In nautical lore, Palmyra is a place almost as famous as the Bermuda Triangle, though its infamy is relatively recent. It’s a mysterious place, not terribly large, only 12 kilometers square, or about 20 times the size of the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Palmyra isn’t really an island—it’s an atoll, or a former volcano-like structure that rose thousands of years ago from the sea floor to ultimately end up as a ring of coral reefs. Hundreds of atolls dot the Pacific. Maybe the most famous of them is the Bikini atoll, where the U.S. Navy tested nuclear weapons in the 1950s. Nearby are the legendary deep trenches of the Pacific: the Mariana and Tonga abysses, incredibly some seven miles deep and epicenters of many earthquakes. The trenches also parallel strings of volcanic activity in the Pacific.

Palmyra is technically made up of about 20 tiny islets covered with dense vegetation. Coconut and balsa-like trees on Palmyra grow up to 30 meters, although at no point does the actual land rise much more than two meters or so above sea level. The area is equatorial, hot and very rainy. It’s located within the boundaries of the remote Oceanic Republic of Kiribati (correctly pronounced Kiri-BASS’; the local language doesn’t have an “s”, so “ti” is used to represent the “s” sound.) The area is so remote that it’s not served by any major airline. Kiribati was previously known as the Gilbert Islands, although it’s been independent since 1979.

In pictures, Palmyra looks like an archetypal deserted Pacific island paradise, in the vein of Gilligan’s Island. But for one of the world’s most desolate, isolated places, it’s been a stage for surprising amounts of drama and intrigue.

Palmyra was a U.S. air base during World War II, and much of the single road over its diminutive area was built during this time. It was, until recently, incorporated territory of the U.S. and administered from Washington by the U.S. Department of the Interior. A non-profit group called the Nature Conservancy bought the atoll in 2000 to research and try to restore ecological balance to the area. The group has a small contingent of scientists and caretakers on Palmyra, and has kept a World War II-era runway on one of the largest islands serviceable to bring in supplies and the occasional big-money conservancy donor for a temporary stay. The conservancy keeps fuel there, but not much. The researchers on Palmyra were connected to the mainland via a satellite phone hookup, so I learned all I could about the history of the area and the work the conservancy was doing there, and called them to plead my case. My first few calls were unanswered, not even picked up by a machine. However, on the misty, rainy Hawaiian morning of the 2nd of January, I was answered on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi there. May I speak with Beth?”

“This is she. Who is this?” The sound of thunder and rain hammering against thin glass windows raged in the background.

I introduced myself and explained the chain of people and relationships that had led me to her. I was nervous, knowing an awful lot hung on this particular call. Beth, the senior researcher on the island, had the authority to shut down my little plan. My nerves were all the more edgy with the awkward satellite delay between the two of us, and static on our connection.

I eventually came clean. “Beth, I’m trying to get to Fiji, and beyond, actually. I’m flying a plane that has pretty good range, but I need to refuel somewhere on route. Palmyra would be a perfect stop for where I’m trying to go. I’ve read a lot about what you folks have been doing there and am impressed. Can I get your permission to land and refuel? I’ll be out of your hair before you know it, and will pay you a very fair price for the fuel.”

A pause. “I see,” she said. Another pause. Thunder rolled in the background over our tenuous connection. “With all due respect,” she began, sounding tired, “do you have any idea how many people ask us to do this? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude, but we’re not running an airport, here. We’re researchers. This is a private island. We don’t have the time or the ability to refuel any old Joe. We barely have enough fuel on hand for our own supply runs. I’m afraid you’re going to have to find another option. I’m sorry.” She was trying to be as friendly as she could, but was definitive.

I couldn’t let her hang up. I needed to keep her on the line a little longer.

“I understand. I’m sure you get requests like this all the time. I appreciate that you’re busy and have limited resources. So Gabby here at the office on Kauai suggested a special arrangement. I’ve got a fair amount of space for cargo, so how about I pack the stuff the office here has got for you, take orders for whatever else you might need right now and bring it on down to you? Think of me as a bonus cargo flight. And I’ll still pay you well for the fuel. It’s a double-positive for you and the conservancy—you get your stuff a few weeks sooner, and you end up ahead dollar-wise.”

Gabby had told me Beth and her team had been eagerly awaiting the results of some spectroscopy analyses they’d sent to labs in Hawaii a few weeks earlier, were looking forward to their mail and were running especially low on certain items like contact lens solution and disinfectant—and disinfectant was absolutely necessary in equatorial climates. I was hoping this would improve my case.

