Tag Archives: sea treasures

Rongelap

There is Beauty in Rongelap

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?

Boobies in Paradise

A boobie is a type of bird, so get your mind out of the gutter!  We discover several motus where many birds are mating for the season.  There are nests high up in trees, on the ground, and at eye level – basically everywhere!  But we of course focus on the boobies.

In the southeast corner of Toau, there are many little motus and spits of land that don’t even qualify as a motu.  We explore many of them in search of sea treasures and good photo ops.

One palm motu:  this beautiful spit of sand has one lone palm tree thriving on it.  There is not much to this motu other than the tree, but it is fun to share its small piece of paradise.

Toau Motu

Toau Motu

Three palm motu:  from afar, it looked like there were only three palm trees on this motu, but as it turned out there were about 8 bunched together.  Clearly someone is caring for them as they were well trimmed and the dead palms were removed.

Typical Motu:  covered with brush, trees, palms, and more.  This little motu had a small reef around it, lots of coral and rock.  And a surprise to us a tall wifi repeater (getting wifi from Fakarava and sending it to the pass anchorage).  Of course, we couldn’t get any wifi as we were not at either end of the repeater.

On the same motu as the wifi repeater are tons of mating birds including lots of boobies.

Boobies

We found lots of white, fuzzy baby boobies in the trees.  They are pretty easy to spot as they stick out against the green leaves.  The top left photo is of a mom still protecting her egg.

Baby Boobies

Baby Boobies

On the ground, on some bushes, and between the rocks were lots of baby bird eggs.

We were clearly disturbing the birds so we gave them a wide birth.  But even with our best efforts, they were unhappy so we left the boobies alone.

We had great fun exploring a lot of the motus in the SE corner of Toau, but it was time for us to continue SE.

Passage Toau to Fakarava

It is only 15nm from the Toau pass to the Fakarava North pass which should technically take us about 3-3.5 hours to sail.  However, the wind was not cooperating and we are had tack several times making our 15nm sail a 40+nm sail and taking well over 5 hours.  Lucky for us it was not a problem as we were trying to time slack tide at the Fakarava pass and our longer than normal jaunt worked out perfectly.

We get the hook down in time to enjoy a quick dinner at our favorite tapas place in Fakarava called Hirinaki Lounge and then we were off to bed as it had been a long day.

The  last blog we sail to and arrive in Toau and search for sea treasures.   Events from this blog post occurred mid-November.  Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind our adventures.

Swimming with the Rays

This anchorage is so beautiful that we decided to stay an additional day before moving onward. Matt and I would probably stay here for a week or more, but we need to get Wayne back to the Eastern Lemon Cays to catch his flight back to the states.  Cruising allows us to stay or leave on a whim.

We enjoyed a lazy morning, with Matt working on a few small projects. By mid-afternoon we were hot, so Matt and I hopped on the SUPs and wandered around the reef. We saw our spotted ray again and another sting ray. Much different perspective from above water than in the water, but breathtaking none the less. Matt is so much better SUPing than I am, but I did my best to keep up with him while on my knees. He dutifully stood the entire way and didn’t get his toes wet. Good exercise! Afterward, I hopped into the water with the hopes of seeing more rays, but I got side tracked with the huge sand dollars.

More sea treasures - check out this huge sand dollar.

More sea treasures – check out this huge sand dollar.

Wayne decided he wanted more sugar cookies, so I baked up a batch of ducks, fish, hearts and stars. I love to bake and having guests gives me a good excuse. We have already gone through a batch of brownies, one batch of sugar cookies, and half a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Nice pulled pork pizza for dinner, and out to the bow with a drink, our bean bags and the sunset.

Matt and Wayne enjoying sun downers on the lido deck.

Matt and Wayne enjoying sun downers on the lido deck.

Cruising allows you to change your neighbors and your view at a moments notice:

Morning sun coming in through a starboard hatch.

Morning sun coming in through a starboard hatch.

Cruising gives you access to countless sunsets that take your breath away:

Beautiful sunset.

Beautiful sunset.