Abemama

Abemama lies at about 0°24′ north, its islets ringed round a deep lagoon that gives fish and shellfish and, in places, a crop of seaweed. Eleven villages on the main islet hold most of the 3,300 or so inhabitants (2015); Kariatebike has the government offices, the police and the hospital, and on the east side causeways carry a road from islet to islet.

Stevenson came in 1889 with his wife Fanny and Lloyd Osbourne, stayed two months, and called again in July 1890 aboard the trading steamer Janet Nicoll. He wrote about Tem Binoka in In the South Seas, and the chief’s tomb is near Tabontebike. In November 1943 the submarine USS Nautilus put 78 Marine scouts ashore, who beat the Japanese garrison with the help of her guns; within weeks Seabees had laid an airstrip for B-24 bombers bound for the Marshall Islands.

• Tem Binoka’s tomb The grave of the chief whom Stevenson described, near Tabontebike.
• The eastern causeways The road that runs over the water from islet to islet along the east of the atoll.
• The lagoon Deep water inside the ring of islets, fished for shellfish and farmed for seaweed.