Things to Do in Kiribati in June

Kiritimati's bonefishing is not hype. It may be the finest saltwater flats fishery remaining on Earth. June is when conditions align. Trade winds push steady breeze across the massive interior lagoon, roughly 160 sq km (62 sq miles) of shin-deep water over white sand and coral rubble. This keeps bonefish tailing and feeding on the flats, not hiding in deep channels. You wade out at dawn. The lagoon surface looks like poured mercury. By the time sun turns the water transparent, you sight-cast to individual fish from 30 metres (100 feet) away. Fish here average 2-4 kg (4.5-9 lbs). Genuine trophies exceeding 5 kg (11 lbs) land every season. The difference here is zero pressure. On a June day, you might own an entire flat. Only wind. Fly line slapping. The occasional explosion of a spooked fish bolting across shallows.

Betio islet marks Tarawa atoll's south-western tip. In November 1943, over a thousand US Marines and several thousand Japanese defenders died across 76 hours of fighting. It became one of the Pacific War's bloodiest engagements per square metre. Lower June rainfall makes the rusting Japanese coastal guns more accessible. Pillbox walls still pocked by naval shellfire. Admiral Shibasaki's command bunker remains. Wet months flood paths and slick coral rubble. The heat on Betio is brutal. Coral flats reflect equatorial sun from every angle. Trade winds offer just enough relief to walk the shoreline. Amtrac landing vehicles still sit half-submerged at low tide, salt-crusted and barnacled. No ropes. No signs. No admission booths. You walk among relics with local children playing on seawalls and chickens scratching around gun emplacements. The complete absence of tourism infrastructure makes this the Pacific's most unmediated WWII battlefield experience.

North Tarawa is the antidote to South Tarawa's crowded causeway strip. You cross the lagoon by outboard-powered boat from Buota, a trip of perhaps twenty minutes over water so clear you can count the sea cucumbers on the sandy bottom 4 metres (13 feet) below. The northern islets, Abaiang and Buariki among them, remain largely traditional. The maneaba, the open-sided meeting house that is the centre of I-Kiribati communal life, sits at the heart of each village. Its pandanus-thatch roof rises high enough to catch any breeze. In June, with the trade winds steady and the lagoon calmer than during the wet-season squalls, the crossing is at its most comfortable. On the northern islets you walk on paths of crushed coral between coconut palms. The air hangs heavy with the sweet, oily smell of copra drying on racks in the sun. Village women weave pandanus mats in the shade of the maneaba. If you are invited to sit, which you likely will be, the protocol is to accept and wait. Conversation will find its own pace. The lagoon on the north side runs to a turquoise so saturated it looks artificially coloured. The reef edge drops off into genuine blue water where reef sharks cruise at a depth you can watch from the surface.

The interior of Kiritimati holds seabird colonies that rank among the largest in the tropical Pacific. June catches them in full nesting frenzy. The scale is difficult to convey until you are standing in it: tens of thousands of sooty terns wheeling overhead in a noise so dense it becomes a physical pressure, red-footed boobies nesting in every available shrub, great frigatebirds with their scarlet throat pouches inflated like balloons hanging motionless on the thermals above. The birds nest on the ground and in low scrub across the interior flats. Kiritimati has almost no terrestrial predators and minimal human disturbance in the interior. The birds have not learned to fear people. You can sit quietly within a few metres of a nesting booby and watch the entire domestic drama of egg-turning and chick-feeding develop. The light in June is extraordinary for photography. The equatorial sun produces hard contrasts against the white coral and dark plumage. The steady wind keeps the frigatebirds aloft in positions that would be impossible to capture in calmer months. The smell, to be honest, is powerful: guano, fish, and warm feathers baking in the sun. It is not unpleasant so much as overwhelming.

The outer reef on South Tarawa's ocean side drops away from a shallow coral platform into blue water with visibility that can exceed 30 metres (100 feet) on good June days. The reef itself is not the manicured coral garden of a resort destination. It is raw and wild, with massive plate corals, increase channels cut through the reef crest where the swell pushes through, and fish populations that reflect a reef system under relatively light fishing pressure compared to Southeast Asian equivalents. Blacktip reef sharks patrol the shallows. Napoleon wrasse cruise the drop-off. Schools of surgeonfish move across the reef flat in formations dense enough to cast shadows on the coral below. June's calmer conditions compared to the wet-season months mean the increase through the reef channels is more manageable. You still need to read the tide tables and enter during the slack. The water temperature sits around 28-29°C (82-84°F) year-round. Warm enough that a rashguard is for sun protection, not warmth. The coral on the outer reef has been hit by bleaching events in recent years, and sections show it. The recovery on the less-disturbed stretches is encouraging, with new coral growth visible on previously bleached heads.

Every morning before dawn across the Gilbert Islands atolls, toddy cutters climb coconut palms to harvest te karewe. This fresh sap collects overnight in the cut spathe of the coconut flower. The sap tastes sweet and faintly fizzy, like coconut water with a yeasty undertone you will not find anywhere else. Left to ferment through the day, it becomes te kabubu. This mildly alcoholic drink is the social lubricant of I-Kiribati life. In June, steady trade winds make the palms sway. Watching a toddy cutter ascend a tree that bends in the breeze, barefoot, with only a knife and a coconut-shell container, reminds you of a relationship with the natural world that most people have lost entirely. The smell at the base of an actively harvested palm is sweet and slightly fermented. If someone offers you fresh morning toddy, drink it immediately. It turns within hours. This is not a tour you book. It is a relationship you build by staying long enough in a village for someone to invite you along. A few days on North Tarawa or one of the outer atolls will get you there.