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Water Ways Ray Pendleton |
Palmyra does more
than collect bottles
In last week's Water Ways I related how an earlier column about the 155-foot motor yacht Silver Lining's visit to Hawaii had led to a Web site reader in Oregon contacting me for an introduction to its captain or owner.Because the reader, Kathy Schmid, had read here that the vessel had made a stop at Palmyra Atoll -- where a note-in-a-bottle she had put adrift off the coast of California had been found -- she was hoping to hitch a ride there, if the yacht was going back.
It seems Kathy had developed an e-mail relationship with the caretakers of Palmyra, Matt and Elizabeth Lange, and was looking for a way to visit them on their isolated island.
Unfortunately for Kathy, the yacht's skipper said they were planning on heading for the mainland after a few weeks of cruising our islands. And, so far, no one else has contacted me with an offer to take Kathy as a crewmember on a cruise to Palmyra.
Still, for me, this whole chain of events has resulted in my being introduced via e-mail to some very delightful people that now include the Langes on Palmyra.
As many people in Hawaii know, Palmyra Atoll is a small oval of islets about 1,000 miles south of here. The Nature Conservancy purchased it from Hawaii's Fullard-Leo family for a nature reserve almost five years ago and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service administers its surrounding waters.
Historically, the atoll was used as a naval air facility during World War II, but in recent years it has been considered uninhabited, although the Langes might protest this description because they call Palmyra home.
According to Elizabeth, she and Matt sailed to Palmyra in 2000, after several years of cruising aboard their Gulfstar 43 Rubicon. While visiting there, they learned of The Nature Conservancy's recent purchase of the atoll and the plans for it becoming a wildlife refuge.
"Well, we fell in love with the place and sent in our rŽsumŽs," Elizabeth told me.
Later, after arriving in Hawaii, the couple went through several interviews and soon after, they returned to Palmyra as the official "Island Managers."
"We host visiting scientists, researchers and yachts," Elizabeth said, "and there is a ton of constant maintenance and upkeep here. We also help monitor wildlife and bird activity."
They were also directly involved in arranging for the owner of Silver Lining to donate its onboard hyperbaric chamber to the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium.
As for finding Kathy's note-in-a-bottle, Elizabeth remembers finding it while walking along one of the atoll's eastern-most islands.
"The note was completely saturated and I had to gently pull the pages apart with tweezers," she recalls.
After my asking if she or her husband had ever found other bottled notes, she admitted Matt had indeed found one several months ago on a different beach.
"That bottle was set to sea on Oct. 2, 2003 from a vessel on a passage from Bora Bora, Tahiti, to Hawaii by a firefighter from Hana, Maui," Elizabeth said. "As the message inside requested, we sent the bottle back to him and the fellow sent us back a nice thank you."
The way this story has developed, now I'll probably hear from that Maui firefighter.
His column runs Saturdays in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be reached by e-mail at raypendleton@mac.com.