Kwaj trip, Post 1: The first day

From December 29th to January 16th, we spent a wonderful 2.5 weeks on Kwajalein Island in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, visiting our friends Peter and Marissa! This was a unique opportunity that we had been looking forward to for months - you can click here to read what we said about it on this blog a few months ago.

Peter and Marissa

Kwajalein Island is the US Army's Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site. What this means is that, a few times per year, the US Army fires missiles from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California into the lagoon of Kwajalein Atoll, testing their flight characteristics, control systems, etc. As a "military installation", Kwaj is closed to tourism, so visitors must be sponsored by a Kwaj resident and pass the approval process before being allowed to visit.  Each employee on Kwaj is allowed 90 visitor days per year.

The 1500 residents of Kwajalein Island are mostly American expats and their families.  While some people's jobs are related to the missile testing (eg. meteorologists and rocket scientists), and about 15 active duty soldiers are stationed on Kwaj, many other people perform the usual roles that keep a community up and running (eg. teachers, police and IT).  A lot of other roles (eg. retail, construction and airport security) are filled by local Marshallese people who live on the nearby island of Ebeye.

Kwajalein Atoll - Kwajalein Island is the southernmost island in the atoll

We landed on Kwaj around 11am on Thursday, December 29th, about 35 hours after leaving home early on Tuesday morning (Vancouver time). To get to Kwaj, we drove to Seattle, flew to San Francisco (2 hours), changed planes, flew to Honolulu (4.5 hours), stayed overnight at an airport hotel in Honolulu, flew to Majuro, capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (5.5 hours), de-planed for half an hour before re-boarding (the same plane stops at a few islands before heading back to Hawaii), and then flew to Kwaj (1 hour).

Dinner in Honolulu - we returned to a Chinese restaurant
whose Honey Walnut Shrimp we loved 2 years ago

One of the many Marshall Islands

Majuro Airport - last stop before Kwaj

Stopover in Majuro (1 hour)

The plane that took us from Honolulu to Kwaj (via Majuro)

An island visible through the clouds

Upon arrival, the flight crew announced that Kwajalein Island was a military installation and no one was allowed to take photos or “congregate at the cabin doors”. As we left the plane the cabin crew told us to remove our hats: “their rule, not ours”.

Inside the tiny terminal building, we placed our hand luggage on some painted red lines on the floor, and took a seat nearby. On the floor under each seat was a clipboard with a pen, some brochures, and a customs declaration form. A sniffer dog was brought out and taken along the rows of bags, and a man gave us a short briefing on what to do. Soon the majority of the passengers left the building (because they either live on Kwaj, or were Marshallese citizens taking the ferry to nearby Ebeye Island), leaving just us and three other people.

We showed our passports, customs declaration form and USAKA approval forms (i.e. the document giving us permission to visit Kwaj under Peter's sponsorship) to the men behind the counter, and took our seats again. They already had a copy of the forms on hand for the five of us visitors that had arrived on that flight (one of only three commercial flights that land on Kwaj each week!).

One by one we were called up to the counter again to have our photo taken, and shortly after that a lady handed us our Kwaj ID cards and we were free to go. Our ID cards said in capital letters along the top: “UNOFFICIAL VISITOR, NO SHOPPING PRIVILEGES, AUTHORIZED IN FOOD COURT AND AMERICAN EATERY”. They also showed Peter's name, home and work phone numbers, the expiry date (i.e. the date we leave), and our photo.

We were the last visitors to leave the building, and as soon as we walked out of the door, Marissa was there to greet us. (Peter had been going to come, but had been called into work at 3am that morning so met us at home for lunch a few minutes later instead.) Marissa took us around to the other side of the building to collect our checked baggage. We had travelled with carry-on luggage only, but had collected two checked bags full of scuba gear in Hawaii and transported them to Kwaj for John, a Divemaster and dive gear distributor on Kwaj, which meant we could get a discount on our gear rental from him.

After we retrieved the two bags, John arrived in a golf cart and we met him, handed over the bags, and climbed aboard to be given a ride home. This took less than 5 minutes and we passed Peter's workplace on the way. Once we arrived at Peter and Marissa's house, Peter was there to meet us and we farewelled John after making plans to meet him at 6pm for our orientation dive (a condition of joining the Kwajalein Scuba Club as temporary members).

