Disappointment Island
— — an island given over to the albatross.
Not only on a wall.
“Disappointment Island lies in the subantarctic Southern Ocean, west of the main Auckland Island, several hundred kilometres south of the New Zealand mainland. There are no people, no jetty, no path. The great majority of the world's white-capped mollymawks nest here, tens of thousands of pairs on a treeless slope of tussock and wind. Landing is by permit only and rarely granted. The island belongs to the birds.
Disappointment Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Disappointment Island sits in the New Zealand subantarctic, about eight kilometres west of the main Auckland Island, at roughly 50.6 degrees south. It is part of the Auckland Islands group, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as part of the New Zealand Sub-Antarctic Islands in 1998. The island is small, about 284 hectares, treeless, exposed, and made of weathered basalt and tussock. It has no permanent inhabitants and no landing facilities. Access is by Department of Conservation permit only and granted rarely; most visitors see it from the deck of a passing expedition ship.
The island is one of the most important seabird breeding sites in the southern hemisphere. The great majority of the world's white-capped mollymawks, Thalassarche steadi, nest here, with recent counts in the tens of thousands of breeding pairs, on the tussock slopes that face the prevailing westerly wind. The endemic Auckland Island snipe and the Auckland Island teal, the world's rarest duck, also hold populations on the island. Disappointment is rat-free and cat-free, which is the reason it can carry that many breeding birds at all and the reason it is so closely protected.
The name was given by Robert Fildes in 1806, who sighted the island while sealing in the Auckland group and named it for the absence of seals on its shore. In March 1907 the four-masted barque Dundonald struck the cliffs in the dark; sixteen men reached the island and lived seven months on mollymawk eggs and seal meat before a small handmade coracle, framed in supplejack and covered in canvas, finally made the eight-kilometre crossing to a castaway depot on the main island. The story is the only sustained human presence the island has on record.