On Arno Atoll we camped on the beach at Arno Beachcomber Lodge
Island Hopping through Oceania - Arno Atoll, Camping on the Best Beach in the Pacific
It was hands down the finest beach we’d seen in over sixty days of island hopping through Oceania, and we had it all to ourselves. We’d arrived on Arno Atoll on the thrice-weekly ferry after a short stop in Majuro to restock on supplies. The pickup truck from the harbour had just dumped us at Arno Beachcomber Lodge, where we’d planned to camp for the following four nights.
Arno Atoll's Beach blew our minds with its beauty, and we had it all to ourselves
Arno Atoll is easily accessed from Majuro
Arno Atoll is a 45-60 minute ferry ride from Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands. The ferry runs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and we had set out on a Monday.
Our return journey, the following Friday, left no wiggle room before our Saturday morning flight to Kosrae. So we had our fingers and toes crossed that the Friday ferry wouldn’t get cancelled – we’d discovered from experience that cancellations in the Pacific were a common occurrence.
We had boarded the ferry – really just a small open-backed pleasure boat – with a group of Arno locals returning from the big city. The women were uniformly dressed in the ubiquitous shapeless Marshallese dresses, and sat on the floor shovelling donuts and schlurping pop into their shapeless bodies. Others scraped nail polish off their toenails with a shared comb or napped between the scattered luggage.
Marshallese women wear the ubiquitous shapeless patterned dresses aboard the ferry to Arno Atoll
Meanwhile, the Marshallese men perched on the sides of the boat, fruitlessly attempting to fish off the back as we sped east towards Arno. Before we slipped out of Majuro’s lagoon through the narrow southern channel, we motored past a moored fleet of purse seiners, with their helicopters and skiffs – used for corralling vast shoals of fish into their giant nets – safely stowed on deck.
A purse seiner, with its helicopter stowed on deck, in Majuro lagoon
Arno Atoll was the closest we got to paradise in the whole Pacific
It started as soon as we docked. That feeling of being in paradise. The water of Arno Atoll’s main harbour was an unbelievable shade of blue, fluorescent almost. Dazzling. Spellbinding.
And when you gazed into its depths, the reef fish shimmered and skittered in their iridescence. The coconut palms rustled onshore in the gentle breeze, and a smattering of locals on the jetty stood languidly with piles of bananas and pandanus, awaiting transport for sale in the capital.
Pandanus, and other island produce, awaits transport to Majuro above the fluorescent-blue waters of Arno Atoll's harbour
The feeling of being plopped into an otherworldly paradise island was only confirmed when we arrived at Arno Beachcomber Lodge. At the end of Beachcomber’s manicured coconut-fringed path (where the pickup truck dropped us after a five-minute drive from the ferry), the beach and lagoon – Arno’s crowning glory – came into view.
The manicured grounds at Arno Beachcomber Lodge lead straight to Arno's spectacular beach
And this really was pure Pacific paradise. Picture postcard perfect. As we opened the rickety wooden gate onto Arno’s brilliant-white sand and walked past the beach shelter that would become our home for the next five days, the view of Arno’s coastline and lagoon opened up.
An arc of dazzling sand stretched left and right, and swaying coconut palms reached across the grains at extreme angles. Where the sand met the expansive lagoon, a band of electric blue shallow water separated the beach from the navy depths at the lagoon’s centre. On the horizon, tropical islets were strung out like pearls into the distance.
Arno Atoll's dazzling sand, turquoise waters, and leaning coconut palms were the perfect picture of paradise
Arno Atoll is an excellent place to camp
The water was far too tempting to do anything before we’d had a dip. So, on arrival, we stripped down to our swim shorts and dived beneath the tepid waters of the lagoon.
A sandy shelf stretched out 100 metres or so from shore, the perfect depth to be able to swim, but still stand up whenever we liked. It was a great place to relax in the cooling waters, either sitting or standing on the sandy bottom, chatting and soaking in the mesmerising view.
Relaxing in the cooling shallows of Arno Atoll's lagoon
Cooled off, we set up camp in the beachfront shelter, and strung our travel hammocks from the beams. We also erected the tent inner, to serve as a mosquito net at night – the mozzies were feisty on Arno Atoll. All set up, we settled into five days of pure relaxation.
The shelter had a picnic table, which we often shared with a local child who took a shine to us. There was a kitchen and bathroom facilities for use by campers and a small hole-in-the-wall shop just across the island road from the lodge. Camping cost us $10 per night per person.