“Thanks,” she said. “We could really use some stuff in particular, actually.” She reflected a moment. “We appreciate it, but again, I don’t think we can really spare the fuel. It’s incredibly expensive to have it brought out here, as I’m sure you understand. We don’t have much left, and the next tanker doesn’t come until next month. I’m sorry.”

Damn. But I still had a trump card.

“I see. I understand. One last question: Gabby here tells me you guys occasionally accommodate large foundation contributors for visits. Any room for one more?”

“You’re a patron?”

“Not yet. But I can be. A small contribution to the conservancy that, say, would pay for your fuel for the next six months. I’ll work it out with Gabby.”

A longer than awkward pause. “I see there’s no dissuading you.” She covered the phone with her hand and had a short conversation with someone. Her muffled voice didn’t sound overly perturbed, just a little ruffled. “Have Gabby call me. I guess the guest house can be ready tomorrow,” she came back on and said. “But don’t expect much. We don’t exactly have, like, services here.”

We worked out details. Weather permitting, I’d fly in the next day. I checked in with Gabby, made preparations, picked up the materials I’d be transporting to Palmyra and wrote the conservancy a generous—and tax-deductible—check.

The next day dawned cloudless. I couldn’t sleep much after the sun came up, so I took a quick barefoot run on the beach in front of my hotel. My feet were awash in the lapping morning waves. They looked white and alien against the dark sand. The black rock, ground into nothingness by the incessant waves, belied the island’s volcanic origins. Gentle morning light gave the mountains an earthy glow. The whole island morning was rich with color.

The run helped calm my nerves and dull the excited tingle in my spine. I was about to leave the comfort of U.S. airspace, and the relative comfort of western life. As much as I disparage franchise chains and other trappings of Americana, they’re predictable and reassuring—which is, of course, their allure. I was about to stray far off the beaten path. I was about to take the first real dangerous stride in my journey, master of my own providence.

I took a taxi to the airport, where the Starship, fresh and fueled, waited. The morning pre-flight prep in the pilot’s lounge was fairly involved. I double-checked weather and winds, filed a flight plan and settled up my account. I paid by credit card, and anxiously realized there weren’t bound to be many places soon where I could easily pay with plastic. This is why I carried cash, lots of it, in the American dollars coveted overtly or surreptitiously around the world.

A famous actor was waiting in the lobby of the FBO for his driver. We chatted a few minutes. He and his wife owned property on the island, and said they came out every few months. As one might imagine, most people using the services of private airport facilities are people of means. Sometimes they’re even recognizable public figures. I’ve shared an FBO with a former U.S. president and professional sports figures. Of course, most of the time the people one meets in these places are folks like me—businesspeople, unrecognizable and innocuous—and they’re usually very interested in talking, as one never knows where a next deal might come from. Yet even movie stars aren’t beyond mingling while waiting in an FBO for their jet. And anyone, even a famous pop star, can be awed by the Starship.

The sun was warm and full of promise as I performed my walk-around, found everything in order and boarded. The engines started up. As the generators came online, I powered up the panel. The displays flickered to life. The FMS was quickly programmed, given that it was a straight-line flight from Lihue to Palmyra. A quick queue to takeoff behind some departing sightseeing flights, and in a few minutes the Starship was airborne, arcing skyward at its impossibly steep best climb angle against the green mountains of Kauai.

I was over water in seconds, so Kauai disappeared almost instantly. I was climbing quickly, at more than 2,500 feet per minute, but it was disconcerting to be so low over water with nothing but the ocean in front of me. The expanse of water stretched out in front of me was second in its unfathomability only to the boundless sky above. The horizon was punctuated with smidges of cloud, but nothing significant. It was a beautiful day to be flying, a magical day.

The blue of the sky deepened with altitude. The air got thinner and thinner, and colder and colder. At altitude, it was a chilling -50º C according to the gauges.

I leveled at a frigid flight level three-five-zero .

My thoughts turned to my soon-to-be hosts on Palmyra. It couldn’t be easy to run an operation like theirs on a remote tropical island. Supply issues would take a lot of management. Emergency medical care would be a concern; what if someone got injured, or really sick? Electricity? How do you generate it cost-effectively? How do you store it? And sure, there are a few other people with you there, but wouldn’t you go a little stir-crazy? It seemed a contradiction that, there in the middle of the Pacific, on the very model of a remote island paradise, the men and women I was to visit likely wouldn’t have a lot of personal privacy. What does that do to you?

