Taroa Anchorage lies inside Maloelap's lagoon, close to the wartime airfield. Its protected water helps explain why the Japanese invested so heavily in this remote atoll: aircraft, small craft, and supply movements could operate behind the reef rather than in the open Pacific.
For visitors arriving by yacht or local boat, the anchorage is also the best place to understand the shape of the atoll. The lagoon feels enormous, the land is almost flat, and the reef edge seems to hold the whole place together by willpower.