Pacific Magazine > Magazine > November 1, 2006

Pacific Travel

Cargo And Company

Aboard The MS Caroline Voyager

By Jessica Chapman, POHNPEI

Colorfully wrapped packages wait for loading amid a pile of beribboned pandanus fiber mats—signature Kapingamarangi Atoll creations. Each parcel is carefully addressed in bold, clear letters. Meanwhile, visiting family members hand-deliver tightly folded letters and worn $5 or $10 bills to various residences around Kapingamarangi’s two main islands. An older woman puts on spectacles and sits down to read her stack of correspondence.

Nukuoran children play in a tree on the atoll’s main island. Nukuoro is populated by people of Polynesian ancestry. Residents—along with those of the Kapingamarangi atoll—speak a Polynesian language distinct from the rest of the FSM. [All photos by Jessica Chapman]

It may be mid-March, but on Kapingamarangi it is Christmas. For the first time since the previous September, Pohnpei (one of four states of the Federated States of Micronesia) has dispatched a “field trip” ship, the MS Caroline Voyager, to its southern atolls: Sapwuahfik, Nukuoro, Oroluk and Kapingamarangi. The cargo ship serves not only as postal carrier to and from the islands’ 1,500 or so residents but also as supermarket, transportation and lifeline for their small economies.

The field trip ship experience is a disappearing part of life in Micronesia. It once was the only way to get to outer islands and atolls, whether in the Marshall Islands, the Carolines or Yap and Palau. Today, some of those communities are served by small planes, which land on packed coral airstrips hacked out of coconut groves.

A Kapingamarangi woman sits under a tarpaulin aboard the Caroline Voyager shortly after departing Nukuoro atoll. The area serves as prime storage area for passengers traveling on deck as well as shelter for 40 or so.

The field trip ship’s irregular schedule and rudimentary accommodations fail to deter passengers. Tickets sell quickly. For most residents of remote atolls and islands in the FSM, it is the only way to visit relatives and to convey messages and items otherwise unavailable to the isolated destinations. For visitors, the trip offers an unparalleled, low-cost opportunity to see places few in the world have had the privilege to encounter.

The journey—typically a week long but frequently a day or two longer — includes brief stops of a day or less at each atoll. State finances and gas prices currently prevent longer stops. On this trip, there are two stops at Nukuoro and Sapwuahfik—once on the way out and again on the way back.

A young boy bicycles in the morning sun past Ngatik’s municipal building on the island’s sole road. Ngatik is the main island on Sapwuahfik atoll, about 86 miles southwest of Pohnpei and home to several hundred residents. It is an overnight trip by boat from Pohnpei.

The islands are a pleasant departure from Pohnpei. No telephones, automobiles or formal accommodation exist. People traverse tidy dirt pathways by bicycle or on foot. Some carry friends or children in wheelbarrows. Solar panels stand incongruently next to thatched hut residences. Radios enable outside contact in case of emergency. The sound of the ocean is constant.

Sapwuahfik, just an overnight trip from Pohnpei, offers a nice beach on its main island and the only two-story buildings among the stops. Nukuoro, a day farther, boasts an increasingly successful black pearl farm and an idyllic lagoon, dotted by the atoll’s 42 islets. Kapingamarangi, 366 miles southwest of Pohnpei, marks the Voyager’s furthest stop. The atoll, a Polynesian outlier in the midst of Micronesia, is known for its weavers and woodcarvers. 

An elderly Nukuoran man fashions coconut fibers into sturdy rope, useful for lashing down the local thatched roofs. Few concrete structures occupy the atoll’s main island. Most Nukuorans reside in partially open structures constructed of local materials.

The vessel passes by Oroluk, west of Pohnpei and a protected area for nesting seabirds and turtles, for just several hours on the return trip. Only a handful of residents inhabit the atoll. The Voyager stops to drop off one of them.

Food and generosity abound throughout the week. On Nukuoro, people share small loaves of bread prepared in an underground oven. On Kapingamarangi, people collect bottles of juice from local lime trees as well as tuba, fermented coconut juice. Sashimi, reef fish, taro and breadfruit are plentiful throughout.

Travel aboard a field trip ship is itself an experience.

The Caroline Voyager, a donation to the FSM national government from Japan in 1998, has only four cabins—able to accommodate up to 16 passengers. Additional travelers—162 on this trip—stay on deck, preparing their own food and weathering the elements alongside daily increases in cargo, livestock, banana bunches and coconuts.

Rustic Nukuoran outhouses sit behind the island’s only school. The small structures rest out over the water behind many of the island’s residences. Indoor plumbing is nonexistent on Pohnpei’s outer islands. However, among the southern islands, Nukuoro alone boasts such a creative interpretation of restroom accommodation.

Simple prepared meals are available but at a price: $7.50 for dinner, $6 for lunch and $4 for breakfast.

The Caroline Voyager, typically employed for travel between states, has been assisting the state with its outer island travel. Pohnpei’s other vessel, the MS Micro Glory, is out of service. Chuuk and Yap states have their own vessels as well.

The field trip excursions also bring politicians and other government officials to the remote communities. On each island, parents line up with young children for doses of Vitamin A and various immunizations and medications from public health officials. Others have teeth pulled by a traveling dentist. Members of the state legislature conduct hearings with their far-flung constituents. Education officials administer the national standards test to 6th and 8th graders.

On this trip, two employees of SolCom, a solar power and remote communications provider based in Guam, establish satellite connections for Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi—to enable Internet access—and check up on equipment earlier installed in Sapwuahfik. The company has been installing communications infrastructure to remote islands throughout Micronesia.

Unconventional travel to islands ranking among the most isolated areas of the Pacific—and the resulting camaraderie of such an event make the trip exceedingly worthwhile.

Men rest in wheelbarrows—a preferred mode of transport—at a public hearing convened by Pohnpei state senators on Nukuoro. State government officials accompany each tour the MS Caroline Voyager conducts. Nukuoro is one of five outer island municipalities of Pohnpei.

The cost of travel on the Caroline Voyager is based on mileage. A round trip ticket to Kapingamarangi— with accommodation on deck— costs $59.22, to Nukuoro $38.50 and to Sapwuahfik $14.42. Round trip through all islands by cabin is $169.20.

Pohnpei also arranges occasional, shorter visits to the state’s eastern islands of Mwoakilloa and Pingelap. For information on schedules, contact the FSM or the Pohnpei State Department of Transportation, Communication
and Infrastructure.

FSM Department of Transportation: Phone: (691) 320-2865, Fax: (691) 320-5853