Ponape

In 1983 I spent a week on Ponape Island (also known as Pohnpei), in the Eastern Caroline Islands.

Ponape was like nothing I had ever seen. The main island of Ponape is sort of round, and probably about 20 miles across in any direction. The highest peak, near the center of the island, is over 2500 ft. high. All around "The High Mountain", progressively lower but nonetheless rugged mountains extend to the shoreline.

Sokeh's Rock was burning. Ponape, like Kwajalein, had been suffering through the worst drought in all of it's recorded history, caused by the great El-Nino of 1982-83. The Ponapeans had been setting fires everwhere, trying to clear away as much jungle as possible before the rainy season began again. Sokehs Rock had fires burning all over it. Not huge out-of-control forest fires, just small brush fires. Plumes of white smoke were everywhere, gently billowing up from the jungle to be swept along on the steady tradewinds.

This is a collage of two photos of Kolonia Harbor as viwed from the balcony of my room at the Nan Madol Hotel. Sokehs Rock is on the left and the town of Kolonia is just out of view to the right.

The El Nino drought had also dried Ponape's rivers away to almost nothing.

This is Kepirohi Falls, on the East side of the island.

The river wasn't even ankle deep in most places, but the deep pool at the bottom of the falls was a perfect place to cool off for a while.

One of the guys I was traveling with had some Ponapean friends from a previous visit. They let us use this hut for several days.

The only furniture in it was four Micronesian woven sleeping mats.

One side of the hut was perched on the top edge of the shallow river gorge, the other side was suspended on stilts above the rocky riverbed below.

The hut was only four or five feet from the edge of the river, and only about a hundred feet upstream from the top of Kepirohi Falls.

The hut had a small clearing behind it, creating an excellent view of the beautiful lagoon and islands beyond.