Part of the preparations for any cruise to the South Pacific is considering what to bring for gifting and trading. We’re expecting to visit two countries in the South Pacific this year—French Polynesia and Fiji—so we are going to tailor our trading plans for those two distinct cultures.

In the Society Islands of French Polynesia, there’s access to “stuff.” As a result, local people want cruisers to deal in cash, not goods. The kind of trading romanticized in the pages of decades-old cruising memoirs mostly doesn’t exist anymore. The Society Islands are well-connected to the population hub of Tahiti. If you can’t find a product in Papeete , it can be shipped or flown in, and then shuttled out in a mail boat.

Now, if we were heading to Fatu-Hiva in the Marquesas Islands, our plan for trading would be different. Fatu-Hiva is 125 nautical miles upwind from Nuku Hiva, and the locals prefer to trade goods instead of cash. Cameron Vawter, visiting there aboard the 43-foot Ta Shing Banyan, recalls how a boat in the anchorage that could trade received copious amounts of fruit for days on end. “It just kept showing up,” he said. He was happy to accept the trickle-down extras.

And no matter the location, there’s a difference between gifting and trading. Gifts from visiting cruisers show appreciation and build bridges, while other goods that cruisers keep on board are for bartering. 

A model for understanding the idea of gifting as a cruiser can be found in one of my favorite memories from our month in the Marquesas in 2010. Anchored inside Baie du Contrôleur, we followed the sound of church bells into Taipivai with our bungee boat, Capaz. After the service, a family invited us to their nearby home. We broke out a deck of Uno cards, and we played a game with the Marquesan kids. Then, we gifted them the deck. Small stowage required, priceless memories, good feelings all around.

Aboard the Allied 39 Jacaranda, Chuck Houlihan says, “we quickly came to realize that we wanted to have nicer gifts for folks that invited us home for dinner, took us fishing and just befriended us.” He and his wife, Linda Edeiken, recommend trading practical items, such as Luci lights, jiggle-hose fuel transfer devices and carving tools such as Dremels and sandpaper. 

Greg Bridges aboard the Gulfstar 50 Beach Flea has also learned that carving tools, as well as multihead screwdrivers, pliers and hammers, are local favorites. He finds that 90- and 60-degree V-gouges and small skews are the most useful.

Our favorite gift to trade

Our favorite icebreaker gift (and occasional trade item) is a soccer ball. We started engaging in Soccer Ball Diplomacy—trademark pending—after leaving Australia in 2012. From Papua New Guinea to Madagascar, the soccer balls we brought to shore replaced carved, ball-sized fishing floats. Our gift amped up many a dirt field game. I cannot emphasize enough the joy these brought.

Something else I am excited to stash for literally brightening lives is headlamp-style utility lights (they snap onto a solar charging block and turn into a flashlight). Yes, the same folks who make those awesome Luci lights make these. In more remote communities in the North Pacific, lights like this can have a meaningful, positive impact on everyday life for a family.

What’s a trade item worth?

One of the big questions a new-to-trading cruiser in the South Pacific has is: How do you establish relative value? 

Back in the intensive trading culture of Papua New Guinea, I came up with a way to think about establishing a fair trade. Some thoughts adapted from our 2012 post: 

Think about what you’d pay to buy something if you could, and what it cost you to get what you’re offering. Is that pineapple, which might be $5, a fair trade for the 1 kg bag of sugar that might have cost you $1.50? You can think about it in terms of the value of the items, but think of it this way, too: When the only way for you to get a fresh pineapple, and the only way for them to get a bag of sugar, is to trade, that’s a way to estimate how close or far you are from what’s reasonable. I remember giving a guy in Kavieng, Papua New Guinea, a 2-kg bag of rice for a couple of lobsters one day. He was thrilled and insisted it was too much, then showed up the next day to give us three huge, beautiful papayas from his garden. Wow!

Trade items to bring

For the list-makers (cough “me” cough), here’s a summary of what to stow: Dremels, diamond bits and other carving tools; commonly used hand tools; rope that still has life in it (just maybe for a horse instead of a halyard); headlamps and solar-powered lights; fishing gear, such as big hooks for tuna, little ones for reef jigging; small-woven line for fishing (not fishing nylon); snorkeling masks and fins; soccer balls (and pumps with spare needles); perfumed lotions, nail polish and lipstick (these can add value to a trade for pearls in the Tuamotus); and fuel and jerry cans.

