There are so many wonderful beaches in the world, but I maintain that the beaches of Kwajalein Atoll are some of the best to be discovered anywhere. My favorite spot to go on a weekend with my kids or alone on the island of Kwajalein is a little place called Coral Sands. I like it because unlike the most frequented Emon Beach, it is not man-made, and has a measure of privacy and more natural surroundings than the beaches closer into the suburban areas of the island. Going to Coral Sands is a bit of a ride, especially with the kids when you are dragging a bike burley that acts like a sail filled with all the important beach paraphernalia from a cooler with water and snacks to beach towels, sand toys, and boogie boards. The kids tend to be slower on their bikes because they are smaller and have to pedal a lot faster to keep up with an adult size bike, plus they love to stop and look at stuff along the way. In fact, on the way to Coral Sands, we usually stop at the Turtle Pond to say hi to our turtle friends and take a breather, and then head on to the beach, but that’s part of the appeal of that beach for me. It’s out of the way of the busier “downtown” area of the island, and just getting there is an adventure in itself. Even when I am on my own, I take my time riding to Coral Sands, and it gives me a chance to clear my head and gets me into a relaxing mindset for an afternoon at the beach.
Upon arriving, there’s a large pavilion with picnic tables, oversized charcoal grills, bathrooms, a water fountain, and a fresh water shower, so it has all the modern conveniences, but yet the beach itself is still very private with shady areas where the trees bend over the almost white sands made of finely crushed coral and the roots from the slightly forested areas hanging down above the beach make fun hiding places for kids or cozy spots for beach chairs for those who want to relax instead of play in the surf. The beach slopes down from the pavilion, and it is fairly open on one side, but the other side is covered in pine trees and their needles which blanket the ground, and there’s a sharp drop off from the trees to the beach that has to be carefully navigated if you want to enter from this area.
Once you get down to the beach, there’s a tree that has a rope swing where children or adults can climb up onto a large root system emerging from the sand, grab the rope as high up as they can, put their foot in a loop at the bottom and swing until it stops, and they hop off or as my boys like to do, swing until you get to the high tide, and jump off to splash into the water below. The other great thing about this beach is the area where you can simply walk up and down and find plenty of hermit and ghost crabs to dance with or catch if you are so inclined. There’s more life to be found at this beach because it is visited by fewer people, except on those occasions when there’s a campout, party or wedding reception, and big bonfires are built safely between the drop to the sloped beaches and the pavilion.
As much as I love Coral Sands Beach on Kwajalein, if given the option, I prefer the beach on Roi-Namur from the Parrot Head Club down to the end of the runway as my number one beach of choice on the atoll. This is a fairly long stretch of beach, but that’s the best part about it. I grew up vacationing on the long, flat beaches of Florida where you could walk for miles and still not see an end in sight, and that’s what I missed most upon first moving to the middle of the Pacific, but the water here is the most magnificent in the world, the clarity and varying shades of blue and green cannot be matched, so to put those two things together, the water and the length of beach to walk upon makes up my perfect beach experience.
Unlike the beaches in Florida, you can see the end of the beaches on Roi, and you can really only walk the entire length when the tide is at its lowest, but it’s enough of a walk to satisfy beach combers, and it’s a truly beautiful stretch of sand which curves around from the famous Parrot Head past several inviting beach shacks built and maintained by residents but open for public use, and finally curving back around the airport runway in a delicious little sandbar and stretch of coral you can walk out onto and often see sharks and other sea creatures basking in the shallows of the low tide. There are several palms and pine trees reaching out to touch the sand as you get closer to the turn at the end, and there’s also some remnants of days gone by where concrete structures of some sort of other, maybe from the days of the Japanese occupation in WWII, lay buried in the sand and now serve as homes for local crabs. One of them looks as if it would be a perfect “hot tub” of sorts if we could find a way to keep the water from leaking back out through the sand in the bottom of the concrete frame, and my boys love exploring it and using their imaginations to “build” things out of them each time we walk that part of the beach.
My favorite beaches consist of quaint little spots, unfrequented by human habitation where you can relax with only the sound of the waves to lull you into an afternoon nap or an impromptu yoga session, and a length of beach to treasure hunt and observe the wonders of nature, and that’s what the beaches of Kwajalein and Roi-Namur provide. I doubt I’ll ever find a better one in any of my future travels, but if I do, I’ll stand corrected and write about it as I have these, so I can remember them and place myself there when I am far away from the shore and needing its calming effects after a stressful day being landlocked.
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