Lines in the Sand

December of 2023 was an entirely overwhelming month for me, but thankfully the stress was all because of good things. The holidays were coming up, which is always a fun, but busy time of year, and Vince and I were preparing to move into what will hopefully be our forever home. Between Christmas shopping, and packing up the past ten years of our lives into boxes, I would have been busy enough, but I was also planning us a trip to Thailand at the same time, and the stress of everything was definitely catching up with me. 

When we were a week away from Christmas and the move (and elbows deep in painting the new house), I decided it was time to start booking everything for Thailand. I went to work one morning planning to at least book tickets for a liveaboard dive boat by the end of the day, but an hour or so into my shift, I got a call from our friend Jared. Jared and his wife Rachel own a travel agency and travel is practically their entire lives, so whenever I get a call from him at a time I wouldn’t expect one, I know to be prepared for an irresistible pitch. 

This time when I answered Jared immediately started off with, “How would you and Vince feel about going to Palau for my birthday this year?” 

Irresistible indeed.  In fact, the four of us have been unofficially planning to go to Palau together for about eight years, but the flights are so expensive that we all thought it would probably be decades before we got the chance.

That was of course the first thing that popped into my mind right after I instinctively yelled “UH, YES!!! OH MY GOD!!!” 

But as usual Jared already had a plan and he quickly explained that he’d found a way to combine airline points and status to get us the plane tickets for half price. That was all I had to hear. I scrapped my ideas about Thailand on the spot, and Jared had booked our flights by the next morning. Our itinerary also included stops in the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, which are both located in the Micronesian region of Oceania along with Palau, Kiribati, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

A few months later, Vince and I were well settled into our new home and just starting to feel the travel itch again after a very busy start to the new year. Leaving in early April ended up being perfect timing, and we boarded our first flight of the trip on the most perfect, cloudless day we’d seen in months. 

Four flights, an overnight stay in Honolulu, and a day and a half later, we finally touched down in Majuro, Marshall Islands. 

All I could think as we deplaned was how happy I was to not have to get on another flight for three more days, but soon we were on our way to our hotel and my travel-weariness melted away as I watched palm trees and blue seas from our shuttle van’s window. We were actually in Micronesia! This had felt like a pipe dream to me for so long that I had almost given up hoping it would actually happen.  Now that it was real, it was nearly impossible to believe. 

I was so thankful to change out of my traveling clothes and into shorts and sandals when we finally reached Hotel Robert Reimers, and dropped our bags off in our rooms. Unfortunately for Jared, his checked bag never made it on our second flight, and was now off in Guam for some reason. He didn’t have shorts, sandals, or a bathing suit in his carry-on, so we planned to poke around town and see if we could find any clothes for him to buy.

When all four of us were somewhat freshened up, we met up in the hotel garden to go out and do some sightseeing. First we walked through the garden itself just to acquaint ourselves with the hotel grounds. The garden was full of coconut palms, walking trees, and fragrant pink and white plumerias.

There was also a little pavilion overlooking the lagoon side of the island, and I spotted a vibrant green anole on a deck railing. As I was taking pictures of the little lizard, its color shifted from bright green to rusty brown. It happened so quickly that I convinced myself I’d just imagined it, but as I was going through pictures later, I realized it had indeed changed color!

I didn’t know this before, but apparently several types of Anole lizard are capable of reorienting the positioning of reflective plates within their chromatophore cells so that the light reflected off of their skin will be perceived as a different color. They do this when they are cold, frightened, or stressed. In this case, I’m sure this lizard saw me as a potential threat, and shifted color in order to make itself less vibrant, and therefore less visible. What an amazing adaptation, and an unexpected treat for my first wildlife encounter of the trip!

With Robert Reimers’s garden thoroughly investigated, we decided it was time to get some lunch and go shopping. There are only a couple of sit-down restaurants in Majuro. One of them is at Robert Reimers, but we decided to look outside of the hotel for our first meal and ended up on the rooftop patio of Toeak Bar and Grill, a restaurant that shares a building with Napa Auto Parts, and the Australian Embassy. Everything we ordered there was really good, but their french fries stole the show. They were battered like you would normally expect fried fish to be, and were unreasonably delicious.

After lunch we went to several shops, scoping out snack food for the rest of our stay, and managing to find a pair of gym shorts and some flip flops to tide Jared over until his bag managed to catch up with us. Then we walked back to the hotel, exhausted from the afternoon heat.

Back at Robert Reimers, Rachel turned in for a nap, and Vince, Jared, and I went for a swim in the lagoon. Then we all met back up to watch our first sunset of the trip.

