Rong Rong

After our last camping trip...heading out to a new, unknown island was a little scary. But we were ready to get away from Majuro for awhile and just chill. As far as we knew it wasn't going to rain, but you never know here! So we brought a tarp anyway and hoped for the best.

We left Wednesday around noon and drove the 45 minutes or so to Laura (the other end of the island) to catch our boat. It was cloudy when we loaded everything on the tiny boat, and the water was SUPER choppy as we sped across the lagoon. At first it was kind of fun! We were all sitting on the edge of the boat holding on for dear life, feeling like we were on a roller coaster surging up and down. Then the driver told us to sit down and then it just pounded our butts to bits and we couldn't even see the waves lol...

We made it to the island, but we were suddenly unhappy when we saw a school building! We thought it would be a deserted island where we could do whatever we wanted, get away from students and not have to worry about people watching us. But we ended up staying, and it was definitely for the better. There was a little inlet off the lagoon on the beach we camped on and the water was so calm, and so beautiful! I have never seen so many brilliant shades of turquoise and blue. And amazingly we didn't see hardly any people the whole time. Maybe a boat or two but that was about it.

If you can imagine an ideal camping trip with perfect weather, squishy white sand, amazing snorkelling, ocean breeze, etc, etc, this was it! 5 of us girls went so we decided to set up our own girls' camp. I had to hack down a huge branch with a machete so we could set the tarp up. Wow that was hard. After the tarp was up it was basically relaxing and hanging out for 2 days. We played in the water a lot, snorkelled some (it was amazing!), slept in without a care in the world, played silly games, and stayed up late talking and looking at the stars. I don't think I've ever seen so many stars peppering the sky. It was incredible! There was also an old rusty fishing ship that was washed up a little ways off shore on the ocean side. We hiked over there, trudged through the current and climbed a rope up over the side. It was so fun to explore! We climbed down into this lower room where the waves would burst in like a huge blowhole.

We laid out and got lots of sun. I think most of us burned a little...especially Kara! But that's normal. Of course it's always nice to come home and take a shower, but most of us really didn't want to leave! I guess it makes for a boring story, but that is by far the best camping experience I think I've ever had! :)