I was glad to read that “anonymous” did some homework about last week's column "Mokil or Puerto Penasco (Part 1)" and discovered that Mokil is located in The Federated States Of Micronesia (FSM), but unlike its neighboring big island of Pohnpei (aka: Ponape), with its approximately 80 mile circumference, Mokil is an Atoll that is only about one mile long by a quarter mile wide.
Having lived on the Atoll (and Pohnpei) many years ago during a tour of duty as a Peace Corp Volunteer, I can assure travelers that to this day traveling to anywhere in The FSM is a ‘journey’ in and of itself. Yet at the same time more people from around the world travel throughout Micronesia for ‘holiday merry making’ (and business) each year than travel to Puerto Penasco.
Now bear with me for a moment as in order to get where I’m going you need to know that the FSM is just a few degrees above the equator and “comprises approximately 607 small islands in the Western Pacific spread over almost 1,700 miles (2,700 km) from east to west ”. It is located “some 2,500 miles (4,000 km) southwest of Hawaii and about 1,800 miles (2,900 km) north of eastern Australia…” with an “estimated total land area of only 270 square miles” spread out over “one million square miles of the Pacific Ocean”.
When I first traveled to Micronesia back in the mid ‘70’s I flew on a commercial Continental Airliner (aka: ‘Air Mike’) Boeing 727-100 and although Penasco now has a ‘big’ airport I’m having a difficult time seeing a time in the near future when Penasco will have, like The FSM did back some 35-40 years ago, NLT three (3) weekly flights loaded with ‘travelers’…
And what really boggles my mind is that unlike The FSM, which is literally thousands of miles away from any populated land mass, RP is basically a stone’s throw from a combined Mexico, Canada and USA market of millions and millions of would be visitors…
Next week in “Mokil or Puerto Penasco; Tercera parte” we’ll explore how business interests here in RP can capture a slice of that huge untapped market…
Stay tuned.
Viva México!
Email me: El Gitano Penasco
