Our Tropical Island!

MFT: Tropical Paradise
LFP: Mosquitos 

Eneko! Welcome, to tropical paradise (complete with mosquitos, ants, and lots of flies). We rented three small cabins on an island that is owned by the hotel on the main island of Majuro (called Majuro island). The island is a bit rustic, no refrigeration, power only when the generator is on, ect., but absolutely STUNNING and Gorgeous.

Anyways, we came out yesterday late morning with all of our things. Pretty much our life has consisted of moving 23 bags all around 50 lbs (plus the CHIRP at a whopping 97 lbs) everywhere we go. So we spent the morning in Majuro gathering supplies (food for 2 days that doesn’t need refrigeration) restocking things that were broken, and repacking what we needed and didn’t need to bring. Then we took a boat out to Eneko island with all of our gear. The place is gorgeous. We went snorkeling right off the beach and saw lots of fish. Plus there are outdoor showers with fresh water! There is this lovely little communal kitchen bungalow with a propane stove and a sink! Best part of this island is that there are real toilets and some working showers!

All of the water is from rain water, but as we found out yesterday afternoon, that provides plenty! I mean it was a lovely torrential downpour yesterday afternoon! They use solar panels for some power and then at night turn on a generator, which is a necessity for us to charge all the equipment. Anyways, we spent the afternoon walking the island and finding things (like pre-dug trenches) and then a spot of GPR (till the rain stopped us). The evening consisted of cooking pasta (woooohoo), drinking rum & pineapple juice (smooth), and playing gin rummy. We all went in and out of the water to cool off (it gets very hot very quickly when working here) at least 3 times. For most of the work we have to wear long sleeves and pants because we are bushwhacking. This works great except we get very hot, so I’ve taken to dunking my shirt in water and then wearing it wet as it slowly dries.

The best part is that our plan is to survey this island very minutely. We want to use the RTK GPS (still getting that to work as of this blog write up) and GPR and collect lots of sediment samples (from trenches, coral, ect). We are switching up our fieldwork timeline. We get up early and start working while it is still nice and cool out, then take a long lunch/siesta/swim/time to blog and then work in the cooler afternoon (ok so it doesn’t cool down till 4 pm but we work as of 1:30 or so). I’ll let you know how that works out!


Hope you like the pictures and please feel free to comment J.

Digging a trench

Pretty tree!

Another trench we dug!

Gorgeous sunset

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