Palmyra Atoll; A Tropical Summer, Life Beyond the Research

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Palmyra Atoll, Line Isl., is a US territory in the Central Pacific, once occupied by the US Navy, and now the home to world class marine and terrestrial research done by the US Federal Government, The Nature Conservancy, and a mix of researchers from the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium.
Palmyra is best known for its pristine reefs, protected from overfishing, pollution, and other anthropogenic impacts, giving scientists the opportunity to conduct research that can be used to inform conservation strategies for island habitats throughout the world.
Shot exclusively with GoPro cameras
Sponsor affiliations ⇨ Spy Optics • GoPro (actually GOT IT!!) • LifeProof
Check out and my OTHER SCIENCE Palmyra Atoll videos:
Shark Research: • Palmyra Atoll; Shark M...
Parrotfish Research: • Palmyra Atoll; Parrotf...
Ono Research: • Palmyra Atoll; Ono Mon...
For more on Palmyra or the organisations please see:
www.palmyrarese...
www.nature.org/...
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[@jasons1192]

Thank you Jacob for posting this! I was one of the pilots that flew you there. I was amazed by the underwater camera setup you had built. Although I have spent many nights on Palmyra, you spent more, and captured the images of life there. Thank you for that! Many great memories for me. Palmyra is the most amazing place I have ever been on this planet, and my job has taken me many places. What was most amazing to me was if you just sat still for a minute, you would see wildlife come out that you could only see on National Geographic....but it was all right there! Thank you Jacob for making this video!

[@jacobeurich]

So happy that you were able to find this video and made the contact. The pilots that flew us out there were always the best - a few additional fun fly overs (Kingman Reef)! If you google "Davis Parrotfish movement patterns vary with spatiotemporal scale" you will find an example of one of the projects we completed during this trip!

[@halturley6445]

Thanks for the great memory! Spent 2 weeks there last month (January '16) and love, love, loved every minute of it! Paradise!

[@nsworld4355]

Hal Turley does it feel like a cursed island?

[@cjd3053]

Oh my stars that is beautiful. Now I really want to help out with research there. The world needs more places like this where people and corporations haven't ruined it yet.

[@jeremyrellosa3958]

Awesome footage man! This DEFINITELY deserves more views...

[@dickbarry2564]

The USS Page County was in the lagoon at Palmyra Atoll in 1962...helping set up a weather station for the OPERATION DOMINIC atomic test program located approximately 10 - 20 miles from Christmas Island. I was the Supply Officer on that ship.

[@nsworld4355]

Dick Barry is this really a cursed island?

[@georgialee6755]

Yes it is. Read “And The Sea Will Tell” by Vince Bugliosi

[@modelleg]

Hey, that was beautiful...thanks. Made my day.

[@jacobeurich]

+modelleg Thanks! Check out the other Palmyra Videos on my channel I made for more.

[@jmerrion94]

Unreal

[@sandyandy17]

That was so cool! I could imagine being there! Thanks Jacob!

[@robcochran6213]

The killings In 1974, a yachting couple from San Diego, California, Malcolm "Mac" Graham III, 43, and Eleanor LaVerne "Muff" Graham, 40, sailed a 38-foot ketch to Palmyra Atoll - 1,200 miles south of Honolulu - hoping to find it deserted and to pass an idyllic year or more there. The wealthy Grahams overcame their disappointment at finding other sailors already on Palmyra, including two male Canadian scientists. The couple found the two men amiable and intelligent, and stayed. Also on Palmyra were Wesley G. Walker (a.k.a. Buck Walker) and Stephanie Stearns (referred to as "Jennifer Jenkins" in the book), who had sailed there together from Hawaii on Stearns' sailing vessel Iola, a deteriorating, patched-together wooden sloop that lacked a reliable auxiliary engine. In contrast, the Grahams' ketch, the Sea Wind, was beautifully finished and impeccably outfitted, with an onboard machine shop equipped with a lathe and acetylene welding torch. Walker was an ex-convict fleeing a drug possession charge and had come up with the idea of growing cannabis on Palmyra to support himself. The Grahams were a happily married couple touring the world, and Mr. Graham ran his business remotely. The Grahams had brought more than a year's supply of food for their voyage, but Walker and Stearns quickly consumed their own meager supplies and resorted to harvesting the island's few coconuts, often by chopping down entire trees, leaving scars on the island habitat. As Walker's method of farming became unsustainable, he and Stearns were forced to plan a voyage in the rickety Iola, against prevailing winds and currents, to Fanning (Tabuaeran), a nearby atoll in Kiribati, to restock - a voyage that was somewhere between difficult and impossible without a working auxiliary engine. According to Stearns, the Grahams disappeared sometime between August 28 and August 30, 1974, and the young couple found the Grahams' Zodiac rigid inflatable dinghy upside down. On September 11, 1974, after days of searching and waiting for the Grahams to return to their boat, Stearns said she and Walker scuttled the Iola and sailed for Hawaii on the Sea Wind. Once in Hawaii, the couple had the Sea Wind repainted and also renamed it, which according to boating superstition brings bad luck. This act aroused suspicion; acquaintances of the Grahams easily recognized the distinctive Sea Wind despite its new paint job. Stearns was arrested in the lower level of the Hawaii Yacht Club for the theft of the Sea Wind,[1] but Walker was able to escape and avoid capture by using a motorized dinghy to race up the "400 row" of the Ala Wai Harbor. It was believed he fled on foot after leaving the dinghy at the loading dock near the Ilikai Hotel. Early one morning in 1981, other visitors to Palmyra, sailors Robert and Sharon Jordan, from Durban, South Africa, found Muff Graham's skull and other skeletal remains in the surf near a large metal container. The remains showed signs of dismemberment and burning (possibly by Mac Graham's acetylene welding torch), and the body appeared to have been concealed underwater in the container.

