This was my third trip to Bikini but this didn’t lessen my enthusiasm to getting back there. Traveling to this Atoll, deep within the Marshal Island group, takes some doing. Getting there from Auckland, New Zealand, I flew to Cairns, then Guam, then onto Kwajalein via an island hopper, which stopped at four other Micronesian islands. Some 27 hours later, getting into Kwajalein meant that we were only half way there.

In Bikini on 24 July 1946, an enormous water column beneath a mushroom cloud left 500,000 tons of radioactive mud in the atoll’s lagoon. As a result of the underwater nuclear bomb, “Baker Test”, the Bikini atoll was so devastated, that nearly all of the atoll’s vegetation was destroyed, and the islands were sufficiently contaminated to render them all uninhabitable until at least 2030. This was just the beginning of an insane atomic arms race that jeopardized many pacific islanders’ lives and destroyed the surrounding nature.

 

Although I am the only female in the group, and a travel journalist, I am accepted because I create these escapes and weave a recipe of pleasing surprises, challenging dives and always add a twist of exploration to the mix. The guys are also impressed that I am a grandmother of five and use a single tank to their doubles.