The afternoon droned on. There was nothing to see at but the gun-metal gray waves miles below. The texture rippled and smoothed. My thoughts turned to emergency procedures. If something were to happen in flight, over water in the middle of nowhere like this, what would/should I do? Pilots are trained to respond to all kinds of emergencies, from electrical fires to engine failures to emergency loss of cabin pressure.

The pilot’s operating handbook is a standard fixture in all planes. Among other things, it spells out specific procedures to follow in the event of a variety of emergencies. Instructions are customized to the particular plane you’re in. It’s the law in North America that all planes, from the largest jumbo jets to the smallest Cessnas, have their “POH” within easy access of the pilot. But, of course, in a genuine emergency, where seconds usually matter, the last thing a pilot wants to be doing is fishing around for a book, searching for advice. No, emergency procedures are most effective when they’re committed to memory. I reviewed some of the scarier ones:

LOSS OF CABIN PRESSURE

 Crew – DON OXYGEN MASK

 Microphone selector switch – OXY MASK

 Audio speaker – ON

 Passenger oxygen mask – MANUAL DEPLOY, PULL ON

 Passengers – PULL LANYARDS ON MASKS

 Oxygen duration – CONFIRM

ENGINE FIRE OR FAILURE IN FLIGHT

 Affected engine condition level – FUEL CUTOFF

 Propeller lever – FEATHER

 Firewall fuel value – PUSH CLOSED

 If fire warning persists – EXTINGUISHER CONTROL

 Engine auto ignition – OFF

 Auto feather – OFF

 Propeller sync – OFF

 Generator – OFF

 Electrical load – MONITOR

 Bleed air valves – SELECT OPERATING ENGINE, L OR R

EMERGENCY DESCENT

 Oxygen – CREW REQUIRED, PASSENGERS AS REQUIRED

 Power levers – IDLE

 Propellers – FULL FORWARD

 Airspeed – MAINTAIN LOWER OF 200 KTS OR VMO

 Landing gear – DOWN

Dry stuff, but important to memorize. When I got bored of memory games, I played tactile games. Like practicing quickly calling up the emergency frequency 121.5 on the communications radio, or getting my exact latitude and longitude coordinates from the systems to call in in case of distress. I also practiced pulling up a handy list of nearest airports in the FMS. This display is a constantly updated list of the airports closest to the aircraft, their distances and the heading to fly to get to each quickest. I hoped I’d never have to do these things for real, but if I did, I didn’t want to have to think, I just wanted to do.

Part of what they say makes a good pilot is anticipating what’s going to happen next, or what might happen next, and preparing in advance to deal with the possibility. Pilots call this “thinking ahead of the airplane”. This means thinking through as much as possible, from unforeseen deterioration of weather ahead to the possibility of an engine failure or, at the most mundane level, when to begin a descent . It’s important to think as far as possible in advance. The last thing you want is for the airplane to get ahead of you, as they say in aviation. That’s when accidents happen.

The military refer to the concept of situational awareness, a typically complicated military term to describe the regimented process of intelligently collecting and processing data relating to one’s position in space, the positions of others and the impact of other factors that might affect one’s well-being. Good flight instructors drill basic situational awareness into pilots in training. Whole books have been written about the subject, but at the heart of situational awareness is just a lot of looking and thinking. Looking at what’s going on with your aircraft, looking and listening to what others around you are doing, thinking ahead to what needs to be performed when—and considering all the myriad things that can go wrong and what one might do about them.

I find situational awareness and other aspects of aviation training rearing their heads unexpectedly all the time in everyday life. Once you learn to embrace certain processes and disciplines, once your brain goes through the process of biologically rewiring itself to think this way, you can’t really turn it off. You think constantly in terms of worst cases. You visualize possible complications and solutions by nature, without even realizing it. You always assume the worst when your safety is concerned. Like when driving on the highway: what’s that guy speeding up on my left going to do? Cut in front of me without signaling? What would I do? Is my right lane clear if I had to move over? Or walking in a strange place late at night: who’s around me? What are their intentions? What would I do? Other flight disciplines also creep into life on the ground, like the “readback” of instructions. If I’m ever unsure if I’ve heard something correctly or want to assure someone I really understand what they’re telling me, I find myself paraphrasing it back to them automatically, like I would an instruction from an air traffic controller.

