Solomon Islands
Kennedy Island
A coral islet where a future president waited to be found, and two scouts found him.
A ring of coconut palms on a coral platform, in water so blue it hardly looks real. Barely a hundred metres of island, and in August 1943 the exhausted crew of PT-109 dragged themselves ashore onto it.
Kasolo, which the shipwrecked crew knew as Plum Pudding Island, is a coral-and-palm islet in the water off Gizo, roughly ten minutes out by speedboat. PT-109 was lost in these waters in 1943 and its crew swam here. The message that brought help was carved into a coconut and carried through enemy-held water by two Solomon Islands scouts, Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana; the coconut is held today by the JFK Library. The islet takes minutes to walk around, which is the detail that lands once you know how long the crew waited on it.
Solo
A short speedboat run from Gizo, easily joined onto any Western Province day on the water.
Couple
A half-day at most: the islet, the story, then snorkelling off the edge of it with nobody else in the water.
Family
Short boat ride, shallow water, and a story with two heroes children actually remember afterwards, which is more than most wartime sites manage.
Friends
Hire a boat between yourselves from Gizo; the snorkelling off the islet is the better half of the day.
- PT-109 was rammed and cut in two on 2 August 1943, and Kennedy swam his surviving crew to this islet.
- Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, the two Solomon Islands scouts who found the crew and carried the message, are why the story ended as it did.
- The islet is a short speedboat run from Gizo, usually combined with a picnic or a snorkel.
- It takes only minutes to walk around, which is the part that stays with you once you know the crew waited here for days.
Gizo market fruit and fresh bread unpacked under the palms where a future president waited for rescue.
Back on the water afterwards, fresh fish on the over-water deck at Fatboys.
Tarrafal
Cape Verde
A palm-shaded swimming cove shares its town with the prison called the Camp of Slow Death.
Cahuita
Costa Rica
Sloths dangle above a coral reef where Afro-Caribbean drums carry across coconut-fringed black sand.
Guna Yala Islands
Panama
Palm-tufted coral islands where no outsider may own a single grain of sand.
Nendo
Solomon Islands
Money made from red feathers came from here, and the memory of it has not gone.
Savo Island
Solomon Islands
Megapodes bury their eggs in black sand that an active volcano keeps warm from below.
Taro Island
Solomon Islands
A provincial capital on an island low enough that the plan is to move it.