Long Beach

Long Beach is a sandbar off Omekang, in Palau's Rock Islands — a scatter of forested limestone knobs in a turquoise lagoon south of Koror. At low tide it runs several hundred metres out between islands; at high tide most of it is gone.

Palau's marine policy is why this record exists as much as the sandbar. The country designated the Palau National Marine Sanctuary in 2015, closing eighty per cent of its exclusive economic zone to commercial fishing — one of the largest such closures by proportion anywhere. Since 2017 every arriving visitor signs the Palau Pledge, stamped into their passport, promising to act responsibly toward the environment; it is written as a promise to the children of Palau and is the only immigration requirement of its kind.

The Rock Islands Southern Lagoon is a UNESCO World Heritage site for both natural and cultural reasons, holding marine lakes — bodies of seawater isolated in the limestone, one of which contains a population of jellyfish that lost their sting. Snorkelling and diving here are the reason most visitors come; the sandbar is a stop on the way. The Rock Islands hold hundreds of these limestone knobs, undercut at the waterline by erosion into mushroom shapes that make the archipelago recognisable from the air.

Nothing is built. A permit is required for the Rock Islands and is checked; licensed operators run all trips. Jellyfish Lake on Eil Malk is the other stop on most Rock Islands trips, though access has been suspended at times when the population collapsed during drought years.

A sandbar between limestone knobs that exists at low tide and not at high, in a country that closed eighty per cent of its sea to commercial fishing and stamps a promise into every arriving passport. You need a Rock Islands permit and it is checked. Snorkellers get the most out of the day; the sandbar itself is a twenty-minute stop on the way to the reef.