Take a vacation to Kauai, Hawaii, and look in to a mystery.

Once you are on Kauai, you will wonder about neighboring Ni’ihau, privately owned and closed to visitors. N”ihau was purchased by the Robinson family in 1864. The island measures 550 square miles, and is the westernmost of the main Hawaiian islands.

Ni’ihau (Nee-ee-how) is separated from Kauai by a 17-mile strait. Standing on the Kauai shore, you can see Ni’ihau slung low on the horizon. If you could go to Ni’ihau you would hear native Hawaiian spoken. In fact, it’s the only place you can go to hear native Hawaiian spoken as a living language. Hawaiian is taught in the island’s K-8 school.

Ni’ihau residents regularly cross the strait to Kauai to buy provisions. Ni’ihau is short on provisions because it is a desert, lying in the rain shadow of the tall mountain on Kauai, Mt. Wai-ale-ale, drenched with 460 inches of rainfall every year. It is often called the wettest spot on earth.

Ni’ihau has supported plenty of sheep over the years. The Robinson family maintained sheep ranches there for many years.

Ni’ihau artists create shell leis, stringing together thousands of tiny shells to make intricate folk art. Whole families collect tiny luminous shells, which come in a variety of colors. Then they sort them, and the artist chooses the colors to make intricate patterns. She punches a hole in each shell using a simple tool; at least half the shells break. Her tool may be made from a bicycle spoke–there are no cars on the island, but there are bicycles.

These tiny shells are still found on Ni’ihau, but not on neighboring Kauai where agricultural runoff has tended to kill off the shell-makers. The resulting shell leis are rare, hard to find, and precious.

Ni’ihau is mostly flat and sandy, except for an eroded lava dome on the east side facing Kauai. It also has two freshwater lakes. Is the lava dome the remains of Hawaii’s oldest volcano? It would seem so, because Ni’ihau is on the opposite end of the island chain from the currently active volcanos on the Big Island of Hawaii. The islands were formed as the earth’s outer crust moved over an active lava vent. Early Hawaiians thought Ni’ihau was the oldest island, naming it as the ancient original home of the volcano goddess Pele, who hopped from island to island with the active volcanos and now lives on the Big Island. But scientists say actually Kauai is the oldest island, and that Ni’ihau was formed by a side vent of the volcano that made Kauai.

Seeing the low lava dome of Ni’ihau from the southwest side of Kauai is tantalizing. You can find a map of Ni’ihau. You can even find pictures of rock formations on Ni’ihau. What if you are dying to see for yourself? If you are willing to pay for the privilege, you can go–the Robinson family allows a few helicopter tours to remote beaches on Ni’ihau. Or they may let you take a hunting safari to shoot feral bighorn sheep and Polynesian boars, when those populations need culling. Or you can scuba dive offshore–no permission needed.

Access to Ni’ihau is from Kauai, 17 miles away. While you’re on Kauai, you’ll want to play on the beaches and in the surf. You’ll also want to look at the stunning natural wonder that is the Na Pali coast, the northwest side of Kauai.

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