Here Be Dragons…

I have always loved the saying – the legend on maps – from the Middle Ages and the time of oceanic exploration that says, “here be dragons”. It was such a great description of those places marked on maps, yet to be discovered, where people had not yet traveled, or had not explored fully enough to know that there weren’t, in fact, dragons lurking about there.

Such a romantic notion.

There are no longer places on maps marked with this mysterious legend. Thanks to Google Earth, satellites and GPS, we know of every coral head and seamount that would casually tear the bottom out of a ship, and every unwelcoming and rocky shoreline hidden in the fog, .

Or do we?

Okay, well, we do, but there is a place where you can still feel as if you are actually sailing right under that image of a dragon drawn on an old map.

Right here, in the Marshall Islands. Even in the Kwajalein Atoll.

Most people who know me have some basic idea that I love the ocean: surf, kiteboarding, free diving, spearfishing, exploring, and yes, I have probably posted enough of that for anyone. But, while I was described one time as a “water person”, nothing could be further from the truth.

However much I may wish that were the truth, that is just not me.

I am envious of those people who have that healthy relationship with the ocean – for what it is – for what it is capable of. They hold a deep respect in one hand, and in the other they hold a balanced measure of competence, a confidence in their abilities, a proficiency bred of years – lifetimes – of throwing themselves, laughing, into the belly of the beast and crawling away humbled, bedraggled, and with their lessons deeply engraved for the next time.

I have that respect. Fully. I have taken my beatings and my hard-learned lessons. I have drug myself up onto the beach gasping for air more times than I can count. I can get around those days, the punishments. What I can’t get around most days is the fear: the fear that drinks my confidence, steals my breath, devours my zen, and spits it all back out to me as confidence sapping terror.

What I lack is the competence and confidence.

The ocean scares me. It is really, really big, and it is really, really deep, and it is really, really powerful, and there are so many ways that it can so casually erase you from existence.

So, as usual, I have sidetracked the original aim of this post: to tell you a story.

But first, my usual disclaimer…

I will not add any names or pictures of the friends that we went with. I will definitely post a bunch of the names of the islands that we saw (because the Marshallese names add a foreign-sounding romance to the whole thing) but I will not say which ones we stopped on specifically or describe which islands are shown. I can say that we were in, along, and outside of the Kwajalein Atoll, but because this is the Kwajalein Atoll, there is much I have to be careful about in my descriptions.

Okay, now a story:

We received an invitation from a couple that we had spent time with kiteboarding and surfing around the atoll. He was one of the first people I met when we came to Kwaj, and his wife is someone we see regularly in our day-to-day activities here. They are fun folks, and pretty quickly we identified them as fellow adventurers and kindred spirits and friends. We have spent a few evenings on their little wooden platform under the trees, beers in hand, talking story, watching the sunset explode in orange and crimson over the lagoon. Sailing has often come up in these moments. He grew up on sailboats and has been a sailor and commercial boat captain all his life. They have been sailing together forever.

We (of course the collective we that is Tam and I) are the opposite. We have never sailed (we tried it once or twice and she did not like it), and for me the stories I have heard of people sailing the open ocean really just instill fear in me. Here be dragons and all…

So, in support of my earlier claim that I have too much fear of the ocean, I did give serious thought to turning down our Friend’s offer to jump on their sailboat for five days and sail to the Northwest point of the Kwajalein Atoll for some island hopping, surfing, and kiteboarding. That was a bit too far off the map for me (strangely enough, most of the original old charts of the lagoon do not include the entire area on the Northwest corner). The idea of sailing almost eighty miles across lagoon and open ocean for five days scared me. What could happen? What could go wrong? What if something happened with the boat? What if one of us was hurt or had a stroke along the way? What if we sank?

I think I am a terrible swimmer.

What if I worried too much and let this intrinsic fear that I have of the ocean make my decision for me, and I missed out on what could be an amazing adventure? A water person would go. A sailor would go. But me? Would I go?

Well, I did. We did. And it was amazing.

Our friend’s boat was a great old fiberglass and wood sailboat. Built in the early 90’s and well maintained, it maintained a language of sounds unique to itself and its owners. It was a language that they understood fluently, and knew every subtlety of, enough to be aware of the meaning of each clunk and creak.

It is a great old boat, and it performed flawlessly (meaning… we didn’t sink).

We had our turns at short watches, and learned quite a bit about sailing. Our hosts had a lifetime of experience, and they shared much of that with us.

Just some random pictures of the beautiful places we sailed into, and the boat that got us there…

… and back.

We sailed by so many beautiful islands, so alike in one regard, but each, somehow, unique.

It may not be very visible, but we had a giggle surfing some small waves at this fantastic point on the way up the atoll. Sadly, on our return, there were no waves left. I guess we used them all up. This picture was taken on the way back down, with not a rideable wave in sight.

This island was gorgeous. It was small enough to walk around in twenty minutes, and because of it’s location, had almost no flotsam or jetsam washed up on it’s shores. It was really pristine, and it has those classic palm trees leaning out over the water that we can never seem to refuse taking pictures of.

