Karen Holman, a Hawaiian monk seal researcher on Laysan Island, checks a pile of debris for potential entanglement threats. When Hokule'a visited Laysan, there were seven people on the island. Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser

There is also an acute awareness of what you use, being alert to efficiencies, and the volume and destination of waste.

"I go back home and it strikes me how wasteful it is. Here, you account for everything," said Stefan Kropidlowski, biologist and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field camp leader.

When Hokule'a visited Laysan, there were seven people on the island: four in the permanent Fish and Wildlife Service camp, and three in the NOAA Fisheries monk seal team's tent camp at the top of the beach. Last week, a resupply ship brought an eighth to replace one who's leaving on the resupply ship when it comes back through in a week.

Field camps here often go months between seeing boats. Having the resupply ship, Hokule'a and the escort boat Kama Hele all at anchor at once made for unusual congestion.

The Fish and Wildlife camp is the more sophisticated of the two. It has a saltwater sink for dishwashing, a solar array power system, electric lights in each of seven domed fabric buildings, a reverse-osmosis saltwater-to-fresh system run on solar power and satellite phone e-mail system. The seal team camp is simpler: tents, propane lights and water from 5-gallon jugs.

"I'm jealous of their camp," Kropidlowski said. "Our camp is too complicated. I spend half my time on maintenance."

Even so, there is no way to avoid being aware of what you use, how much waste you create, and some of the effects your presence has on the environment.

"It's a lot like being on a canoe," said Hokule'a captain Nainoa Thompson.

Hokule'a crew member Kanako Uchino, a coral researcher, washes the roots of a makaloa plant before wrapping it in a wet paper towel for transport aboard the voyaging canoe to Midway Atoll. Jan TenBruggencate • The Honolulu Advertiser

From the canoe, the reddish-browns of deck, hulls and sails give way to the blue water, the blinding white beach and the island's green, dominated by eragrostis grass clumps, tree heliotropes, naupaka and an ancient ironwood clump between shore and the Fish and Wildlife Service camp.

A number of the field camp researchers said they come to work in outlying biological field camps like the one at Laysan as much for the simple life as for the ability to study nature in the wild.

"You find that you can have the same amount of pleasure without a television or VCR; you just change your focus," said wildlife biologist and Laysan duck researcher Mark Vekasy.

Some field camps have only two people, which can be a challenge. At seven, Laysan's two camps — only a hundred steps apart — make a community, he said. The residents here may miss a hot shower, a chance to see a show or visit with family, but what they miss is balanced by what they gain.

"It's really nice to get a hot shower, but it's really nice, too, to jump in the ocean to bathe," Vekasy said.

Living simply is also cheap. Biological field camp pay is low. But to Vekasy, not being tied to a high-stress job is far more valuable than any luxuries that it might provide.

"I guess the whole commercialism and capitalism thing, I guess it seems to me a kind of pointless way to live. Just to work so you can have a car and make a house payment, it doesn't seem totally satisfying to me," he said.

Invasive species biologist Heather Major said living in field camps has changed the way she lives at home in New Brunswick, Canada.

"It changes how you look at things back home. I do things more simply than I did them," she said. She has slowly brought her family around to the benefits of recycling and composting.

Almost everyone here comments about frequency of baths. While most swim daily at Laysan, at other field camps where water is in short supply, bathing is limited. And it has led them to believe that daily bathing is an unnecessary luxury.

"Showering daily? Whoa — that's so much water you're wasting. And I've noticed that you smell shampoo and soap on people when you get back," Major said. "They don't smell like people."

Biologist Katherine Gunther-Murphy said fashion is meaningless because you have so few pieces of clothing. You're either wearing or washing nearly everything you have.

"Field camp is a whole new mindset," said biologist Melinda Fowler. "You separate yourself from all the external distractions. I miss friends, fresh food — ice cream we term a dirty word, because we don't have it. But I can't believe they're paying me to do this. It's so totally an adventure."

A key to living simply is awareness, field campers said.

"It's a nice reminder of how complex life can be. The living environment is a real reminder that everyone can live simpler and use less resources," said Jim Kelly, a former real estate professional. The oldest person in camp at 50, Kelly quit real estate to return to his first occupation and first love — wildlife.

Michelle Reynolds

Everything is in limited supply, so field camp folk waste as little as possible.

Kropidlowski said the camps often reuse glass jars for drinking containers rather than importing cups and glasses. Paper trash is collected and burned. Food scraps are dried and burned. Steel, aluminum and plastic containers are saved and put on the supply ship for recycling.

"I think people in society are so isolated from where things come from," Holman said. "Water from a tap. Food from a store. It creates a sense of endless supply, and you don't recognize that these things all come from natural resources."

Though they may feel strongly about such things, many of the camp residents say they don't want a soapbox.

"This is a good model for how we should be at home," Major said, "but I think a lot of environmentalists and conservationists say you have to do things this way. I think you need to lead by example, but not expect everyone to change overnight."