It's been awhile since we were able to camp with the boys, and when I asked them what they would like to do this weekend on Roi, the unanimous response was "go camping," so today was the day. We started early as it requires quite a bit of work. First, we have to rent a golf cart to haul our cooler of food for dinner and breakfast to the beach shack as well as all the pillows and blankets for our beds, and often times, if you are not ready and waiting for a cart before 8 am, you'll miss out on this necessity for a camping adventure on the atoll. Fortunately, we have room in my boyfriend's small shed at his beach shack to keep our tents, air mattresses, and other sundry items such as the tools for the grill, plates, utensils, and more, so we don't have to haul those things back and forth. After loading up the coolers and setting up the tents, which required some special rigging of tent poles that are starting to suffer from the salt air and trade winds out here, we headed off to grab rocks for the fire pit. The last couple of years, the beach in front of the shacks have begun to erode. Whether it's because of the rising water around the world due to global warming or the recent storm surge that racked the island of Roi in 2008, no one can say for sure what is causing it, but the fire pit we used to have has fallen in and been swept into the ocean. We gathered a few heavy rocks from around the island and build a half pit a little above and to the left of the old one, then we headed to find some wood from the burn pile. It's important to check the wood you select carefully because often, the wood is pressure treated, painted, or has nails in it, none of which are good for a beach campfire, especially not with little ones around.
After making the beds in the tents and getting our campfire rebuilt and started, we grilled one of our favorite camp side meals, Italian sausage dogs, and for my "sudo vegetarian," grilled cheese quesadillas. Of course, we couldn't have a camp out without smores, so in the tradition of living on an isolated island in the Pacific, we had to make do with what we could find. Just like fixing up the tent poles to work because we can't just run to the nearest Coleman Outlet Store and buy more, we had to fix up our smores in a non-traditional way because there were no large roasting marshmallows available at the one local grocery store on Kwajalein or Roi. My sweetie carefully placed handmade smores with graham crackers, chocolate bars and several tiny marshmallows a piece on our slowly dying grill until they were full of melted chocolaty goodness, the kind of chocolate goodness that ended up all over my oldest son's swim trunks, and all up and down my youngest son's arms and hands.
When dinner was complete, we relaxed by the fire for a bit, until our eyelids began to get heavy, mine in particular! In fact, I fell asleep in the beach chair by the fire before anyone else. :) We planned for an uneventful night because there was no wind and no rain in the immediate forecast, but almost as soon as the boys went to bed in their tent, the wind kicked up with a vengeance. As my boyfriend struggled to tie down their tent in several extra places because it was the "struggling" one we had just temporary rigged up to hold on a calm night, the fire blew chunks of embers at us. It was a bit harrowing for a bit, but thanks to my camping buddy's valuable camping experience, he was able to put out the fire with water and sand and rig the tent to survive a small island storm without ever waking the precious boys inside. After that, I was really tired, so I headed to the tent and slept very soundly until my little one had trouble sleeping and woke me up out of a heavy dream sequence calling my name. I settled him down and awoke less than a couple of hours later to help him get out of the tent to go to the bathroom. Needless to say, it was a restless night, but there's still something about going to sleep to the sound of the waves at your feet, and the cool breeze of the trade winds blowing through your tent that takes me from my immediate concerns in life and to another world. When it's pitch black out, and I step outside for my own bathroom break in the middle of the night during a camping weekend, it feels like we are the only people on an island all to ourselves. It's a lot of work to set up and often more sleep is lost than gained, but I still look forward to it each time we have an opportunity to escape into the nature of the atoll and "live off the land," so to speak, even if it's only for a night, and supported by plenty of creature comforts along the way.
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