It was this thinking-ahead situational awareness business that led me to idly consider how long I’d be able to stay in the air if my engines quit. How long would I have, if I couldn’t find Palmyra and ran out of fuel? How far could I get? The answers depended on altitude. In my case, cruising at FL350 gave a fair amount of flexibility. The Starship glides pretty manageably without power, descending at 1,000 feet per minute on average, at a speed over the ground of anything between 220 and 135 knots, depending on altitude. So I concluded:

35,000 feet divided by 1,000 feet per minute gliding descent = 35 minutes in the air

35 minutes x 178 knots average groundspeed (halfway between 220 and 135 knots) = 104 nautical miles

I was nowhere near land. Certainly not within 104 nautical miles of it. Thirty-five minutes in the air would give me ample time for distress calls, time to think through the events that had got me into that situation, and plenty of time to contemplate the inevitable water landing. Many World War II pilots apparently had to ditch looking for Palmyra because of fuel issues, from what I’d read. I hoped my navigation technology edge would keep me from becoming shark food.

Descending into Palmyra required even more faith in my equipment than the initial approach to Hawaii. There I was, literally in the middle of nowhere, relentlessly dropping out of the sky at a scientific 1,500 feet per minute, gambling that there’d eventually be a dollop of terra firma to put down on. But I could see nothing. It looked remarkably like I was descending in a lovely, controlled fashion to a watery death. It was even more disconcerting than the initial landing in Hawaii. I had known Honolulu would be there. After all, I’d seen it on TV! But Palmyra …

It was smaller than I was expecting, an impossibly tiny smudge in an otherwise vast expanse. But as I got closer and aligned myself for landing, the details of the atoll became apparent. I could see palm trees, lots of them. Waves broke in the vicinity of the beaches, marking gorgeous aquamarine blue shallows and sending up crystal sprays. The interconnected series of islets was roughly circular-shaped.

The long, concrete runway looked smooth enough, but gave me a few good bounces as I touched down. The runway seemed to end right at the water, so I wasted no time getting the plane slowed. I eventually parked just off the side of the runway in a small clearing that looked painstakingly hacked out of the jungle. Abandoned shells of ancient aircraft, almost rusted beyond recognition, and old fuel drums stood silent testimony to the island’s past as a base for long-range air patrols against the Japanese.

It was even hotter than Hawaii, and more humid. The ground was still damp from the rains the day before, and the air heavy. I was greeted wryly by a woman who introduced herself as Beth. She was American, in her mid-forties, and rumpled in that uniquely scholastic way, even there in the tropics, that researchers tend to be. She smiled and regarded me amicably enough, but addressed me with a hint of contempt. She led me to a path in the bush, and we walked. Palmyra is too small for cars.

“It’s not commonly known, but Bill Gates came close to buying this place back in 1998,” she said as we passed through thick jungle growth and toured the area. “Palmyra almost became the private island getaway of the world’s richest man. I’m glad as hell that never happened. No one person deserves all this.” When I inquired why, she began to describe the flora and fauna indigenous to Palmyra, in particular the ocean riches that made the area such an important biological research site. There were lizards, land and coconut crabs, a huge bird population, palm and coconut trees and mangrove bushes, and plenty of unique plants and animals I didn’t recognize the names of. We continued to talk and walk. Beth showed me flowers that grew in only one other known area of the world. She gestured to types of coral just offshore that were unique to Palmyra. And I came to conclude she might be right—it wouldn’t necessarily have been right for the area to have ended up in private hands. Even, or especially, Gates’! The technology industry I’d left behind was so pervasive that its long arm had apparently even reached out and groped at one of the most remote atolls in the Pacific.

We met others as we walked. There were a total of five men and women working on the island, including a husband and wife team from Canada. With me on the island, I pointed out we now equaled the Americans in number and good-naturedly suggested a hockey match.

I remarked on the causeways, or bridges, linking the small islets. “They were built during the war,” said Beth. “They’re mostly unserviceable and overgrown, now. It’s incredible how little remains here, sixty years later. The ocean, the jungle and the elements have almost completely reclaimed the land.” She showed me remnants of gray crumbling concrete bunkers, maybe barracks. There were what looked like occasional gun emplacements and spent ammunition shells on our walk, but little more. Everything else had already succumbed to entropy. “We were digging a new latrine the other day, and a foot down in the dirt we found tools. Hand tools, like wrenches and screwdrivers. It was weird. It was like there was a full machine shop there at one point, but now it’s completely jungle again. Nature always wins in the end.”