More on trading

If you’ve liked reading about trading in the South Pacific, where actually there’s not so much trading going on (sales for cash are vastly preferred), you might enjoy reading these other posts about the trading we did in Papua New Guinea. In those islands, trading with the latest dugout to tie off your transom is part of everyday cruising life.

What to bring to Papua New Guinea. This list that diverges a bunch from other South Pacific gifting and trading lists. It’s based on real need and lack of access to what we consider basics, such as flour, sugar and yeast.

What you’ll be trading for in Papua New Guinea: Sometimes, the ability to trade what islanders need is what matters most. It can also be the only way to get fresh produce in islands without stores.

Alternative trading: When a new friend wanted flour and yeast, we had to trade, but with nothing to exchange, I traded for a cooking lesson on how to cook coconut-steeped yams. This strategy would work great anywhere.

The post Sailing Totem: A Cruiser’s Guide to Trading in the South Pacific appeared first on Cruising World.

Sun rays beamed down into the deep blue ­water, illuminating the faded rope that ended in a small weight, hanging just barely in sight in the clear Fijian sea. I held onto the buoy the rope was tied to, floating at the surface and staring at the weight 20 ­meters below me. I was familiar with this depth as a concept; I’d scuba-dived around it and Cayuse could ­anchor in it, but I’d never thought about sending my body down there unaided, willfully.

I’d been sailing with my parents on Cayuse, an Outremer 51, for a year at this point; we were circumnavigating with the World ARC. After graduating college I had joined them, and while sailing itself took up most of our time, I needed a new hobby to give myself a sense of purpose. Matt, my boyfriend and our other ­crewmember, and I had signed up for an SSI Freediving course at Mantaray Bay; I wanted a challenge, and Matt saw it as fun and a useful skill for cruising.

A siren wailed from shore after we dropped ­anchor in deep water off the Mantaray Island Resort, an eclectic hostel and hotel next to a narrow cut between two islands in the Yasawas. It was the manta ray alarm, which went off daily when manta rays were spotted swimming through the channel. The strong currents whipping through made it an ideal feeding ground for the gentle giants, and the namesake of the resort. We dinghied ashore as guests frantically gathered rented ­snorkel gear and rushed to fiberglass runabouts manned by locals to take them out to glimpse the graceful rays.

RELATED: Freediving in Tonga

We walked over to the dive shack and were greeted by a tall, suntanned Australian man in a tank top and mirrored sunnies. A little weathered around the edges, he had long hair that was blond-streaked and shoulder-length; he could have been 35 or 50.

“Bula! Are you guys the yachties here for freediving?” he asked, staggering a little.

“Yeah, we’re here for a few days, so we thought we’d try it out,” I said.

“Well good on ya! My name’s Ryan, and I’ll be your instructor. Here are a couple of workbooks, and let’s get started!” he said, tossing us two worn Scuba Schools International textbooks.

We soon learned that he was the co-owner of the resort, which he had built from the ground up in 2002 with his then-girlfriend.

Ryan instructed us to lie down on the sand so we could practice “breathing up.” Breathing up is a one- to two-minute period of breathing before a dive that focuses on relaxing the body and mind in order to spend a period of time without breath underwater. I breathed in and out for several minutes with my eyes closed; lying under the palm trees on a beach in Fiji, I immediately felt pretty Zen. Then Ryan told us to breathe in deeply and hold it, starting a timer once we stopped breathing. I gasped for breath after a measly 45 seconds, while Matt held his for one minute, 15 seconds. He told us how if we focused on breathing every day, we’d increase our lung capacity and ability to hold our breath for longer; Ryan was up to five minutes.

Over the next two days, we did more breathing exercises and swimming challenges, and studied the science of freediving. We learned about the mammalian dive reflex, which happens when the human body submerges underwater; the body responds by slowing down the heart rate, redirecting blood to vital organs to preserve oxygen, and releasing red blood cells from the spleen. Humans were built to swim underwater.

All of our studying and exercises were leading up to the final dive, in which we had to freedive down to 20 meters. Ryan reiterated that the key to successful freediving was being utterly calm, making slow movements with elongated fins, and not rushing. Overexerting yourself underwater could lead to losing oxygen and having to surface sooner, or even blacking out. It was hard to imagine not freaking out while swimming slowly into the deep, away from fresh air and sunlight.

Floating next to the buoy, I timed ­myself for a two-minute breathe up, breathing normally until taking three final deep breaths before I duck-dived down.

