Pingelap Atoll

Pingelap is a small atoll southeast of Pohnpei with a few hundred people on it, and it is known outside Micronesia for achromatopsia: a typhoon in the late eighteenth century left very few survivors, and one carried a gene for complete colour blindness that is now present in a substantial share of the population. Oliver Sacks wrote about the island. Life is subsistence and the atoll is very isolated.

History

The first European to see the islands was Captain Thomas Musgrave in the Sugar Cane, and Captain MacAskill in the Lady Barlow came in 1809; errors in their positions led 19th-century charts to show them twice, as the Musgrave Islands and the MacAskill Islands. The atoll was ruled by a hereditary paramount chief, the Ouwa (Wikipedia, Pingelap).

What you'll find

• The atoll - a small ring of islets around a lagoon.
• The community - a few hundred people living largely on subsistence.
• The genetic history - a founder effect traced to a typhoon in the 1700s.
• The lagoon and reef - the water the island depends on for food.

When to go

December to March is the drier season. Flights and ships are irregular in any month and getting stuck is normal. Trade winds pick up from December.

Things to know

Access is by irregular small plane or supply ship and departures shift without notice; plan on being stranded. There is no accommodation beyond staying with a family. Visiting for the genetic condition alone is intrusive and should not be the reason to go.

Nearby

Mwoakilloa is northwest, and Pohnpei is northwest beyond it.

Key facts