This voyaging resulted in frequent loss of lives and was discontinued at the insistence of missionaries in 1852. Thereafter, the population has been divided between the two islands. Its commander, Captain Patrickson, named it Humphrey Island. The island is rich in oral history and legends. Air Rarotonga flies regularly to Manihiki each Thursday from Rarotonga with a brief stop at Aitutaki .
Flight time is three hours forty minutes.
The pearl is making a comeback in the world of high fashion jewellery and the South Pacific black pearl is a major new player. The black-lipped mother of pearl shell Pinctada margaritifera is a native of the South Pacific and thrives in the clear, unpolluted waters of the lagoons of the Northern Cook islands of Manihiki and Penrhyn . The Cook Islands has built a new and thriving industry out of this interest in the black pearl. The cyclone in Manihiki of November 1997 was a serious setback but the pearl companies have begun the process of reconstruction. Black pearls derive their lustrous color from the greyish-black nacre of the oyster shell.