Arno Beachcomber Lodge sits on Arno's pristine beach. It's a great place to camp and the lagoon here is perfect for swimming
Relaxing on Arno Atoll
Our days on Arno were filled with swimming, wandering the powder-fine sandy beach, and kicking back in the hammocks under the tin-roofed shelter. We subsisted on a diet of oats and bananas, tinned fish and crackers, and copious sachets of excessively sweet coffee from the hole-in-the-wall shop by the road.
On the final night, Ray, the manager at Beachcombers, and his girlfriend cooked up an island feast of grouper, breadfruit and pandanus, washed down with fresh coconut water. Pandanus grows well in the sandy earth here; it’s deemed inedible in Pacific islands with better soil, but in the Marshall Islands, the fibrous fruits are eaten raw or cooked (as we had it) for dessert, sucking the strangely flavoured sweet flesh from the fibres and tossing what remains. The breadfruit cooked in coconut and grouper with ‘lemon leaf’ were the winning items.
An island feast on Arno Atoll
Arno wasn’t as good for snorkelling as Eneko Island had been, with its reef so close to shore. But we did come across the odd fish in the shallows. One night, we even made a friend, ‘little fishy’, who stuck with us for hours as we lolled around in the cool of Arno’s lagoon, the light slowly softening and the sun dipping behind the island’s coconut palms.
Enjoying an evening in the crystalline waters of Arno Atoll
Copra is the primary industry on Arno Atoll
On our second day, after a morning filled with sachet coffees and languid hammock time, we walked north on the island’s main road. Arno Atoll is sparsely populated, with roughly 2,000 residents, a population that has apparently been gradually decreasing as people emigrate to the US.
As part of the Marshall Islands’ Compact of Free Association with the US, Marshallese citizens have the right to live and work in America. It’s a big draw for many from an island with few opportunities for advancement.
Arno Atoll is crowded with coconut trees, used for the production of copra
Those that remain fish the lagoon and cultivate coconut palms for the production of copra. Copra is the dried flesh of the coconut, and as we made our way north, past the islanders’ scattered tin-roofed breeze-block homes, we saw signs of this industry everywhere.
Heaps of coconut husks were scattered across the roadside plots, coconut palms filled the skinny islet, and homemade coconut smokers were in every garden. One smoker was in use as we passed, smoke wafting through the rack of browned coconut meat from the burning husks beneath. On our way back from the northern tip, we walked the beach, past the upmarket Arno Beach Resort, the only other tourist accommodation on the atoll.
Coconut meat being dried for copra on Arno Atoll
Arno Atoll is long and skinny
On our final day, we walked the beach south, stopping to pose under the almost horizontally leaning coconut palms over the beach. Past the port, and the derelict giant clam nursery with its fetid pools of brown water, we reached the narrowest part of the island.
Here, the island was barely wider than the road, with the crashing ocean on one side and the gentle lagoon waters on the other. The fragility of these atoll nations was never more apparent as the road headed across the skinny strip of sand to the scattered settlements further east.
In some places, Arno Atoll is barely wider than the island's unpaved road
It’s ideal to book the Arno Atoll ferry in advance
When we arrived at the harbour for the Friday ferry, after our final dip in the lagoon, the wharf was already packed with people and cargo awaiting the arrival of the boat. The ferry is a lifeline for this island community, and heaps of pandanus, bananas and hessian sacks of copra were scattered across the concrete wharf.
The islanders use the ferry to transport their produce to the capital for sale. And as it became apparent there were far too many people and too much produce not to instantly sink the boat on loading, the shapeless Marshallese women in their shapeless dresses began to shuffle nervously on the wharf.
Ray told us to jump aboard as soon as the boat reached the shore to secure our spot. But thankfully, on seeing the throng awaiting the ferry, the skipper announced that anyone with a home on the island would have to wait until Monday for departure.
As such, we qualified for boarding and picked our perches on the boat’s sides. Some of the cargo was loaded aboard, and the rest was packed back into pickup trucks, ready to make the journey back to the wharf again on Monday.
Waiting for the Arno Atoll ferry to depart, as many would be passengers are left high and dry on the wharf
The Marshall Islands were a highlight of our time island hopping through Oceania
As the ferry sped us west towards Majuro and a final night in a budget windowless room in Hotel Robert Reimers, we silently congratulated ourselves for a spectacular week in this barely-known country. We’d arrived with no bookings and were leaving after a perfect week of sun, sand and snorkelling, pieced together on arrival. And we’d fallen in love with the Marshalls.
The Marshall Islands are a spectacular, obscure travel destination
This Leg
Days: 5
Flights: 0
Boats: 3
Islands: 3
Countries & Territories: 1
Total
Days: 71
Flights: 16
Boats: 29
Islands: 26
Countries & Territories: 9