(December 22 to 25, 2025) When I started sailing in 2014, John told me, “I want to sail to Bikini Atoll and kiteboard there.” At the time, I thought it was a joke. Yet, here we are—we actually visited Bikini. As they say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
A permit is required to visit the atoll. We received approval from the Bikini Council and paid the required fee for the visit ($250 USD per day).
Many decades ago, John’s father was sent to Bikini Atoll as a U.S. Army soldier. Years later, when John was in college, his father passed away after struggling with cancer and dementia. The family believes his illness was related to radiation exposure while he was stationed at Bikini during the nuclear testing.
Bikini Island is so far from everything; it is no wonder the USA chose it for nuclear bomb tests. Back then, there were people living on the island, but they were relocated to different atolls. Currently, nobody lives or works there. We didn’t see any pigs or flies on the island, only a few chickens. On the windward side, the beach was covered in tracks from newly hatched baby turtles heading toward the ocean. It felt like a safe place for them, even though I did see a crab holding one tiny turtle.
The island is covered in palm trees full of coconuts. We didn’t drink the coconut water, though, because the shells were too hard for us to open. However, John found a lime tree, so we picked plenty of limes and made fresh lemonade instead.
I was curious about the origin of the “bikini” swimsuit name. It turns out it was named after the atoll. A French designer chose the name because he believed the revealing garment would have a similarly “explosive” impact on the fashion world.
I didn’t snorkel in Bikini because the water wasn’t as clear as it was at the other atolls. John jumped in to spearfish for our Christmas Eve dinner, but he was immediately watched by a nurse shark, which he eventually had to poke away with his pole spear. Soon, four more white-tip and black-tip sharks showed up, curious about him. Ultimately, I made our Christmas Eve dinner using canned chicken.
One day, we walked around the entire island. John ended up with a blister on his foot, but I found two glass floats sitting quietly among the plastic trash under a bush on the beach. They are handmade, showing their age and imperfections—possibly over 100 years old and likely originating from Japan. I can only imagine their life at sea, surviving storms, waves, rocks, and sand. These small floats have now become the newest members of our boat, Bad Bunny. John had been looking for glass floats for a long time and was disappointed he hadn’t found one yet, so I gave the larger one to him and kept the smaller one as my own treasure.
We wanted to stay in Bikini for two more days, but after checking the weather forecast, we realized it was time to depart. If we didn’t leave then, we might have been stuck for a couple of weeks waiting for the next good weather window. We said “Goodbye, Bikini” quite unwillingly.
