Learning about Palmyra Atoll

I have been reading the blog entries written by the Stanford@SEA students and know that my writing is not going to be nearly as eloquent.  This group just returned after sailing the 2,000+ miles round trip from Honolulu to Palmyra Atoll.  They spent a week in the Palmyra lagoon and also visited the neighboring Line Islands -- Kiribati (Christmas) Island and Fanning Island.  Check out their blog at:

   http://stanfordatsea.blogspot.com/

It took them about 9 days to make the sail to Palmyra, but for me it will be a 3 to 4 hour charter flight to a 5,000 foot unpaved dirt/packed coral runway.  You can vicariously experience the approach and landing at:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8BD8DEpr2Y

No photos yet.  Hopefully they will be plentiful once my trip has started in mid July.  In the meantime, the librarian in me is trying to find out as much as I can about the Atoll. I had a head start since I had already collected journal articles, bird check lists, nautical charts, etc. to support the Stanford@SEA students as they prepared for their trip.  But I am going to have a different experience since I will be living on land and not aboard a ship.  I also will be there a lot longer -- almost 4 weeks.  There were lots of practical questions such as "Is there a rainy season?" and "What is the food like?".  I had visions of it being like a season on the reality TV show Survivor where I am eating raw fish and insect larvae.  Given the fact that the general public has very little opportunity to visit Palmyra, it is no surprise that there is not a lot of information to be found on the web.  There are no Trip Advisor or Yelp reviews to read. Unless you are a scientist or a major donor to the Nature Conservancy (who bought the island in 2000), you are not going to get to visit there without motoring or sailing 1,000 miles after making a reservation for one of the two spots they allow ships to use in the lagoon. Fortunately, there is a cadre of students at Hopkins who have spent time on Palmyra and can answer most of my questions.  I was assured that I would be very well fed and that while fish was on the menu, it did not dominate it.  Because this is a National Wildlife Refuge, there is a weekly quota on fish that can be taken.  The fishing must take place outside the reef, and only a handful of non-resident species can be taken. These are pelagic species that are just passing through such at tuna and dolphin fish (Mahi mahi).

Below are a few web links I found useful.  The Wikipedia entry is pretty good.  I also found a series of stories by a reporter from NPR to be very informative as far as practical information like they have flush toilets!  Another surprising source of information was the Environmental Impact Report that was written as part of the rat eradication project done a few years ago.  Rats arrived with the Navy during Word War II and were having a significant impact on the nesting sea birds by eating their eggs.  I am told the project was a success.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmyra_Atoll
   http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15325412
   http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/9383765