile de la Passion’ is a tiny piece of land belonging to France, located in the midst of northeastern Pacific Ocean. Very isolated and uninhabited, it is difficult to reach and nearly never visited, except once a year by the French Navy and occasionnally by scientific missions. It is a fascinating place with the largest masked boobies colony in the world. Dominique LAURENT Meet me on mosttraveledpeople.com or thebesttravelled.com AUTOMATIC NO COMMERCIAL USE WITHOUT PRIOR APPROVAL

Clipperton : a small ring-shaped atoll, with a diameter of 3 to 4 km, in the Northern Pacific Ocean, at different times and viewed towards NW & SE.

Dawn on Clipperton with ‘Bois de Bougainville’ (foreground) & ‘Rocher de Clipperton’ (background).

Dawn on Clipperton ; Clipperton is also named ‘Ile de la Passion’ (as it was discovered on Good Friday 1711 by two Frenchmen, Mathieu Martin de Chassiron & Michel Dubocage).

Clipperton is a very isolated island ; the closest land is Socorro Island (Mexico), 945 km away. The closest harbour is Manzanillo (Mexico), 1100 km away. The nearest French land is Nuku Hiva (Marquesas Islands), 4018 km away.

Sunset & moon over Clipperton.

Clipperton covers 8,9 km² : 7,2 km² for the lagoon, and just 1,7 km² of land. The perimeter of the ring is 11,8 km.

Clipperton is completely flat except for this rock which towers at 29 m only ! As many islands in the Pacific Ocean, it is a volcano (the ‘Mont de Clipperton’), as high as 3000 m (and just 29 m above sea level) above the ocean floor, topped by a coral reef.

Clipperton is the only atoll in Eastern Pacific, and one of the very few in the northern hemisphere.

The French Monument with the flag mast & the wood ‘Bois de Bougainville’. Lots of masked boobies are flying above.

Clipperton was named after John Clipperton, an English privateer Clipperton was named after John Clipperton, an English privateer. He is said to have discovered Clipperton Island in 1702 (before France, but there is no proof of that!), which he would use as a hideout & base to stage attacks against the Spaniards. Legend has it that that there is a treasure buried here, but I did not have time enough to look for it …

There are about 700 coconut trees (about 500 in ‘Bois de Bougainville’), the others being scattered all around and in the islets of the lagoon. It seems that this number is decreasing.

The lagoon of Clipperton (behind the trees) is completely closed (no access to the ocean) and is therefore one of the very few (just 11) closed lagoons in the Pacific Ocean. This is the only freshwater lagoon in the world.

Being closed, the lagoon water is more or less fresh, as it comes mainly from the rains which are heavy during the rainy season. Some salt water comes to the lagoon with high waves above the narrow coral ring during hurricanes. The lagoon is not deep except for the ‘Trou sans fond’ where water is brackish and acid due to volcanic effluents.

There is no landing facilities on this uninhabited island There is no landing facilities on this uninhabited island. As there is no access to the lagoon from the ocean, there is no way to disembark, as in many atolls, from the lagoon side.

The Pacific Ocean batters the island from all sides, picking away at the scab of land that rises abruptly from the seabed…

Big waves are usual and landings are quite hard.

All around Clipperton, a large reef flat (2,7 km²) makes it also difficult to reach the shore.

Clipperton is right on the path of the North Pacific Gyre, site of an unusually intense collection of man- made debris, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Clipperton is a ring-shaped atoll ; the width of the coral ring varies between 40 m & 360 m. Here one of the narrowest section between the ocean (left) and the lagoon (right).

The atoll ring (ocean on the left, lagoon on the right).

Walking is mostly on coral debris.

Some patches of low lying plants also occur.

Biodiversity is very low Biodiversity is very low. Such dense green cover is to be found only near ‘Bois de Bougainville’.

Clipperton is a French territory Clipperton is a French territory. It has a quite important value, of course not because of its land (without resources, uninhabited, not strategic & only 1,7 km²), but because of its maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 435,612 km², nearly as much as France mainland (for fisheries – one of the richest marine area in the world - nowadays and maybe oil, gas & polymetallic nodules in the future).

The French monument. Due to frequent harsh winds, the French flag gets damaged quickly. It is normally replaced every March when a French military vessel visits Clipperton.

French sovereignty on Clipperton was jeopardized in the past by Mexico who claimed it by arguing that the island was discovered before France by Spain (but Mexico could not bring any historical written evidence …). An arbitrage held by Victor Emmanuel III in 1931, in the name of the International Court of Justice, confirmed French sovereignty. Mexico accepted it definitely only in 1959…

Clipperton was briefly occupied at the end of WW2 by the US army in 1942/1945 without any notice and agreement from France : Roosevelt wanted it to become an American possession for use as a trans-pacific air base, and in 1944 he ordered the US navy to occupy the island in one of the most secret US operations of WW II. When De Gaulle learnt it, it created a serious incident with the US and the US withdrew.

Clipperton is under the direct authority of the French Government thru the TAAF (it is not a DOM, a ROM nor a COM) ; its administration is delegated to ‘Haut Commissaire de la Polynésie Française’ in Papeete.

This plaque honors a French representative, who was the first ever to set foot on Clipperton.

‘Bois de Bougainville’ viewed from the French monument. The Forgotten of Clipperton story : In 1906, the British Pacific Island Company acquired rights to extract Clipperton guano. By 1914 around 100 people were living in a settlement there, resupplied every two months. With the escalation of fighting in the Mexican Revolution, the regular resupply visits ceased and the inhabitants were left to their own devices. By 1917 all but one of the male inhabitants had died. Many had perished from scurvy, while others died during an attempt to sail after a passing ship to fetch help. Aside this man, 15 women & children survived. The last man, Victoriano Álvarez, proclaimed himself ‘king’ of the island and began an orgy of rape and murder, before being killed by one of the women. Almost immediately after his death, 4 women and 7 children, the last survivors, were picked up by a US Navy gunship that happened to pass by.

Lot of equipment are still rusting on Clipperton, a testimony of the many wreckages there, of the short US occupation (WW2) and the longer one by Mexico (WW1).

The lagoon.

The lagoon.

One of the 10 islets of the lagoon (in ‘Baie de la Pince’). END