LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Christmas Island: World
built 668 days ago
Coconut groves abound throughout the old lagoon; on the southern tip, where the Gilbert Islanders live; and on the short southern tip on the east side, where the main airstrip on the island is outlined on the wide, sandy beach. As is typical of tropical islands that maintain large old groves of coconut palms, visitors to Christmas Island are always impressed by the enormous land crabs that guard every road and pathway. This unusual tropical island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, some 1300 miles south of Hawaii, is part of the Republic of Kiribati, known previously as the Gilbert Islands. Christmas Island has the largest land area of any coral atoll in the world (140 square miles). The highest elevation is about 12 feet, and the airport is at the 5-foot elevation. With its large colonies of sea birds, vast reefs, endless flats, lagoons, and surrounding ocean, it offers excellent opportunities for observing bird and marine life as well as outstanding fishing.
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Christmas Island is home to millions of Red Crabs, which migrate in a spectacular sea of red from the forest to the coast each year for the breeding season. This unique natural event attracts visitors and scientists world wide.
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As the Island is surrounded by deep water, it attracts a large array of pelagics including tuna, trevally, white tip reef sharks, Maori wrasse and occasionally the hammerhead shark. With endless kilometres of spectacular wall diving, pristine corals, a myriad of tropical fish, dolphins, crystal clear warm waters and sea caves. What more could you ask for. The island boasts some of the best diving in the world
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Two hundred years later British surveyors realised that the island was, in essence, a giant lump of calcified bird droppings, consisting of some of the purest, richest guano phosphate in the world. Phosphate then, as now, was in huge demand as fertiliser, and the island was hurriedly proclaimed part of the British Empire.
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