Text by Yvette Cardozo with photos by Yvette Cardozo, Kosrae Village Resort, Kosrae Nautilus Resort, and Tim Rock
December, 2013 Vol. 18, No. 3
If you’ve never heard of Kosrae, it’s not surprising.
It’s the easternmost of the 607 islands dotted across a million square miles of ocean that make up the Federated States of Micronesia (called simply, FSM). It truly is in the middle of nowhere …. 2,800 miles southwest of Hawaii, 1,500 miles east of Guam and a scant five degrees north of the Equator. Though many islands in this part of the world are flat atolls, Kosrae (pronounced ko-shrye) has tall serrated mountains and looks like a mini Hawaii or Tahiti. It’s tiny, shaped like a triangle and barely 15 miles across at its widest. But it also has to compete with its better known island cousins, Palau, Yap and Chuuk (formerly known as Truk).
The very fact that most people miss Kosrae is why it’s special. It’s unspoiled, untouched, its reefs undamaged. It’s the kind of place you say, “Gee, wish I had gone there 20 years ago.” Except, 20 years ago is now.
There’s a story dating back to WWII that says it all. Back at the end of the war, when the occupying Japanese force was ordered to kill the locals, the soldiers warned them instead, then mingled with them so nobody would reconsider shooting. Wander into someone’s yard and you risk being invited to dinner, or at least being showered with food to take home.
Heck, even the feral cats here are friendly.
Admittedly, Kosrae is not easy to reach … nine hours on a United Airlines island hopper jet from Hawaii. But remoteness is what preserves Kosrae’s charm.
You don’t come here to lie on the beach … there isn’t much, frankly. And you don’t come to do the latest pseudo adventure … no zip lines, no downhill bike rides, not even a single craft shop on the island. What you do here is scuba dive, immerse yourself into the culture. And meet the locals.
And, indeed, the coral here is special.
I floated in water so clear, you could see a boat 150 feet away. In crystal shallows, I skimmed blankets of antler coral, huge brain coral studded with multicolor Christmas tree worms, anemones with clown fish the size of my hand (largest in this part of the Pacific) and six-foot-tall pink pillars the locals call castle coral.
Honestly, I haven’t seen hard coral this healthy since the best of the Caribbean in the early ‘70s. One diver even commented, “If Fiji is the soft coral capital of the world, Kosrae is the hard coral capital of the world.” Kosrae has some one hundred and seventy two hard coral species, ten species of soft coral, and approximately two hundred and fifty species of marine life. Rays, dolphins and the occasional whale are also sometimes part of the show. The island is acutely aware of conservation, has marine life monitoring programs, and previous reef building projects.
Oh, and one more thing they do that I’ve never seen anywhere else … if you make arrangements beforehand, all three island dive shops will get you to your first dive site BEFORE THE JET THAT DELIVERED YOU TAKES OFF.
I had packed my mask and a few essentials in my carry-on bag. Someone from the resort claimed my large suitcase and delivered to my cottage while another crewman met me and whisked me off to the waiting dive boat with its gear assembled.
As I sat on the boat, gearing up for that first dive, I could see the jet sitting on the runway. The one I had arrived in 30 minutes earlier. My plane. How seriously cool.
At a dive site called Shark Island, we descended thirty five feet to explore a field of Kosrae’s finger coral, a home to hundreds of purple queen anthias. A school of triggerfish swam by. Each finger of healthy coral was topped by a glowing yellow dome of vibrant new growth. Spiky elkhorns spread unbroken. A five foot bowl of convoluted green lettuce coral shimmered and mounds of boulder coral sat unblemished, speckled with Christmas tree worms.
After the dive, I drank the cool water of a young coconut … so much sweeter than the sour liquid from the imported, way-too-old coconuts I sometimes get at home in Seattle.
The next couple of days were a parade of hard coral. At Pinglap, a tower rose, loaded with purple lace coral, three species of anemones and endless schools of tropical fish.
And then, there was the site called, simply, “21,” for its marker buoy. Here Kosrae’s pride, over-size “Nemo-like” orange with iridescent white stripes anemone fish “guarded” their soft corals.
But my favorite dive wasn’t a dive at all. Rather, it was a snorkel and quite a surprise. The plan was to the find giant plates of coral I had seen growing among the roots of mangrove trees in Kosrae’s Utwe Biosphere Reserve, a protected and underwater mangrove park.
Coral growing among mangrove roots. Really? On a rising tide, we carefully edged the Kosrae Village Ecolodge shallow draft catamaran through the shallows and began our search. Up and down we went, but no plates of coral.
By the mouth of a channel where tides bring swift currents and nutrients, we finally found a coral garden … finger, castle and boulder coral, all in miniature and swarming with hundreds, maybe thousands of fish. There were chromis in three colors, squirrel fish, pipefish, batfish and giant oysters the size of softballs.
I haven’t seen a spread like this since West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya,) the other half of Papua New Guinea. All in barely three to five feet of water. A snorkeler’s paradise.
Honestly, I often think snorkelers get the short end of the stick, not being able to dive down to the really good stuff.
Kosrae’s shallow water offers the opportunity for non-divers to see the underwater world observed by divers.
We never did find those plates. But we stumbled on so much more.
During the rest of my week on the island, I drank kava, had a hand sewn skirt made for $40, hiked through a primeval looking forest of giant Ka trees (the hardwood used locally to make canoes) and more. But one of the neatest experiences was church.
Virtually everyone on the island belongs to the Congregational Church. Its religious services are similar to those offering by founding missionaries in 1852.
The church in the nearby village of Tafunsak is large, with cool white floors and high ceilings. Women sit on the left, men on the right. The service, in the lilting Kosraen language, is punctuated by not to be missing singing … high pitched chorals from women in white lace dresses, answered by soft tenors by the men.
That night, after a brief dip in the ocean, yards from the ocean I fell asleep in my cottage listing to the crashing surf. I’m already thinking about going back. I understand that happens a lot.
If you go:
Kosrae’s three island resorts: Kosrae Village Ecolodge & Dive Resort (KVR), www.kosraevillage.com.
Pacific Treelodge Resort, www.divekosrae.com/resort
Kosrae Nautilus Resort, kosraenautilus.com/
Other Attractions:
Wiya bird cave where thousands of swiftlets cloud the sky at dawn and dusk.
Sipyen Waterfall, where it’s likely you and your guide will be the only people enjoying the cool cascading water and its crystal clear pool.
Kosrae State Museum with its brief history of foreign occupation of the island and models of traditional homes.
Kayaking through any number of channels through local mangrove forests including a guided tour by outrigger canoe with a jungle expert.
Menka Ruins, a fascinating four-mile hike through the jungle to ancient ruins. The focus here is traditional medicine from local plants.
Lelu Ruins, literally located behind a convenience store and easy to reach, this was the home of the island royalty from the 13th Century to the early 1900s. What’s left today are twenty foot tall walls of huge basalt stones, burial tombs, ceremonial pounding stones and signs to explain it all.
Yela Forest encompasses eighty six preserved acres of Ka trees, the tall hardwoods used by locals to make outrigger canoes. The forest walk through hundred foot tall trees with fifty foot wide buttresses is breathtaking.
Kava drinking, not a ceremony but a chance to drink this mildly relaxing stuff with the locals.
Sunset cruise with Pacific Tree Lodge Resort on Thursdays or Home stays where you spend a night with a local family.
Deep sea trolling with hand lines. Don’t laugh, one man caught a three hundred pound blue marlin. Except for fishing, which runs about $100 per person and diving, which averages $109 – $145 for two tanks and lunch, most land tours cost between $2 and $50.