Nihoa
— — a cliff in the open Pacific.
Not only on a wall.
“A single basalt remnant in the northwestern chain, 170 miles past Kauai and a long way from anything else. The cliffs rise to nearly 900 feet on the windward side. Pre-contact Hawaiians lived here, terraced the slopes, and left more than eighty stone structures still standing. Two endemic birds, the Nihoa finch and the Nihoa millerbird, hold the island. Access requires a federal permit.
Nihoa, 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.
Nihoa is a small uninhabited island in the northwestern Hawaiian chain, about 275 kilometres northwest of Kauai. The land area is roughly 70 hectares, and the highest point, Miller's Peak, reaches 272 metres at the eastern end. The island lies within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, established in 2006 and expanded in 2016 to one of the largest protected marine areas in the world. It also sits inside the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, and entry requires a US Fish and Wildlife Service permit.
Nihoa is almost never visited. Landing requires calm seas, a small boat, and a federal permit issued for research, cultural, or management purposes; commercial visits are not allowed. The two endemic land birds, the Nihoa finch and the Nihoa millerbird, exist nowhere else on Earth, and the millerbird population on the island is held at a few hundred. Pre-contact Hawaiians lived here for several centuries, and surveys have catalogued more than eighty house platforms, terraces, and ceremonial sites across the slopes.
The island sits in the open Pacific trade-wind belt, with steady easterlies and rough northeast seas through most of the year. The leeward south side carries the only practical landing, at a small cove on a boulder beach. Rainfall averages around 750 millimetres a year, falling mostly in winter, and there is no fresh surface water on the island. Brown noddies, sooty terns, and Bonin petrels nest on the cliffs in hundreds of thousands during the breeding months, and the noise from the colonies carries far offshore.