Anibare Bay

Beaches & CovesAnibare,Nauru

Fragile nature — stay on the trail, leave no trace.

The one Pacific-looking stretch of Nauru, a two-kilometre crescent curved into the scar where the island's eastern flank slid into the sea.

September·Peaking now

May–Nov

The drier half under the easterly trades — June the driest month, humidity lowest from May into August. The surf beyond the reef eases, so the pools inside the flat go glassy and gold, and the sea holds near 29.5°C.

Year-round Black noddies roost on the escarpment, and the endemic reed warbler stays all year. Only the rain has a season.

The phosphate that made Nauru rich was never lying on top of the island. It filled the gaps between coral-limestone pinnacles that had been dissolving out of the old reef for ages. So the miners emptied the gaps and left the pinnacles standing. Topside, the plateau that is most of the country, is now a field of grey towers with the ground gone from between them. You can walk out among them, though the edges are sharp and the floor drops into sinkholes. Anibare Bay is the part the mining never reached. Two kilometres of white sand curve along the east coast, following the scar where part of the island's flank slid into the sea, with black rock stacks standing out of shallow water at either end. At low tide those pools turn into an aquarium of small reef fish and hermit crabs. The country is a raised coral atoll of 21 square kilometres, and one ring road goes round it in half an hour, past the airport runway, the harbour and the fishing settlements. Anibare is the beach the islanders use. You swim inside the reef flat, because this coast opens straight onto the Pacific with no lagoon. The drop-off is close enough in that you can follow a Nauruan paddling an outrigger the whole way out. The water goes from pale green to open-ocean blue in a single canoe length, which tells you how steeply the island falls away. As the light drops, black noddies stream back from open water to roost in the escarpment woods above the bay. Nauruans meet them there with loudspeakers playing recorded calls and nets on long handles, and the catch is shared and fried the same evening. In the last hour of light the tide pools go glassy and gold, and the bare coral stops throwing back the day's heat. That escarpment is 35 hectares too steep to have been worth mining, and it holds the richest native vegetation left on Nauru. The Nauru reed warbler lives in it and nowhere else on the planet — the only songbird the country has.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Swim only in the pools inside the reef flat — Anibare opens straight onto the Pacific with no sheltering lagoon, so heavy surf and rip currents are normal here, and there are no lifeguards.
Late afternoon is the hour on this coast — the tide pools between the black rocks go glassy and gold, and the bare coral stops throwing back the heat it has stored all day.
Rent a car or scooter for the day — the ring road is essentially the only road there is, and it is how you reach Topside, the harbour and the quieter northern end of the sand.

Things to do

1
Walk the coral pinnacles of Topside
Drive the ring road inland and pick your way out among the coral-limestone spires the miners left standing between the hollows they emptied of phosphate. Wear closed shoes — the weathered edges are sharp enough to open skin if you slip, and the ground drops into sinkholes between the stumps. A few palms cling to the rim of this stripped, moon-grey plateau.
2
Wade the tide pools at low tide
Black volcanic and coral rock stacks rise straight out of shallow, mirror-still water along Anibare's shoreline. At low tide the pools between them turn into a private aquarium of small reef fish and hermit crabs.
3
Watch an outrigger cross the reef edge
Nauruans still paddle small outrigger canoes out past the reef to fish, and the drop-off is close enough to shore that you can follow the whole crossing. The water changes from pale green to open-ocean blue in a single canoe length, which tells you everything about how steeply this island falls away.
4
Circle the entire country by road
Nauru's single ring road hugs the coast for its whole 19-kilometre loop, past the airport runway, the harbour, fishing settlements and the flank of Topside. A lap takes about half an hour. Start at Anibare at first light: the beach faces due east, so the sun climbs out of an empty Pacific while the interior is still dark.
5
Wait for the noddies to come off the sea
As the light drops, black noddies stream back from open water to roost in the escarpment woods above the bay. Nauruans meet them on the high ground with loudspeakers playing recorded bird calls and long-handled nets — this is where the national dish comes from, and the catch is shared and fried the same evening.