We had lasagne for lunch and then, since Peter had already done his day's work, they hired a golf cart ($5/hr) and gave us a tour of the island. Kwaj is only 3 square miles, and shaped like a boomerang. It is 3.5 miles long and 0.75 miles across at its widest point.

Our first stop was Small Boat Marina, which is in the sheltered harbour area. At the marina, we saw some boats, beautiful blue water, and a few nurse sharks and a blacktip shark swimming in the shallows, where they are used to having fish innards thrown to them by people cleaning their catch nearby. The sharks were up to 2m in length, and one nurse shark was so close below us that we could see his gills fluttering as he breathed!

We then headed west in the golf cart, stopping briefly to enjoy the view at a few different beaches and a turtle pond. Although Kwaj is a “military installation”, it is still a typical tropical island – bright blue and green water, white sand beaches, and lots of coconut palms and frangipani/ plumeria trees. However, there are also lots of white radar domes, radio masts, concrete buildings and sheds.

Some local kids playing at the beach

Another beach

A tiny crab

Me

One of the two turtles in the Turtle Pond giving us the eye

This building was built during the Reagan administration
for the Star Wars project, but is now used for garbage disposal

HQ

We saw the trash burning facility, which had a large sign on the fence saying “Accident Free Zone: Violators Will Be Injured”. We also saw a large concrete building, six storeys deep, where large items of rubbish (eg. old computers and unwanted furniture) are taken because they have no other way of disposing of such things. This is going to be a significant problem in a couple of decades, but apparently no one is interested in doing anything about it now. At the west end of the island we drove up a small hill and looked out over a rocky shoreline littered with large rusty metal objects – another disposal method favoured by the army in previous decades!

As we came down from the hill, two men in orange shirts waved us over and invited us in to their workplace. Their names were Bryon H and Brian B, and they are the Kwajalein Bomb Squad, so we got to see all sorts of UXO (unexploded ordnance) that has been found on Kwaj! (This region was very active in WWII, and there are many sunken ship and plane wrecks nearby.) The Bomb Squad has posters and brochures that show Kwaj residents what to look for, and they give talks at the school so that kids know to report suspicious objects and not touch them. Apparently they find UXO on Kwaj about once a week.

That morning, Bryon and Brian had decided to go to the Kwaj school to look for UXO, as some had previously been found there, and in the playground they found an unexploded mortar shell with its fuse nearby! Bryon H held it in his hand the whole time we were there, but he wouldn't let us touch it as there was still corroded explosive material inside. It was a very interesting visit, with lots of bomb talk and Bryon H sharing some stories from his time in Iraq. They invited us back for a morning visit sometime so that we can see the robot they use for picking up UXO that isn't safe to touch.

After leaving the Bomb Squad building, we came to the west end of the runway. The runway basically takes up half the island – it runs along the west arm of the boomerang. As we came around in line with it, we stopped the golf cart in accordance with a sign beside the road that told us to check for approaching aircraft before proceeding. As we drove along with the runway on our left, there was a golf course on our right between the road and the shoreline. On our left, we saw a few golf balls lying on the grassy strip between the road and the runway. Peter and Marissa explained that walking on the runway is one of the main things that would get a person kicked off the island immediately, so going close to it to retrieve stray golf balls isn't worth the risk!

As well as the golf course and adjacent golf club, we saw quite a few other recreational options as we drove around the island. There's a tennis court, racquetball court, softball field, soccer field, scuba club, yacht club, rowing club, ham radio club, skate park, bowling alley, library, adult pool, family pool, outdoor movie screen, and no doubt lots more! There's also a hospital, dental surgery, elementary school, high school, youth services centre, church, laundromat, post office, travel agent, hair salon, bakery, grocery store, convenience store, household goods store, scuba and bike store, a couple of souvenir and clothing stores, a food court with Subway, Burger King, Anthony's Pizza and Baskin Robbins, and a PDR (Public Dining Room) where those staying in the BQ (Bachelor Quarters) get their meals for free.

[Note: The rest of the photos in this entry were taken on the last day of our trip, not the first day... I knew I'd need more to supplement this blog post, so I rode around snapping photos of everything a few hours before we flew out!]

