RESPECTING PARADISE ~ Thoughts on Voyaging Responsibly by 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 so clear that you can Seth and Ellen in French Polynesia 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

Beautiful Hanamoenoa Bay in a rare moment with only two boats

keeps up morale on the long ocean passage that’s required to reach these tropic isles. And it’s the kind of place that, once you find it actually exists, brings first awe and then exuberant excitement. We made it to the South Pacific, to the fabled Marquesas!

Most cruisers who reach the Marquesas have heard the fables ... of the abundant tropical fruit, seemingly growing wild in these verdant, fertile islands; of the sailors before us being showered with hospitality, loaded down with fruit and fish, and welcomed almost as if they were family. Some of us even received that hospitality ourselves on earlier voyages, many years ago. We’ve heard of, or experienced on earlier voyages, the empty anchorages where it’s just us and the wilderness, the untouched reefs alive with all kinds of fish to spear and eat.

Marquesan fruit, for which we traded in Fatu Hiva

Unfortunately these fables, while they were mostly true at one time, are today just that – fables. Even before the pandemic, the locals in the South Pacific were becoming overwhelmed by the steadily increasing number of cruisers, especially in French Polynesia where even non-European sailors could (before the pandemic) stay up to three years with the right paperwork, whereas they used to be given only three months. French Polynesia is essentially facing a problem of over-tourism by yachts, which has led to a whole range of problems between cruisers and locals. My own anecdotal experience has shown me that these fables are one contributor to the problems. Enough sailors believe the fables, and even believe they are entitled to the same experiences, so that troubles are bound to arise.

Like all fables, these stories have a basis in reality. There was a time when these kinds of things did happen. Before World War Two, when voyaging in small yachts was the province only of strange misfits and adventurers, when an offshore sailor could count on one hand the number of other cruisers he met, there actually were untouched reefs in the world. Harry Pidgeon, setting out alone almost a hundred years ago in the 34ft yawl he’d hewn out of timber himself, found plenty of deserted anchorages and generous locals. And following World War Two, when pioneering voyagers like the Smeetons, John Guzzwell and Bill Tilman were roaming the globe, these fables were still more fact than fiction.

Fiction, however, is what they are today, unfortunately. There are exceptions, of course, as in anything. I’ve been the recipient of great acts of generosity, even as recently as last year, and certainly throughout my first voyage to the South Pacific over thirteen years ago. But it’s important not to expect it. It’s important to realise that this is no longer the norm, because believing otherwise threatens to create unpleasant situations for everyone.

Take, for example, the no-anchoring policy that now exists in Bora Bora, an island that used to be the crown jewel of Polynesia but has suffered from too much traffic. Similar anchoring restrictions quickly followed in Tahiti and the rest of the Society Islands. The Cook Islands, to the west of Tahiti, charge hefty daily anchoring fees, which vary

by island. Hawai’i – wishing to avoid derelict boats either left to rot or with liveaboards who do not maintain them to a reasonable standard – has a 72-hour anchoring policy, and marina slips are A graceful manta ray hard to come by, a combination which makes the archipelago difficult to cruise.

Even in places where anchoring remains free and unrestricted, cruisers increasingly find locals less than welcoming. On the mild end of the spectrum, in the most frequented parts of the Marquesas I’ve noticed exorbitant prices for ubiquitous goods like limes and bananas. In Atuona, a port of entry, I heard $30 quoted for a small bunch of bananas while rats ate the bananas rotting on the trees nearby. On the extreme end, in 2019 rumours were swirling about locals in Ra’iatea (one of the islands between Tahiti and Bora Bora) cutting sailors’ anchor rodes while they were asleep or ashore.

From the cruisers’ perspective it feels horrible. It feels like profiteering, vandalism and worse. Sailors who started out with beautiful dreams of self-reliant freedom, gorgeous landfalls and happy experiences meeting new people, are hurt by feeling unwanted and are disappointed to find that the freedom of sailing over the horizon isn’t so unrestrained after all. It’s hard to understand at first – you’ve come with the best intentions.

Celeste in Hanamoenoa Bay

Anaho Bay, Nuku Hiva in the off season. In the high season there might be up to 50 boats at anchor

The greatest change since Guzzwell and the Smeetons set sail is simply that there are more boats. Even a dozen years ago, a fraction of the number of boats that now visit French Polynesia did so. There are all kinds of reasons why this is so – the cheaper prices of used boats following the 2008 financial crisis, bigger and more comfortable boats with many of the conveniences of home, the affordability and ease of use of today’s navigation, communication, and other technologies, increasingly flexible remote working arrangements, tempting fables of the sailing life marketed by YouTube channels, changes in French Polynesia’s long-stay visa programme, and increased development within the islands, including faster internet and more and better facilities for cruisers.

More people interested in sailing and able to realise their dreams is not at all a bad thing – on the contrary, it’s wonderful to see people setting out to sail oceans. It has lots of good side effects, such as making more people conscious of the environmental threats to the world’s oceans. But unfortunately, in aggregate, it also puts more pressure on the islands and the local people. While an individual cruiser is coming with the best intentions, it’s impossible for hundreds of cruisers not to have an impact. It’s crucial to realise this and to act accordingly, to be honest about what cruising means today. It’s not the same, but it’s equally good, and if we approach it with care and thoughtfulness it can remain wonderful for a long time to come. To that end, it’s important to think about what it looks like to the locals when hundreds of boats arrive, not all of them behaving perfectly.

