
Palmyra is now co-owned by The Nature Conservancy and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Then tragically, their island paradise was turned into a horrible hell. They were real sailors, outgoing and upright with the courage to pursue their wildest dreams. Something about the Grahams deaths had touched me deeply and outraged me completely. They were on our route to Samoa and would have been interesting cultural stops. They were on a dilapidated old boat, had little sailing experience, and did not have sufficient skills or provisions to sustain themselves for their proposed year on the island.įrom Hawaii, Diana and I could have sailed to either of the inhabited Line Islands, Christmas or Fanning Atolls.

The other couple, Buck Walker and his girlfriend Stephanie, were on the run from the law and had plans to grow a marijuana crop on Palmyra for eventual sale in Hawaii. What they were not prepared for was encountering a second couple there with much the same hopes of being the sole inhabitants of the atoll. They were experienced sailors on a well-founded yacht who had meticulously prepared for this adventure of a lifetime. To summarize the story-a very attractive, affable and competent couple sailed to deserted Palmyra Atoll, a thousand miles south of Hawaii, with plans to spend up to a year alone there.
PALMYRA ATOLL MURDERS MAC
The book is a well-researched, well-written and compelling account of the mysterious disappearance of the yachting couple, Mac and Muff Graham on Palmyra Atoll in 1974. County, and the co-author of Helter Skelter regarding the Charles Manson murders.
PALMYRA ATOLL MURDERS FREE
I know this isn’t a topic that sells magazines or glamorizes the free life afloat, but I feel that, on occasion, it warrants remembering.Ī chill wind blew through my soul when I read And The Sea Will Tell by Vincent Bugliosi, a former prosecuting attorney for L.A. This has led to some unfortunately exciting encounters with tough or treacherous people, but we’re thankful that either exceptional luck or a guiding hand has always seen us safely through.īut not all our fellow sailors have fared so well. We well understand that we’re placing ourselves beyond the constraints and protections of civilization and that we have to intuitively sense pending dangers and deal with them ourselves. Either individually or together, we’ve lived on deserted Pacific atolls, spent a year frozen in the Arctic wilderness, traveled the lawless deserts from Afghanistan to Africa, floated down deep jungle rivers, and anchored in many of the empty outposts of a rough and unforgiving world.

My wife, Diana, and I have spent a good deal of our lives on the remote edges of Earth. Palmyra Atoll 368 The Grahams’ tranquil anchorage in the Palmyra Atoll.