The Dive Locker, where KSC merchandise is stored, and where
KSC meetings are held once a month

The hospital and pharmacy

The high school

Kwaj's main street/ downtown area

The main street, taken from the other end

The food court is in the ground floor of this building

Peter's workplace (he's in IT)

Accommodation options on Kwaj include the BQ (for those in “unaccompanied positions”), Old Housing (built in the '50s; for “accompanied positions”; Peter and Marissa are in a two-bedroom duplex in this section), New Housing (built in the 80s; for families; two- or three-bedroom houses available), Dome Housing (built in the 90s; also for families), and a few stand-alone houses for people in important positions. Kwaj's population used to be up to 7000, but all of this currently supports a population of only 1500 people. (Well, a lot of Marshallese citizens from Ebeye Island also work on Kwaj, but there are restrictions as to when they can be on Kwaj outside of working hours.)

The back of P&M's house - they're in the right side of this duplex

The front of P&M's house - the left half is theirs

The street Peter and Marissa live on

The street behind their house

New Housing

Dome Housing

Dome housing

After picking up four air tanks from the scuba club, collecting Peter and Marissa's mail from the post office, and buying dinner from Subway (where footlong subs range from $5.50 to $7.50 USD, significantly cheaper than Canada!), we went back to their place to eat our subs and prepare for our night dive with John. Then we rode bicycles about 5 minutes to John's house, with Peter towing our air tanks and gear bags on a small trailer behind his bike.

At John's house, Ben and I signed some forms, and then the five of us geared up and walked the short distance to North Point for our shore-entry dive. It's actually rare for people to do night dives on Kwaj, as the US Army Commander who is in charge of the island has said that people can only go night diving if they pay for someone to be on call for the island's decompression chamber. However, someone had paid for it for two consecutive nights, and got the word out, so a lot of people took the opportunity to go night diving.

Our dive lasted 65 minutes and had a maximum depth of about 35 feet. I felt a bit nervous as I hadn't dived since Mexico 8 months ago, but as the dive proceeded I slowly regained my confidence. It was only my second night dive ever, so it was a bit like jumping in at the deep end to do one for our Kwaj orientation dive, but I definitely felt less disoriented than I had during my first night dive in Mexico. Ben thought the dive was ok, but he had some problems with buoyancy control (i.e. needed more weight), and his mask was hurting his nose. My mask was hurting my ears, but we were confident that we would get all of those things sorted out as we did lots more dives over the next couple of weeks!

The dive included a lot of marine life and some really amazing moments. About two thirds of the way through the dive, we were shining our flashlights on a 50cm-long scrawled filefish that was just hanging out in the one spot, and I sort of drifted on top of him. I felt him bump along underneath me and I leant forward so that I could see him. Then I spread my legs and he slowly drifted up between them. I even softly touched his tail fin before I swam away (I don't usually touch the marine life as it's best not to, but I saw John do it and couldn't resist!).

A couple of minutes later, I had an even more incredible experience. John saw a 1m-long female green sea turtle and was shining his light on it, and the two of us drifted quite close to it. Then the turtle got startled and swam quickly away, but after a few metres she turned and came back toward us. She came straight at me and swam right above me, so close I could have touched her (but didn't). She stayed close for a few moments before swimming away again. Apparently her behaviour was caused by the light disturbing her, but I didn't realise that until later and just felt awed to be so close to her. Turtles are my favourite marine creatures, so I hoped we'd see some more during our daytime dives, as I wanted to get up close again when they were happy for me to do so!

In addition to the above creatures, we also saw three juvenile batfish (spadefish) that swam along with us for ages, two octopus, lots of green and purple razor coral, hundreds of black sea cucumbers, an orange carpet anemone, cornet fish, unicorn fish, and lots of others we don't know the names of! Peter and Marissa spotted a whitetip shark, but we didn't see it.

After the dive, we rinsed our gear off at John's house and then rode back to Peter and Marissa's. We spent a while looking at some of their amazing underwater photos from the past 6 months (they moved here in July 2011), before tiredness hit Ben like a sledgehammer and we all retired to bed around 10:30pm. And that was our first day on Kwaj!

[Note: Ben didn't take any photos on this first night dive, but he took a LOT of photos on our subsequent 18 dives! I will dedicate a few upcoming posts solely to scuba diving photos and anecdotes. I've decided to order our Kwaj blog posts by activity rather than as a day-by-day account, as this will avoid a lot of repetition (eg. "we had a lazy morning, we had lunch, we went diving..."!). However, I wanted to post this blog entry as-is, as most of it is taken from the diary I wrote while on Kwaj, and thus it contains many of my first impressions.]

PS.  To supplement the tour we've just given you, click here to see a time lapse video a Kwaj resident made of a bike ride around the island!