As seen from the plane, Xmas Island is reasonably large, you definitely need a car to get around

Thankfully they have a real runway that allows full size jets to land (along with proper luggage)

Our hotel was called "the sunset", I wonder why :)

Some dinners, we at in our hotel room with basic cooking facilities, others we ate in restaurants:

The island had a lot of industry linked to phosphate mining:

Unfortunately, people from other countries have figured out that they can just take boats to show up as refugees and flee to Australia:

Anyway, back to visiting the island, we covered a lot of the island thanks to the rental car:

This is the lovely 4x4 we got. It was full of dings and scratches, and that turned out to be a feature since we sure got a lot more scratches while driving between trees and plants and trying to avoid running over crabs that were everywhere.

We used our beaten up 4x4 rental to drive around the island to some hikes, remote beaches, and interesting viewing points, and it was definitely worth it. While they call themselves "the other galapagos" this is over-reaching, but they do have lots of cool birds, many many kinds of crabs, boobie birds, and more.

look at the webbed feet around the branches

We also got to see flying foxes (bats):

We also had many lizards and geckos:

This of course does not count the diving which was quite good in warm easy waters with great visibility.

After the dives in the morning, we used our rental car to go visit the Island, and it was a lot of fun to see so many crabs. From what we were told, the ubiquitous red crabs that are all over, including crossing the road everywhere, making driving interesting, aren't good to eat, but the robber/coconut crabs are, however they are protected. To be honest, I grew attached to those little red crabs, they are not afraid of humans, I've been able to give them food to their claw which they grabbed and ate slowly, and they do a great job recycling organic matter (animal or vegetal).
I have so many crab pictures, it was hard to select a few:

we missed the big crab migration, but some roads were still closed due to too many crabs

those little guys were fearless and all over, including the road

coconut crabs

we found this coconut crab white driving back at night

beauty

this little guy went hiding in the urinal during a rainfall, maybe not the best move

these guys were more shy

coconut crabs come in different colors

a beautiful blue one

the path was littered with crabs

this coconut crab found in the rocks had eggs

ghost crab

the ubiquitous red crabs eat all debris, vegetal or animal

we were able to feed the crabs some leaves, which they were happy to take from us

all shapes and sizes

unfortunately, many get run over

Many other pictures from driving around and hiking to beaches:

blowhole

we actually got to use the 4x4

remote beach we drove and hiked to

the tracks are from turtles that came to nest

these crabs can't swim, but they lay eggs in the ocean

they were underwhelming when we arrived, bad timing

A couple of late afternons, we went to Margaret Knol to finish the day. We got to see some birds and flying bats: