RESPECTING PARADISE ~ Thoughts on Voyaging Responsibly Ellen Massey Leonard (Ellen and Seth Leonard have sailed nearly 60,000 miles on rudimentary classic boats, including a circumnavigation by their mid-20s, a voyage to the Alaskan Arctic and two more crossings of the Pacific. Ellen writes regularly for sailing magazines in the US, UK and Canada while Seth is a data scientist who recently founded OttoQuant, a company providing predictive analytics. They live on the island of Hawai’i, where tourism has had similar impacts to those outlined in this article, and share the honours for the photographs which illustrate this article. Their beautiful Celeste is a 40ft LOA, 28ft LWL custom cold-moulded wooden cutter, designed by Francis Kinney and built in British Columbia in 1985 by Bent Jespersen. At the end of 2020 they sailed Celeste home to Hawai’i after several years in French Polynesia.) I first started to write this story at the request of one of my Marquesan friends who hoped to make the cruising community more aware of the issues I outline here. But I want to make it clear that I do not think the problem is very widespread. In general I think voyagers are responsible and respectful of the places we visit, but it only takes one or two instances of disrespect on the part of sailors for local attitudes to change. So it is simply in the spirit of raising awareness that I write this.
Hanamoeona Bay, in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, is the stuff of dreams. The golden sand of its beach is so fine that your feet sink deep into the warm, soft grains. The turquoise water is Seth and Ellen in French Polynesia so clear that you can see your boat’s shadow on the bottom 30 feet down. The patches of coral teem with brightly-coloured reef fish. Manta rays glide gracefully around the bay, scooping up krill in their wide filter mouths. Wooded hills rise gently from the beach, giving protection from the strong easterly trade winds to leave the bay tranquil and calm. Coconut palms line the shore and out to sea the sun sets in brilliant red, pink and gold into the unbroken Pacific. It is the kind of place sailors fantasise about when they sit at home with pilot charts and guides, planning yearned-for voyages to the South Seas. It’s the kind of place that 37
