Ocean Watch

Tern Island trip
is quite an adventure

Last week, I carried six lost turtle hatchlings to the ocean, snorkeled with one gray and two white-tipped reef sharks and banded two black noddies, one fairy tern, several red-footed boobies, two masked boobies and some tropicbird chicks.

During the banding, one of the tropicbirds took a bite out of my thumb, and soon after, a brown noddy pecked my forehead because I stepped too near its nest.

Between these animal activities, I helped hand-pump gasoline from nine drums into two tanks, joined in two painting projects, pulled weeds and worked at organizing medical supplies.

And I have three months to go.

Working at the Tern Island field station in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge sounds romantic, and is, but it's also hard work.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages the refuge and uses volunteers to help care for the wildlife and keep the place running.

Anyone can volunteer, but take heed: Just getting here is an adventure all its own.

My stint started with boarding a six-seater airplane in Honolulu.

I sat behind the pilots, surrounded by boxes of food and supplies.

Three hours and 500 miles later, French Frigate Shoals, the atoll surrounding Tern Island, appeared.

This wasn't a subtle sight. The deep blue of the open ocean contrasts dramatically with the turquoise waters inside the reef, and even the undersides of the clouds bear the lagoon's soft pastel colors.

As we approached the island, the pilots slipped on their life jackets, and the co-pilot donned his crash helmet.

Thousands of seabirds breed on this island, many right on the coral rock runway, and the approaching plane had startled many of them into flight. The worry is that a bird will crash through the windshield and disable the pilot just as he's landing.

I tightened my seat belt and held my breath, but Bob Justman has flown here hundreds of times and knew exactly what to do.

In a heart-leaping maneuver, he dropped the plane sharply through the flock, and a second later we were on the ground. Miraculously, only five sooty terns got hit.

Workers on Tern Island greeted us warmly. On a 34-acre island with no motor vehicles, news media or telephones, plane day is a big deal. Justman flies there only once every month or two delivering mail, newspapers and fresh fruit and vegetables.

People often arrive on this run, too, replacing or relieving those who have been working for months in the atoll. This time, the only arrival was me.

While the four workers staying said goodbye to the four workers leaving, I dragged my duffle bag into the former Coast Guard barracks and chose an empty room.

My furniture is weathered, rust stains mark the floor and a window pane is missing, yet it's one of the best rooms I've ever had.

Where else could I live with a fairy tern chick on my window ledge and where, on the beach, just feet from my bed, monk seals snort, sea turtles hatch and wedge-tailed shearwaters moan for mates?

My workload may be heavy here, but my three months will go fast.