I kicked my legs slowly, trying to ­maintain a leisurely pace following the rope down, seemingly into oblivion. I couldn’t see the bottom. My thoughts drifted to how I could check the anchor at new depths, rescue lost items overboard, or swim next to sea creatures without spooking them with oxygen bubbles.

Within seconds, I reached the weight and looked down at the seafloor, now within sight. What if I kept going? I looked all around me, blissfully surrounded by pure blue. Time slowed down as I undulated with the ocean, neither sinking nor floating. I felt the first urge to breathe and turned around, taking deliberate strokes toward brighter water, Matt and Ryan floating above me. I slipped through the water to the surface, elated, gasping for breath and squinting in the bright equatorial sun. I felt my need for a new purpose slipping away, down into the deep blue depths.

The post Cruising and Freediving appeared first on Cruising World.

Verdant mountains plunging into a blue sea, dark basalt spires piercing the clouds, jungle vines growing over stone ruins: the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia have an almost mystical aura about them. At the far eastern end of the South Pacific islands, only 9 to 10 degrees south of the equator, they are remote, hot and humid. They are high islands, volcanoes that have eroded into deep valleys and vertiginous ridges. In some ways, they are the ultimate South Seas idyll: secluded, tropical and ruggedly beautiful. But in other ways, they are far from the postcard picture. Because of their geological newness and because they are on the outer edges of the cold Humboldt Current, the islands have not developed extensive barrier reefs. So they don’t have the lagoons and consequent calm, protected bays that many other Pacific islands boast.

For sailors, this means anchorages exposed to the rolling ocean swell. Even though one finds protection from the strong southeasterly trade winds on the leeward sides of these islands, the swell inevitably rolls its way in. Most sailors don’t consider this a problem. After all, to reach the Marquesas, most voyagers have spent three weeks to a month sailing across the open ocean, in swells much bigger than what one encounters in the islands’ leeward anchorages; we’re acclimated to the motion and hardly notice it. But the fact remains that there is nothing so peaceful as a flat-calm anchorage, sheltered on all sides—especially after a long ocean passage.

Enter Anaho Bay. On the north (leeward) coast of Nuku Hiva lies this beautiful, calm bay, encircled by hills and headed by a bare basalt peak. In all but a north wind, it is perfectly protected. The necklace of beach ashore is soft, white sand, and there’s even a coral reef (a rarity in these islands) that’s built itself along the edges of the bay, home to the colorful and often unique reef fish of the Marquesas.

Read More: Lessons from the Sixth Circumnavigation

There are no roads into Anaho Bay. One can reach the place only by boat, or on foot or horseback along the trail that leads across a little mountain pass to the neighboring village of Hatiheu. The only sounds in the bay are the quiet lapping of water on the beach, the rustle of wind in the trees, the splash of a fish, and the thunk-thunk of the locals cutting copra. A few people do live in Anaho Bay, fishing, farming, and even running a small restaurant for sailors and any other tourists who hike over from Hatiheu. At the time of the lockdown, when the Nuku Hiva government was ordering cruisers to sail to the main town of Taiohae (where the police could more easily keep them under surveillance), the locals in Anaho Bay refused to let their cruisers be taken away. Those at anchor there at the time had been helping the locals with all kinds of projects on their houses and fishing boats. So the lucky sailors stayed in Anaho for the whole lockdown. While I wasn’t among them, I was thrilled to hear the story after the fact, a wonderful instance of the mutual generosity of visiting cruisers and their local hosts. That, even more than the stunning scenery, is what makes the South Seas such a special place.

The post Cruising Anaho Bay, Marquesas appeared first on Cruising World.

Fiji set a glowing example for other Pacific countries this past sailing season by successfully opening its borders to cruisers. The country consequently welcomed over 90 foreign boats, over 300 crew and an estimated $10 million to its shores.

The Blue Lane initiative, launched in June, set strict guidelines for pleasure craft to follow in order to enter Fiji. This protocol involved sailors having to activate their AIS for their entire trip so that the Fijian navy could confirm uninterrupted sailing, along with quarantining crew on board their vessels for a total of 14 days, including passage time. Additionally, all crew had to take a COVID-19 test and obtain a negative result within 72 hours of leaving their original country and again two days before their 14-day quarantine was up.

While Port Denarau is currently the only port of clearance in Fiji, once finished with their quarantine, boats are free to cruise the different island groups as usual.

