December 9th, 2024 | 5.3268° N, 132.2239° E | Sonsorol Island, Palau
Hard corals crunch under my wet shoes as I walk down a narrow, deserted beach. Looking beyond the small, foamy waves crashing at my feet, I can see Nautilus on the horizon. It’s always a bit surreal to view the ship from this far away – from here it looks like a tiny toy boat. I take a few photos and ponder what our shipmates might be doing right now.
Lynette Davis and I are wandering around a beach in one of the most remote places I have ever been: the island of Sonsorol.
This morning, Lynette and I were on board Nautilus, going through the motions of our typical routines on the ship – Lynette working with the navigation team in the Data Lab, while I was chatting with the Comms team about our scheduled video calls in the studio.
But our plans for the day took a delightfully unexpected turn when Expedition Leader Samantha Wishnak asked us, “do you want to go to shore?”
Samantha already knew what our response would be. Absolutely.
We came ashore with the science team leaders for this expedition, Eric Terrill and Sophia Merrifield, both physical oceanographers based at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They have spent the past decade working in Palau and have visited Sonsorol several times before.
Physical Oceanography 101: Eric Terrill discusses ocean currents with students at the Sonsorol School.
A different work day: Sophia Merrifield and Eric Terrill make their way through the jungle to bring equipment to the radar station.
Nearly 200 miles south of Palau’s main islands, Sonsorol (also called Dongosaro or Dongosaru) is just over a mile long north-to-south, and not quite 3,000 feet across at its greatest width. It has a population of roughly 30 people, and we meet about half of them during our first hour on the island — three boat drivers who pick us up from the ship, then nine school children and their teachers.
At the school, Eric and Sophia show some animations and videos of their work and answer questions about ocean exploration. We give the students Nautilus t-shirts and stickers, take a few photos, and then begin our short trek across the island to a radar station, where Eric and Sophia are making some upgrades. I ask Sophia if we can do anything to help, but she waves us off.
“You guys should explore the beach!”
Lynette and I grab the large plastic bags we brought from the ship and make our way down to the beach. We begin collecting trash, mostly plastic bottles and a surprising number of shoes. We fill the bags in just a few minutes. I sigh and try not to feel depressed — this isn’t the first time I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of human debris on a remote beach in the middle of the Pacific.
About two hours later, the radio crackles to life and we hear an exchange between the Scripps researchers and the captain of Nautilus. Sounds like we’ll be here for a while longer.
We decide to explore more of the island. As we leave the beach and head deeper into the thick jungle, the rain intensifies. My already-saturated shoes make ridiculous sounds, squelching through the thick mud.
I turn to Lynette. “You know, there are very few people I would rather be stuck with on a remote island in the pouring rain.”
She turns and smiles at me from under the hood of her raincoat. “Same.”
We’re not really stuck, at least not yet. But as is the case in all expedition work, we should be prepared for anything. Before we left the ship this morning, Eric asked us if we had any essential medication – in the event we had to stay on the island for the night.
Lynette and I have sailed together on five different expeditions. Spending a lot of time at sea with a particular person does not necessarily manifest a friendship, but ever since Lynette and I were asked to lead an expedition together, we have been close. I feel lucky to call her a steadfast shipmate and a dear friend.
While we’ve navigated over 100 days at sea together, Lynette and I have rarely spent more than a few hours hanging out on land. And we’ve definitely never had an opportunity to leave the ship in the middle of an expedition to go for a walk in the woods.
At the edge of the village, we stop to take photos of plumeria flowers scattered across the wet ground. I lift one of the flowers to my nose, inhaling the rich, terrestrial scent.
I stare at the delicate petals sprinkled with rain drops., and recall a stanza of poetry by E.E. Cummings, a favorite from my childhood:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wildflower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour
Stop to smell the flowers: Taking time to appreciate the beauty of the plumeria is a simple and delightful joy.
Evidence of the passage of time: We find all kinds of hard corals scattered across the forest floor.
We are certainly in a place where time seems to stand still. After the hustle and bustle of ship life, where we constantly move from one task to the next, it feels surreal to not just be on land, but to move slowly and without an objective in mind.
We have all the time in the world to gaze at massive tree trunks, to laugh at comically large elephant ear leaves, to catch a glimpse of a crab scuttling beneath a fallen tree, and to marvel at old, giant corals sitting in the middle of the jungle.
We make our way back out to the beach, walking slowly and staring down at the myriad of corals and shells. We talk about other time we have visited far-flung islands. I tell Lynette about my documentary work on Isabela in the Galápagos Islands, and she references her conservation work on Palmyra Atoll.
“Does this island remind you of Palmyra?”
“Absolutely,” she says. “This actually makes me feel really nostalgic.”
Ready for anything: Lynette Davis was born and raised to be an adventurer.
I have always been fascinated by the diversity of experiences in the life story of Lynette Davis. I know that a few years back, she spent four months working on a tiny, remote island 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. But I don’t know any of the details.
For the first time since I met her over a year ago, Lynette describes her experiences on Palmyra. Working and living with 10 to 20 people, doing hard manual labor to remove invasive plants, sanitizing their clothing every day, dealing with terrible internet – and loving every moment of it.
“When we boarded the plane, we were all crying,” she says. “We didn’t want to leave.”
“What about you?” Lynette asks. “Would you live on a tiny island like this for a few months?”
Yes and no. I get more than enough heat, humidity, and bugs living in the southeastern United States — I would opt for a colder, dryer climate.
“I’m not opposed to living in a remote place for a few months, but I need colder temperatures,” I say honestly. “I’d love to spend a season working at a research station in Antarctica or doing field work in Alaska.”
I step over a log. A couple large crabs scuttle away.
I shake my head, smiling. “This is one of the wildest places I’ve ever been.”
As we clamber through the branches of a fallen tree, we talk about the unique travel experiences that come with being a seafarer — living in the middle of the ocean for weeks at a time, but also spending time in places like Hawaii, British Columbia, American Samoa, and Palau.
We laugh about how many times we’ve had to explain where Palau is to friends and family back home. We talk about why and how our paths in life have led us here – to this type of work in general and to this moment right now.
“Before I was born, my dad was in the Navy, and he had a photo album of all the places he traveled to during that time,” Lynette explains. “He went to so many cool places and took photos in every port. I loved looking at that photo album when I was a kid.”
I nod knowingly and tell Lynette about my dad, an international airline pilot who flew for United Airlines for 40 years. When my brother and I were kids, Dad brought us all kinds of trinkets from his travels, but his stories impacted me the most. Like Lynette, I attribute my innate curiosity and adventurous spirit to my old man.
When we get back to ship, our shipmates will be happy (and a little envious) to hear about our brief time on this tiny, wild island. When we return home to friends and families in a few weeks, not many people will fully understand or appreciate this story — but our dads will be stoked.
For now, I’m grateful to be in this bizarre, beautiful place with a dear friend, talking about the things that matter most and observing the quiet serenity of this time and space.
Into the jungle: During a brief reprieve from the rain, I snap a photo of Lynette walking through the lush jungle of Sonsorol.