The next morning, we started getting ready, uncertain of what the day would bring. We’d signed up for a day trip out to Arno Atoll, another coral atoll about twelve miles east of Majuro.  While twelve miles doesn’t sound like much, it can be an arduous and dangerous journey on a small boat if the sea conditions are rough, so we had to wait to hear from our ferry’s captain to see if the weather was in our favor. 

In the meantime, we ordered breakfast at Robert Reimers’s restaurant, and discussed back-up options for how to spend our day in case the Arno trip didn’t work out. Cloudy skies and high winds broiled outside of the restaurant, punctuating our need for a plan to fall back on.  Luckily the front desk staff at the hotel had plenty of suggestions for us, and I’d also come across a sandy beach on the opposite side of Majuro Atoll while researching for the trip. 

As luck would have it, we did need to enact our plan. A waitress came over to tell us that the captain had cancelled the trip just as I was shoveling the last of my hash browns into my mouth. At this news, Vince went over to the front desk to arrange a rental car (Robert Reimers really does do everything), and soon the four of us were stuffing our snorkel gear into the trunk of our last-minute rental.  Then we set out on Lagoon Road, the one main road that circumnavigates the entire island, and followed it as far west as it could take us. 

The road dead-ended at our destination, Laura Beach, and we parked and stepped out of the car to instantly be pummeled by the same strong winds that had cancelled our day trip. The fronds of coconut palms swayed in the same direction as my errant tangle of hair, but despite the harsh weather, the ocean waters were calm close to shore. We’d managed to arrive at low tide, so the beach was protected from heavy ocean surf by a shallow reef just off shore. Tidal flats stretched out in inviting sandy ripples from the parking area. The only question was what to explore first, the reef or the sand?

Somewhat unsurprisingly, we elected the reef, and donning our snorkel gear, we slipped into the refreshing water.  

To my utmost shock, I managed to make an exciting discovery mere moments after finning out from shore. I’m usually known for not being able to spot the thing I’m looking for even if it’s sitting right in front of me, but somehow an odd looking protrusion from a nearby rock caught my attention. In my periphery, I’d thought I’d spotted a moray eel. A dark, elongated shape poked in and out of a hole in a rock, definitely similar behavior to eels I’ve encountered before, but there was something off about it. Whatever the creature was, it was clearly sizing me up as well, and as I got closer, it ducked back into it’s hole. 

I swam up and peered into the hole, and to my surprise and utter delight, I found the amorphous form of an octopus staring back at me. What I’d mistaken for an eel, was actually it’s eyes poking out of the hole to survey it’s surroundings. 

This was far beyond what I had hoped to encounter while snorkeling at a beach we’d come to as a second choice at the last minute. I called everyone else over once I could get their attention, and we watched in fascination as the octopus changed it’s colors and shape with dizzying speed and precision. One second it would be a vibrant red and white, and few moments later, it looked no different than the coral rocks that surrounded it. Anyone who didn’t know any better, would never suspect that it was there.

This was the second display of animal camouflage that we’d witnessed in as many days, but I must admit, the octopus stole the show. The way it could alter every color and texture on its body would look like magic if I didn’t know it too was manipulating its  chromatophores in order to change its appearance. 

There was a whole reef to explore beyond the rocky outcropping I where I found the octopus, but I stayed with the enigmatic creature until I started to feel the telltale signs that I needed more sunscreen. The clouds had parted enough that some harsh sunlight was beating down on my back, so I swam to shore to put on a rash guard.

Everyone else followed, in need of a break and a drink of water, and soon we were walking along the coastline. We were all amazed that there were no other beachgoers at Laura given that it’s the only sandy beach near Majuro. But we had the sand entirely to ourselves as we watched hermit crabs peek out of their shells, and walked out onto the dramatically rippling sand of the tide flat.

Before long we were sweating and decided to take another (or in my case a first) lap around the reef to cool off.  This time I swam right over to the coral where hundreds of colorful fish swam in schools above a garden of staghorn corals.

There were beautiful coral formations and fish in every direction.

We explored the reef until we all agreed we were getting hungry.  Then we dried off, got back in the car, and headed for Majuro.  

Along the way, we stopped to buy some locally made woven grass souvenirs, and eventually landed at the same restaurant we’d selected the previous day. There, we discussed plans for the next morning. Jared’s bag still hadn’t arrived at the airport yet, and it had all of the food we’d packed specifically for our upcoming stay on an uninhabited island.  If it didn’t arrive by early the next morning, we would have to go shopping in a hurry. The boat for Eneko Island left at ten in the morning, and we needed to have enough food and water to last us for more than twenty four hours alone on the little island. 

As we discussed ours plans, I couldn’t help but feel a swell of excitement in my stomach. Whatever happened with Jared’s bag, I was beyond ready to live out my Survivor dreams of being castaways for a night!