At once beautiful and forbidding, this uninhabited tropical atoll is off the well-traveled path of the trade winds. Situated dead center in the Pacific Ocean, Palmyra was discovered by accident only in the last century. If one were to search the high seas for a setting that would lend itself to impenetrable mystery, this lonely outpost would not disappoint.
From afar, Palmyra is seductive: tall coconut trees and stretches of beach are enveloped by a coral reef and the brilliant shallows of the tropical ocean.
Once ashore, however, one finds that the vegetation that looks so lush and inviting from a distance is impassable except with a machete. Hordes of land crabs claim squatter's rights to much of the island. The beaches are not sandy, but rocky, and surrounded by coral as sharp as a surgeon's scalpel, capable of shredding the ribs of the sturdiest vessel. Only a narrow passage in the reef on the southwestern side allows access to a lagoon populated by schools of colorful fish, temptingly meaty but poisonous to eat. And it doesn't take long to notice in the...
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