An awful lot of people think that just about any island in the Pacific is a tropical paradise and would likely jump at the opportunity to either take a vacation or a job in one without a second thought.
I just finished a book, 'The sex lives of cannibals' which has nothing to do with sex or cannibalism and everything to do with living on the island of Tarawa for a couple of years.
Tarawa is damned close to the Equator and is damned hot.
To clarify, the Battle of Tarawa was fought on another nearby island, Betio, which is a part of Tarawa Atoll.
The book was a tale of heat, insects, poverty, pollution, disease, bad food, sketchy off and on electricity, corrupt and inept government. Not really a paradise or even remotely a good place to live.
There are certainly a lot better choices that a coral atoll on the Equator.
Anything between 15 degrees north of south of the equator doesn't look very good to me at all.
I can see why the crew of Bounty chose Pitcairn Island to hole up.
Way back, I heard a story about some guy who foresaw WWII coming and moved himself and his assets to a small out of the way place in the South Pacific called Guadalcanal. ;)
ReplyDeleteBack in the day I heard a Paul Harvey commentary of the same story and the island he moved to was Iwo Jima.
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