A tale of a fateful trip

A couple weekends ago- my roommate had sorted out a rare trip to Coconut Island in Kaneohe Bay. The island is currently home to a marine research institute and is only accessible by boat. It's a state owned island and kept completely private access except for about a 4ft x 4ft square of land on the point that is public access...which has potential to disappear with a high enough tide! Things worked out that morning that I could join the tour group before work that day, with the boat ride and island tour lasting from 9am-12pm. And although many random small islands claim to be this- Coconut Island is actually the island featured at the beginning shots for the Gilligan's Island tv show. Apparently they were going to film the whole thing there, but had too limited of a budget- so shot the island from several views and then did all the episodes in a studio in Hollywood. Images for comparison...the 2 tall pine trees are supposedly the telling mark on the island- but you can't really see them for the words on the tv picture.

And yes, that's right- our whole adventure was ironically a 3 hour tour...
But our tiny boat had beautiful weather throughout and I made it back to the bigger piece of land the same day.  We saw some cool creatures and learned a lot about the islands history and although the tour did not include as much science as I would have liked- it was a nice start to the day! 
In history- the island changed ownership several times but seemed to find repeated use an exclusive get-a-way for the upper class over the years. There is even a few old spotlights left that look down on a natural lagoon where they would host evening 'pool parties'. One of the rich owner's even brought over a small collection of animals for entertainment as well- elephants, monkeys, etc. The most prominent owner of the island was Edwin Pauley- who was a trusted advisor to several presidents including FDR and Truman. There are several pictures of him in the current library with various famous people, and also in attendance with Truman at the Potsdam conference after WWII. 
A few creatures of note during the tour- hammerhead sharks, reef sharks, crazy spiny sea cucumbers and a sad lonely octopus whose tank mate had died from a bologna sandwich tossed in by a previous group of tourists. Darn tourists!
Interesting in all that the island was in past and has become, although I wish they had spoken in . I also thought it was pretty awesome that the people who work at the research station park their cars on the coast and take a little boat over to the island to work for the day, and I found myself thinking- man, it would be really cool to work on an island....
Oh, wait...