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covered skies when I couldn't get a sun sight for days, and when I did, found that there was
quite a strong equatorial current running east, throwing my deduced reckoning pretty far
out.
The arrival of storm petrels, boobies, and frigates announced the presence of land. We
must have been getting close to the Palmyra Atoll. We were very excited about visiting
this lonely group of coral islands, not only for its marine life but for the reputation it had
amongst the sailors who had been there and had spoken of a tropical paradise off the beaten
track.
It was predictably hot and humid. We were virtually on the equator line. There is no season
here as one finds in higher latitudes when the sun hides behind the earth's belly bulge at
the equator; no, the earth's tummy was constantly in the sun and became breath-robbingly
hot. The desire or ability to move around or do anything physical was a task. The wind had
all but dropped off, and there was an eerie stillness and calm about the ocean. We believed
that the cloudy patch where sea birds constantly came and went was, in fact, Palmyra.
One story we were excited about verifying was about the three wild dogs reported to have
been abandoned by the owners of a failed coconut plantation venture several years before.
These dogs, Palmyra, Army, and Navy, had become the official custodians of Palmyra Is-
land. They gave a warm noisy welcome to all visiting sailors. They thrived hungrily on the
company and attention and were spoiled rotten. There was a story about how these three
sweet dogs would go into the shark infested waters and, working as a team, would shep-
herd some unsuspecting black-tip shark near the shore. They would then pounce upon it,
dragging it up the beach and killing it by tearing out its throat, as they would a dog! They
would then bury the shark and eat it several days later. This we had to see to believe! We
were also very keen on seeing the huge coconut crabs that lived in great colonies below the
coconut trees and could sever a man's wrist with one nip of their huge, deadly pincers. We
did not have long to go.
Another legend of Palmyra was the now infamous “Seawitch murders,” where an elderly
couple was murdered for their yacht by some very ugly people posing as sailors. Their poor
victims were trussed up in trunks and dumped in the deep water beyond the reef, only to
be washed up and discovered years later. These murderous scum had the dimness of mind
to actually sail the boat back to its homeport of Waikiki, Hawaii, where they were caught
and one of them jailed for several years. A film was made of the sordid incident. Would
you believe that my friendfrom Keehi Lagoon, Liz's boyfriend Al would eventually be the
owner of this boat, Seawitch?
On the eleventh day out we spotted Palmyra across our port bow in the rapidly setting sun. I
had read in my pilot book of the complicated channel we had to negotiate and became very
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