Captain's Log #15: Atomic Bombs

ffshore Odysseys has ascribed to the pursuit of visiting remote and rarely plied waters of the earth in the name of Adventure Travel. Stealing from Captain Kirk, "We go where no man (recently changed to "no one", satisfying our politically correct era) has gone before." Well, that may be a bit overzealous. We haven't been anywhere that NO ONE has been, but tonight we will pass within throwing distance of two atolls that have seen some appalling activity since 1966. The French Government, originally under Charles de Gaulle, began nuclear testing on the isles of Mururoa and Fangataufa, 1200 kilometers SE of Tahiti in 1966 and ended just five years ago, although the future impact may last... forever. In those thirty years of infamy France exploded 181 nuclear bombs, 41 of them in the atmosphere, spraying people as far away as New Zealand and Peru with radiation and destroying all forms of life underwater for miles.

The navigation chart warns: The dangerous area around the Mururoa and Fangataufu Atolls extends 30 miles from their territorial waters. Underground nuclear tests are carried out in this area. Mariners should keep beyond the limits of this area. In the 12-mile wide territorial waters around Mururoa and Fangataufu Atolls navigation of all vessels is temporarily prohibited.

Palmerston school kids

So I guess we will be breaking the law tonight, risking turning Saoirse into a strange hue of iridescent green and having children with three eyes, or missing limbs, or purple hair, or no teeth. While a route around these isles that are completely void of life would have been easy enough, our distance from the recent events Stateside have forced me to abandon caution and show in some small way that we are with all of you atleast in spirit. We are going to trespass on the (literally) political garbage that is slung around this earth. It doesn't mean a thing and we will not likely be caught (no one with a dimple of intelligence resides within a few hundred miles of here).

In fact, we risk nothing. But coming here somehow makes me feel that no matter how governments, terrorists, lobbies, fanatics, corporations, media, and the myriad of other self serving organizations proliferate and influence folks like you and me, we can still walk our own path. Let us be wise in how we treat one another and how we treat this ever shrinking planet. As safe and removed as we feel out here, a touch of that big red button may test the theory that the only living thing to survive would be the earth's oldest inhabitant- the cockroach.

---From the annals of Another Day in Paradise. Author currently shooting a flare over Mururoa. Take that France!