[@jumentodabarra]

Maravilhoso conhecer um lugar assim.

[@sidneysilvamoura428]

Muito bom este vídeo, voces tem muita sorte de estarem ai neste paraíso, pra mim seria um sonho realizado se estivesse ai, abração!!!

[@KNBARON]

i was worried...then is saw the fishing pole... ;)

[@jurega]

How can I get to this Island? let me know please... And good video, just love it

[@jacobeurich]

Hey, thank you!! It is not really open to the public unless you sail in but your vessel must be rat and ant free certified and be cleared by US Fish and Wildlife. Scientists and the US Coast Guard typically have access to the island for research and safety purposes, respectively.

[@jurega]

Oh ok :) thank for that

[@Tempe1962]

+jacobeurich Things sure have changed since killer Buck Walker and girlfriend and their 3 dogs sailed there in a leaky boat. But that was a long time ago and laws keep getting stricter.

[@megwaff3984]

Love!

[@fcofelixx]

Thank good you didn´t encounter with Vaas Montenegro dude!!

[@rpl2070]

Is there an option to get there to visit the small island? like a tourist ? or what do i need to do to go

[@jacobeurich]

It is not really open to the public unless you sail in but your vessel must be rat and ant free certified and be cleared by US Fish and Wildlife (permits and what not). Scientists and the US Coast Guard typically have access to the island for research and safety purposes, respectively, but that is all. Donors who donate to The Nature Conservancy sometimes can also come along on "citizen science" trips or tag along with researchers. Hope that helps! Thanks for the comment!

[@thesuicidegods8462]

+Rene Peregrina Lomeli it took me a while to find you... you made a comment 4 yr ago on a spearfishing vid...if not you be happy now the songs name is breathe by Tryad...it is hypotic song..cheers!

[@jackyblue67same10]

Are there not any crocidiles or gators around that island ?

[@jacobeurich]

No, none out there. The island is in the Line Island chain - remote Pacific ocean. Here is a distribution map: www.nationalgeographic.org/maps/crocodilian-ranges/

[@JohnDc]

The place has been taken over by a bunch of pony tailed hippies.

[@rustykeller8264]

I would guess that for the rest of your life, you will look back, and remember fondly your time, and experiences there. Just curious though, did they ever find the missing murder victim there on Palmyra?

[@jacobeurich]

You are very correct Rusty! Thanks for the watch and share. Supposedly they found a chest with one of the victims but there is still one that is missing!

[@rustykeller8264]

jacobeurich There is a great book by Vincent Bugliosi (Prosecutor of Charlie Manson), and Defender of one of the Palmyra Atoll Murderers. It really tells the story of what happened. The book is titled; "And the Sea Will Tell." A Husband and Wife on their yacht were staying at Palmyra. Also there was a guy and girl staying there on their un-seaworthy, leaky old sailboat. Eventually the guy killed them both. There were two small, metal life raft containers left there by the Navy, and eventually one washed ashore with the wife's burned skeleton inside. The killers were caught in Hawaii, still with the yacht. The guy was executed. The girl got off. They never found the other life raft container, probably with the Husbands skeleton inside, and most likely on the bottom of the lagoon somewhere. A great book if you can find a copy. It describes Palmyra real well, and you could relate to it. I would like to visit the place. I lived in Guam for years, and worked as a professional Scuba Diver, and I sail, and kayak. Love the water. Take care, and have a great time. Rusty.

[@carrielehman5189]

Buck Walker wasn't executed. He was convicted and served 20 or so years, but died a free man in 2010.

[@rustykeller8264]

Carrie Lehman I'm sure you're correct. It's been a few years since I read the book. I'll have to dig it out and read it again.

[@Tempe1962]

+Rusty Keller Probably not but maybe a storm will one day wash up the metal container his body is in or his bones.

[@michaeljordon704]

Can you live there

[@Tempe1962]

+Michael Jordon Don't think you would want to live there. Aggressive sharks are numerous.Its very humid.There are many noisy birds, rats(unless they were all poisoned by researchers) scorpians and its said to be cursed/haunted.

[@jacobeurich]

+Michael Jordon Not really, there is seasonal staff from The Nature Conservancy or US Fish and Wildlife and then researchers. If you're not one of those.. the main option is to sail in but you need to be rat proof and have the boat heavily inspected. It is a pristine island with no permanent residents.

[@rebeccacervantes3625]

Yes it's beautiful, but it is also the place where two people were brutally killed there years ago!

[@nsworld4355]

Can you share me that story?

[@georgialee6755]

N’s World Read “And The Sea Will Tell” by Vince Bugliosi

[@DickDickstein]

What was that building in the water with the open doorway that you rode the kayak into before cutting out? Was it some old military bunker building, or something that has been covered by water, or a tide? Are there tides? What about bad weather? Do you have to stay away from this place for periods during the year due to hurricanes and other seasons, or because half the island is underwater? :P

[@jacobeurich]

Old bunker used in the war! Just has slowly gone under due to rising tides and the coral rock breaking up. There is a rough season but not that bad!