Rongelap is a truly a beautiful atoll with its crystal clear waters in a wide range of blue hues, towering palm trees, and white and pink sandy beaches.   We explore 16 islands in the Rongelap atoll and found them all to be stunning.

The waters are the most crazy clear shades of blue and the shores have pink sand and towering palm trees that sway in the breeze.  Eniaetok Island is located on the eastern side (in the middle) of the atoll.  We had excellent holding during the 30+ knots of wind.

Tufa Island is located in the very southern end of Rongelap.  It is “U” shape anchorage and is pretty protected from most winds.  We anchored in 3m of water and put out a stern anchor to keep us from moving over some shallow bommies.

The blue and green hues never cease to take my breath away!

Drone shot taken at sunrise.

Super Cool Finds

We find some giant clams snorkeling in the lagoon by the boat. Most of these are in 10-40′ of water.  The largest we found was about 4′ long and the the others were between 1-2.5′.  Super cool and very beautiful.

We find our first nurse shark.  We drove the dinghy right up to him, anchored the dinghy, I got out, walked by him, took my photos, and he did not budge.  He was a good 5′ long and just enjoyed the shallow waters.

Bird Sanctuary

Birds are thriving and breeding in Rongelap.  There are dozens of bird species, nests, and babies all over the northern islands. 

We encountered something that we have never seen before.   A dozen birds sat in a circle on top of broken coral and rocks.  We passed as far away from them as possible.  However, our movement caused them all to fly away. To our surprise, they were each sitting on either eggs or newborn baby birds!

There are 7 speckled eggs and 3 baby birds in the photo below – can you find them all?

The boobies make nests on the ground and their babies are covered in white fuzz. They are so cute and I’d love to see if they are as soft as they look!

The white terns do not make nests.  They simply lay their eggs on the branches. The babies grow up on the same branch (top right photo).

Just for Fun

What do you do when you’ve been walking uninhabited islands for months?  Silly things, like dressing up this rusted cylinder on the beach.

Matt found a piece of plastic and decided to carve and hang it.

Portuguese Man-O-Wars

We found lots of Portuguese man-o-wars (poisonous) along the shoreline.  They cannot live on land and are dead. Matt made a game out of popping them.  But I just avoided the poisonous buggers.

We had the most beautiful sunrises while staying at Eniaetok Island in Rongelap.

Our blog posts run 4-6 weeks behind actual live events. 

We were in Rongelap during the first part of January 2025. 

Did you catch our last blog on the Ghost Town of Rongelap?