In the Marquesas over the last three years, I have gotten to know a number of the local people quite well. All of them were generous and kind beyond measure, but a few of them noted that they’d occasionally had trouble with cruisers. Their primary concerns were with stealing fruit, spearing too many fish from the reef and – in one instance – a big crowd disturbing the quiet peace of the beach and bay. Of course most sailors do not mean to steal, over-fish, or disturb anything or anyone. They’ve just heard the fables. The fables that when they get to the Marquesas there will be fruit everywhere, the locals eager to give you the wild produce of the land.

Most of it, however, is not wild. One Marquesan man showed me round his garden, pointing out where he’d planted new trees and was nurturing them along. He told

A beautiful beach on Tahuata. The area behind the beach may look wild but it’s actually a garden, carefully tended every day

me about a group of sailors who had picked all of his pamplemousse (grapefruit) when he was gone one day, leaving him with none for several weeks. He told me of cruisers trampling his new saplings, not noticing them underfoot when they tried to hike up the valley from the beach. The hikers had also inadvertently scared away the wild boar and goats he hunted, meaning he had to range much further afield for his meat, leaving his orchard and garden unprotected. This orchard might not look like a New England apple orchard – it isn’t ordered in tidy rows, the fruit trees are in among the natural vegetation so that at first glance they do appear to be growing wild. But if one looks a little closer, there’s evidence of a gardener’s care, of someone watering the plants when everywhere else is dry, of weeding around the young saplings.

Our friend Tafeta on a wild boar hunt on Tahuata

I’ve heard similar complaints about sailors spear-fishing. Spear-fishing is increasingly popular, especially among young cruisers who’ve watched YouTube sailing channels before embarking on their own voyages. But if every spear- A manta fisherman takes a fish ray homes in for dinner every night, on a ball of fish the reef can’t support it and the locals’ food resource is gone, not to mention the destruction this causes to the ecosystem.

Each time I heard these complaints I tried to explain why sailors would behave this way, that many thought the fruit grew wild, that they’d heard stories about the South Pacific that weren’t necessarily true but which they’d believed. But the locals should not have to worry that anchors and over-fishing will damage the coral reefs. They should not be made to feel that they owe hospitality to the sailors simply because their grandparents might have freely given it to the sailors of 50 years ago. None of us are entitled to anything in our voyaging. Put another way, nothing has to be. So everything that is, is something to be grateful for.

Hanamoenoa Bay – South Pacific idyll

Dramatic Vaipo waterfall in Nuku Hiva, cascading 2000 feet from the plateau down into Hakaui Valley

When we approach our voyages responsibly, realising that it’s a great gift to be able to do it at all, our perspective changes. No longer are we upset that we do not have the South Pacific idyll of Hanamoenoa Bay, or the beautiful protected circle of Anaho Bay, or the mysterious cloud-wreathed spires of Hakaui Valley, to ourselves – instead we are grateful to be there in the first place, surrounded by such beauty. We see the other boats in the anchorage not as an annoyance but as an opportunity for new friendships. When we feel gratitude instead of entitlement, we no longer expect to be showered with pamplemousse, bananas and starfruit. Instead we’re happy that it’s there for us to purchase (at reasonable prices, of course – I’m not endorsing overcharging tourists!). Better yet, we can be generous ourselves, giving or trading extra line, snorkel gear or other items in remote places where goods are hard to come by. If we understand and accept that times have changed and that sailors are not the rarities they once were, then we’re not unpleasantly surprised when the locals don’t show great interest in us – rather, we make the effort to show our interest in, and respect for, their culture, their lives and the places they call home. They are our hosts, and we want them to invite us back for a second visit.

I hope that if all cruisers can step back and adjust how we look at voyaging in the more visited places, there’s a chance that we can stop the increasing official restrictions and unofficial unpleasantness that can sometimes happen. We have a lot to offer these places and people, just as they have so much we can learn from them. With

this kind of mindset, voyaging today does not seem a lesser experience than that of the pioneering voyagers of the 1920s and 1950s. It’s just different. The ocean sailors of the past had to be patient and phlegmatic about the weather (they had no routing services or satellite communications), about their navigation (successive overcast days caused much anxiety when your sextant was the only means of fixing your position), about their diet (on-board refrigeration was almost unheard-of) and about their lack of creature comforts (to contemporary eyes, their boats were slow, leaky, cramped and terribly lacking in modern conveniences). The ocean sailors of today have to be patient and phlegmatic not about those things but about the issues caused by increased levels of world travel. However, there are still many, many friendly people out there who are eager to befriend someone who makes an effort. You might even find they want to give you a huge bag of fruit when you say goodbye.

And there are still many, many beautiful wild places in the world where a sailor can drop the hook, watch for the sunset’s green flash, and marvel that they’re there, precisely where they’d dreamed of being.

With many thanks to the Cruising Club of America, in whose journal Voyages this article first appeared.