We had to run for the mothership from this one, though, as you can see the threatening skies closing in. We made it back to the boat just in time to close all the hatches and duck under cover as one of these violently beautiful squalls came tearing through for fifteen minutes.

I guess those dragons come in all forms…

Speaking of flotsam and jetsam (were we?): I found out on this trip that the difference between the two is simply a matter of intentionality. Flotsam being the product of a shipwreck or a disaster, and jetsam being intentionally jettisoned from ships. So what do we call the millions of tons of flip flops and water bottles that we find piled on the windward aspects of these remote shores? Marine Debris. Or, just plain sad. You will never have a clear picture of the amount of plastic debris in the ocean until you explore the remote windward shores of the islands on every ocean and sea of this planet.

Yes. Sad.

So, the folks we came on this trip with are experienced and rabid collectors of the finer bits of marine debris. They have been searching the surrounding islands here for nearly 20 years, and have found hundreds of glass floats, life rings, and other oddities like stuffed Pooh Bears, volleyballs (yep, just like Wilson), and, strangely enough, a bunch of plastic duck decoys.

On this trip they found two new glass floats, one about eight inches in diameter, and the other about twenty inches. These are really rare, and the two they found were still in their rope netting. They were really excited about the finds.

Me, well, I found a life ring from a ship.

And an inflatable kid’s floaty toy.

At least it has pirates and whales on it.

I am sitting on the life ring, which turned out to be nice for keeping sand off my bum.

Our hosts have a small dinghy that they use as a tender for the mothership (yeah, the sailboat), that exists in a constant state of under inflation. We ended up christening the little bugger the “Flappy McGee”, and determined that he must be a smaller cousin to the “Patches McGee” (see the last post on this blog for more details). He is a steadfast little bugger and he carried us flapping, rolling, and bobbing along, from the sailboat to the beaches and shores of a bunch of different islands.

We pulled into so many of these anchorages, each one as stunning as the last.

A couple of obligatory beach shots and selfies… I suppose there is no getting around taking a couple of those. Directly behind where we are standing we made what was one of the best snorkel/freedives we have ever seen. We drifted a channel wall for about an hour with the biggest fish on one of the healthiest reefs we have seen. Huge groupers and snappers, eels, a million fish, even tuna cruising the reef right in front of us.

The whole drift was capped off by a visit from seven nice-sized (approximately five to six feet long) grey reef sharks. They were curious, unafraid, and felt comfortable approaching within arms reach several times. I love being around sharks in the water, and especially love it when they want to interact in a nonthreatening manner like that.

These islands are so remote, uninhabited, and generally untouched. They are wild and support so much life. Kwajalein Atoll exists in the largest shark sanctuary in the world, and the commercial fishing here is controlled to the best possible degree. The result of this is a healthy marine ecosystem, and lots of critters to hang out with.

Here are a few videos of some of those critters we saw along the way:

I realize this video is hardly spectacular, but this is the first time in my life that I have seen sperm whales. I thought I needed to include this here…

I promise the next one is a little better.

I am pretty sure I have never seen dolphins without a giant smile breaking on my face. Their playful antics and the fact that they seem to look right at you as they pass just seems to be an invitation to jump in and play with them. I could watch them for hours, their antics and graceful flight through the water is just mesmerizing. And hilarious at times. Sitting on the bow seat of the sailboat, four feet above them, we could hear them chirping and squeaking to one another, and see their smiley little mugs (yes, anthropomorphism again). We got to hang out with this pod for fifteen to twenty minutes as they escorted us all the way through the reef pass and into our anchorage for the night.

As you can see, Tam was super excited!

In all of my posts from Sri Lanka, I talked a lot about how magical it was to be around wild elephants. The same goes for these guys.

I have never been in the water with manta rays without feeling this immense sense of awe at their presence, and a deep gratitude for the experience.

It never gets old.

We sailed (and motor-sailed at times) around and across the atoll, in the lagoon, and in the open ocean outside, for five days. We explored on and sailed past islands with romantic and foreign-sounding names, like Bokliplip, Boggenatjen, Eneruo, Ujajii, Wojejairok, Ennubuj, Ennylabegan, Bigej, and Guegeegue. I managed to get in a surf session and a really good kiteboarding session. We saw a million different sea creatures of all different shapes, sizes, and colors, but the one thing we didn’t see…

In five days, we never saw another human being.

The solitude is unbelievable. Breathtaking. Absolutely fantastic.

And of course we had to have bonfires on the beach, with the prerequisite guitar playing and stargazing. I am pretty sure we could see every star in the Milky Way from out there.

It was dark, with no artificial light.

It was quiet, with no man-made sounds to interrupt the stillness.

It was a great adventure, and I am grateful to our friends that we had the opportunity to get out and do this.

And, most of all, I am happy that I did not let my fear get in the way of this amazing adventure. I would never have known the life-affirming solitude, the exploring of the untouched, the interaction with wildlife that is so unconditioned to human presence, the disconnect from our lives on Kwaj, and the companionship and laughs we all shared.