My quarters were a small, clean shack near the main buildings. I made a few trips back to the Starship for my gear and marveled that, after everything, I was really there.

We all had dinner that night. The fare was predominantly seafood, as expected. The group wasn’t entirely self-sufficient, but caught its own crabs, always had plenty of fish and seemed to be able to rely on the sea for protein. We chummed around a fire later in the evening, loosened up some and shared laughs. Maybe it was the flame, evoking some primordial bond, but Beth and I seemed to warm up to each other. Maybe she realized I wasn’t such a bad guy after all. In truth, I’ll bet I was simply less a demanding tight-ass, and more likeable.

“So, they told you about the murders, right?” Beth was a little tipsy. They’d opened a couple bottles of cheap California wine, in honor of my visit.

I was taken aback. We were having a great old time—what did murders have to do with anything? “Yeah, right,” I said.

“No, really. Get this. Back in 1974, this couple from San Diego sailed out here in a big, expensive boat. They were apparently killed by this ex-con who’d been living on the island. He and his wife, like, assumed their identities and were caught and convicted. They found the body of the wife, cut up with an acetylene torch and stuffed in a metal box. They never found the husband, but none of us would be surprised if he washed up here some day.”

I chided her for her obviously made-up, lame horror story. But the others insisted it was as true as it was grisly. “And that’s only half of it. They talk about the Palmyra curse,” volunteered J.D., a colleague of Beth’s. He’d been jovial just a few minutes ago, but now stared with a fixed gaze. He nudged the embers and sent a sheaf of sparks into the air. “There’ve been all kinds of people shipwrecked here over the last hundred years. Most of them have described feeling uneasy on Palmyra, as if the island were cursed. Even some of the Navy guys wrote in their journals about Palmyra feeling haunted. There are nautical journals dating back a hundred years with all kinds of sea captains noting strange things and describing bizarre feelings of fear about the area.”

“And, there’s another Canadian connection, here, too,” quietly added Tina, one of the Canadians. “This guy John Harrison and his two daughters were marooned here for a month back in the ‘80s. They were the ones that first cleared the old runway you landed on, actually. The U.S. and Canadian governments dragged their feet for weeks while they figured out who should foot the bill to rescue them. They had to live on coconuts,” She smiled. “By now, as you might imagine, we’ve all come to really hate coconuts.”

“Wow,” was all I could muster. If they were serious, I knew a lot of people who wouldn’t consider setting foot on Palmyra if they knew the history of the place. I’d been getting uneasy, frankly, listening to them. There, in the black dead of night, under a canopy of cold stars, these tales were the adult version of a campfire ghost story, all the more frightening if they were as real as my hosts claimed. Breakers roared in the distance. I couldn’t avoid a creepy feeling, listening to these stories at the place itself where all this was said to have happened—coincidentally one of the most remote places in the world. It was a perfect location for a teenage slasher movie.

They talked more about stories of buried treasure on Palmyra, about planes from World War II patrols going down nearby without a trace, or flying off in the direction opposite to their intended flight plans, never to be seen or heard from again. Or of one aviator, confused by bad weather, who crashed nearby and was killed by sharks before he could be pulled from the water. More weirdness was associated with Palmyra than I could believe, and they insisted it was all true.

Childhood ghosts and monsters started probing at the edges of my consciousness as I listened to these stories there at the fire, on the fringe of the night. My spine tingled. I twisted involuntarily in my seat in little spasms.

“Nice try,” I commended. “You’re just winding me up. I’ll bet you do this to all your visitors.” I smiled. No one smiled back. They all looked deadly serious. They were good actors, or telling the truth.

I had a devil of a time walking back to my shack later in the evening, alone. Every shadow seemed to be someone or something, lying in ambush. Great.

The first week or two on Palmyra was grand, exploring the military detritus scattered about and learning what I could about island living from my hosts. One afternoon, I grabbed my mask and fins from the plane and decided to do some snorkeling. The visibility was incredible. I saw all kinds of iridescent kelp and coral in the shallow inner bay formed by the ring of islets of the atoll. There was a shark or two, which didn’t really bother me, as I’d seen a few while learning to dive in the Philippines. But passing by on shore and seeing me lazing about in the water, carefree, Tina screamed for me to get out. I did quickly, thinking she saw something in particular, but her concern was more general.

