Their ship, the Marin Mainiku, reached the island's western side after a five-day, 830-nautical-mile voyage through the South Pacific. Nikumaroro belongs to Kiribati. Earhart vanished in 1937 while flying around the world with navigator Fred Noonan.
The crew wants to find the Taraia Object, which satellite imagery in 2020 showed at the edge of a lagoon off the island. Some believe it is her plane. Others doubt it is an aircraft at all. Purdue says this is the first authorized trip to the island in seven years and the first visit to the Taraia Peninsula in more than 15.
Giant coconut crabs, also called robber crabs, come out at night to hunt small mammals and seabirds, so the crew will sleep on the ship. The crabs can lift heavy weights and split open coconuts, and they may have played a role in Earhart's demise. The strongest El Niño ever recorded could also slow the five-day job.
On Tuesday, the crew plans to pass through a narrow reef gap the British blasted in 1963, the last time the island was inhabited. Expedition leader Rick Pettigrew called it "incredibly rewarding" to be this close, in a Monday blog post.
After a voyage that long, the answer could still be a fallen tree.