Bikini
13 May 2012
The landing apron is the only asphalt still showing on the wide long runway.
184 Bikinians were moved from the atoll to Rongerick to make way for the first atomic experiment. That bomb, named Able, was the third atomic bomb ever produced. If the Japanese had not surrendered after the devastation suffered at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Able would have found a mark on a third major Japanese city. Those first three nuclear bombs were Beebe shots compared to later, more advanced, explosives.
We hove to late in the night bobbing and meandering at one knot westward. Splashes of gray, then red on the horizon brought a gradual end to the night sky. The long gray smudge to our north, the island of Enyu, grew into hundreds of individual bushy headed Coconut palms as we slowly sailed in. This is the southeastern most island on Bikini atoll. The southern pass is wide and deep but we still held off entering the atoll till the glancing, glaring morning sun rose to send its rays deep to illuminate the blues, greens, turquoise, browns and whites of reefs climbing to near the surface.