Though small in number compared with the usual 750 boats that visit Fiji every year, the cruisers that arrived have helped contribute toward Fiji’s suffering tourism industry. They’ve provided the sailmakers, mechanics, electricians, taxi drivers and dive operators with a much-needed income, without which they might not have been able to survive the past few months. Due to a lack of onward destinations, the majority of these boats remained in Fiji during the 2020-21 cyclone season, providing further income for the industry.

United States Ambassador to Fiji, Joseph Cella, invited cruisers who’d participated in this initiative to a buffet brunch to celebrate its success, and there he highly commended the Fijian government for the way it has contained COVID-19. With only 35 cases in total, and no community cases for nearly 6 months, Fiji has handled this pandemic extremely well, with its Blue Lane initiative being a testament to its success. Let’s hope more countries follow suit next season.

The post Fiji’s Blue Lane Initiative appeared first on Cruising World.

This story originally appeared on Sailing Totem.

Route planning is something we geek out on a little. During the last year, it gave me an outlet for escapism during the pandemic. Improbable routing across the North Pacific? Great daydreaming while isolating on Totem, not even swimming off the boat while in view of closed beaches on shore.

What were the distances we could voyage between destinations (open to us during the pandemic) in the Pacific? What seasonality did they introduce? We might not be going anywhere, but I could ponder the possibilities! Getting smarter on route planning is something that’s readily researched ahead of cruising, too.

There are three levels of routing: first, the most zoomed-out big picture view, second, pre-passage plan, then finally, routing once underway. Each one has different dynamics.

Many sailors are dreamers, so dreamscaping destinations comes easily. Covid reduced the options for Pacific stops; an imagined route was challenging, but not impossible, for this dreamer. Hawaii? Family in Hilo to visit! (~2,600nm) Guam? Friends landing there and found a welcoming safe harbor. (~3,300nm) From there, on to Okinawa, southern port of entry for Japan. (a mere ~1,200nm) It’s open to American nationals; perhaps we’d be lucky enough that Taiwan – which I dearly love, thanks to finishing high school and spending time in college there – would open by the time we made it that far. In three big passages, we’d be back in the western Pacific: it is a goal for the years ahead.

Big picture routing might start with a wide-open imagining. Making it into a real plan starts with seasonal constraints. What are the best times for these passages? Does the full distance allow a reasonable pace, and time to enjoy stops along the way? When would it be better to hold off for a month? Where would you want to meander slowly for a season? From there, the planner considers other features of the journey and destination to create a sensible trip framework. Seasonal weather, security, legal, and practical considerations.

Planning For Weather

Weather defines life on boat. Trip up the inside passage sounds fine! In July, that is, but not January. Or to Caribbean islands in search of the last bottle of rum – best outside of hurricane season. The deterrent factors of cold and hurricanes are plain, but there are other weather seasons to consider, based on location: gales (higher latitudes), lightning (Central America and Southeast Asia), squalls (tropics), and monsoon seasons. Monsoonal regions bring seasonally changing winds that blow in the right or wrong direction depending on your timing. Plan weather patterns that makes sailing easier on the boat and crew. My dreamscape is complicated by seasonal conditions layered over distance. Arrive in Guam before cyclone season in the western Pacific: that means leaving for Hawaii… now-ish, and without time for more than a break on the way.

Researching Safety Issues

Security during the journey and at the destination requires research. Skimming along the coast of North America doesn’t carry much threat to personal safety, but still good to learn if your outboard could sprout legs in a given anchorage. When we sailed north from Australia to Papua New Guinea, we were given dire warnings about the dangers that awaited. And like many countries, while it can be painted as dangerous – it is not reflective of the entire nation. I mapped a route based on first hand reports, and it remains among our favorite places. I’ve written in more detail about how to research both regions and destinations for safety issues in “Is Cruising Dangerous?”.

Learning Legal Requirements

Legal procedures for traveling to and from countries can be surprising, and limiting if not prepared. Last year we planned to get a 90 day visa on arrival in French Polynesia; there was also a long-stay visa available through application at French embassies overseas (currently, these are not being issued). We looked further out in 2020 and discovered we’d need proof of measles vaccinations to legally arrive in Samoa. Jamie and I don’t have our childhood vaccination records, and were looking into titer tests and re-vaccination options… and then covid happened.