“God. Don’t go back in there.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t they tell you? The sharks in the bay here have killed people before. Not anyone recently, but none of us trust them.”

“They looked fine to me. They kept their distance.”

“Yeah? How well do you know sharks? We’re marine biologists, remember? And even we don’t snorkel here in the bay. Think about it. We can’t take care of shark bites here. Even a small bite and you might die before we could get you to a hospital. Remember, none of us can fly that plane of yours.”

I reddened and felt suddenly very mortal. She was right. No amount of money in your bank account, or fancy toys, necessarily makes you safer, or smarter, than anyone else. I thenceforth resolved to snorkel only in the areas approved by my hosts. And I explored the area by land, walking the causeways.

One day mid-January, I woke to find my throat a little scratchier and the rest of my body a little achier than usual, but took my new friends up for a quick flight in the Starship anyway. We didn’t go far. In the interest of fuel conservation, we simply climbed a few thousand feet, flew over an atoll several miles to the west and then landed again. They were all quite impressed; apparently they were used to getting to and from Hawaii and elsewhere in aircraft a little less sophisticated.

The next day I started working out details of the next leg of my flight to Fiji and beyond. After a few hours, I started to realize my scratchy throat was developing into something more serious. Much more serious, it felt. A realization dawned: I was getting sick. My throat started feeling completely raw. I was dizzy and weak and having a hard time concentrating.

My mind started spinning. If this was a simple flu, no problem—I’d just sweat it out. But my grand plans didn’t really account for me getting, well, really sick. Some little hypochondriac deep inside me started whispering that this was no ordinary flu, but I tried to stay positive.

I stayed in bed the rest of the afternoon and did my best to relax, but it only got worse. By the end of the day, it was looking like I might be down for a little while. I’d been taking painkillers, and elected to take a few more to help sleep it off. It was an even hotter, more humid night than usual, the winds pregnant from some nearby rainstorm. The sky was clouded over. It was eerie, quiet and impossibly black. Even the waves, always inescapable on the atoll, sounded pensive. I slept very little, and as the night stretched on, somehow the pain managed to get worse, despite my double dosage on the local “222” brand-name painkiller pills.

The next day, my hosts were clearly concerned, and consulted with the group doctor on Hawaii via the satellite phone. I apparently didn’t look good. Beth squinted down my throat, cradled the phone on her shoulder, and described what she saw. After an exchange, the doctor thought my symptoms sounded like the onset of strep throat. He prescribed penicillin, but it would be a week or two before they could get it to me. In the meantime, I was to rest, lay low and double my painkiller doses. That put me up to 16 pills a day.

Over the next few days, I slipped into a sort of delirium and had a hard time thinking straight. Others checked in every few hours and brought cold water and fruit. I had a harder and harder time eating anything, my throat as painful as it was. It became clear my affliction was, in fact, the dreaded strep throat, which I remember my parents saying I suffered from a lot as an infant. I did my best to eat, but could get very little past the raw throat. My fellow islanders tended to me as best as they could and tried to make me comfortable. If they had any “I told you so,” or “serves you right” conversations, they had them privately.

Days started stretching into weeks. The penicillin arrived, but halfway through the prescription it still didn’t feel like it was having much effect. The illness seemed to be winning. I was increasingly weak and delirious; what little I remember from that month and a half is fleeting, and punctuated with pain. There was a trashy science fiction novel, loaned by J.D. There were a few attempts at solar therapy, soaking up sun as best as possible in the afternoon, but to no avail. I tried to bang out some quick letters to friends and family on my laptop, but couldn’t string words together. It was such a profound irony to be incapacitated in such an unspoiled paradise, so completely unable to enjoy it. I was acutely aware of the sun, surf and coconut trees, but now resented them. I was captive, helpless. Intellectually, I knew I should be relishing the time I was getting to spend at the elusive, reclusive Palmyra, but I was in perpetual discomfort. Which just didn’t make for any fun.

It took almost two months to bounce back, but the penicillin finally did its work. By the time all was said and done, I’d lost 20 lbs, or about 12% of my body weight. I welcomed the new, flat stomach, but was still weak. I no longer had much of an appetite; my body had gotten accustomed to getting by with less. I hardly recognized myself in the mirror. My face was thinner, older, and didn’t look like me, especially when I smiled. But at least I was finally smiling. It’d been a long, uncomfortable haul.