Making Practical Plans

Practical route planning is a common pitfall of the new cruiser: to dream a big picture route spanning an unrealistic range of places. It’s hard to know until you live underway at sea level, one nautical mile at a time, what those distances really mean. Passage making can be a joy (I’m craving it right now: a glorious respite!) but constantly being on the move to meet an unnecessary objective (Trinidad to Halifax and back this year!) is exhausting. For folks planning from the fast lane of modern life, it’s hard to imagine life at six knots.

Stopping short of an overzealous objective might leave a disappointment in failing to achieve. But achieve what, exactly? We’re here for the experiences, and not the notches in a logbook. Making a plan helps that dreamscape evolve into an achievable future.

Let’s Talk!

TOTEM TALKS: what makes a bluewater boat? This Sunday, Feb 28, at 3pm PT / 6pm ET we’re hosting another open forum on Zoom. There’s a lot of conflicting information and misinformation about features of a bluewater boat. Let’s talk about it! Register to attend.

Clubhouse. Join us for a chat sometime on this newish platform! We came on this week thanks to the other Jamie (from Follow the Boat), finding it fun to engage on this new platform to talk about cruising and help the enthusiastic on their way. Find me lurking around Salty Vagabonds and Sailing Club. The app is iOS only but that should change soon.

Coho Hoho kickoff. March 16. The Best Awaits: Southbound on the West Coast. Sharing information for safe planning and fully enjoying their voyages south for the rally runners! Register at Coho Hoho / events.

Cruising sails seminar. March 25, 4pm Eastern. Sail fundamentals, part of Salty Dawg Sailign Association’s winter webinar series. Jamie’s covering materials, terms, and loads; sail repair basics and common causes of problems; self-inspection before going offshore; observations to make while underway. Fee paid for non-members of SDSA; register on their site.

The post Sailing Totem: Route Planning—The Big Picture appeared first on Cruising World.

What are they thinking?

That’s my first reaction, anyway. To be clear, there are some scenarios that make sense. I’ll get to that: more generally, it does not make sense for most boats at this time. But it seems that the hope of vaccine availability, and perhaps unbridled or uninformed hope, has prompted many plans to head that way regardless.

Stepping back: right now, there are exactly two countries conditionally open to foreign yacht arrivals in the South Pacific. Both require advance permission, which is not assured. Let’s review.

First: some context. The Pacific Ocean is ^%#*ing HUGE. When people get to French Polynesia and crow “we’ve crossed the Pacific!” – no. They are about one third of the way. There’s a lot of ocean not yet “crossed.” Ballpark, in very round numbers: it’s about 9,000 nautical miles across, and Panama (or Mexico) to the Marquesas is about 3,000 nautical miles.

Second: let’s look at those two countries that offer the possibility of arrival: French Polynesia and Fiji.

French Polynesia’s maritime borders remain officially closed. Permission to enter is by application to DPAM (a department for maritime affairs; not related to the consulate). Many have been allowed, but plenty boats from a range of flags have been declined. (It does seem that local yacht agents may have better luck with the process. We had a great experience with an agent in 2010, and had contacted Tahiti Crew for services last year before COVID blew up. Kevin Ellis at Yacht Services Nuku Hiva has assisted others.)

For crews who obtain permission to arrive in French Polynesia, the duration of stay allowed is based on nationality. 90-day visas are granted; French Polynesia stopped issuing Long-Stay Visas (LSVs) last year. EU nationals are able to stay longer. In our experience those 90 days will fly by, although that’s not unreasonable for a boat planning to get all the way across to Australia in one non-cyclone season.

Fiji’s Blue Lane initiative has, like French Polynesia, provided for conditional access to cruising boats. You must apply and have approval before embarking for Fiji. Application is made through one of few approved yacht agents. Crews must provide an advance COVID test (and another after arrival) and meet other requirements such as insurance, visa, and biosecurity. At least sea time is counted towards the 14-day quarantine! It adds up: for our crew, I priced the cost to enter at $2,140 (not including the additional required marina stay).

SO we’ve got French Poly, and Fiji. That means some big @$$ passages. It skips Tonga and the Cook Islands, Samoa and Niue too, on the way to Fiji; it means no stopping at Vanuatu and New Caledonia. All shuttered for arrivals. And then… where do you go from there? This leads us to…

Third: hurricane season options.

Since the pace of vaccine distribution suggests that 2021 will not reach levels allowing other countries in the Pacific to open their borders 2021, destinations for hurricane season are limited. But let’s focus on typical off-season cruising destinations for the South Pacific: Australia and New Zealand. Both offer distant possibilities, neither can be counted on unless you are a repatriating national. For the non-nationals:

• Hope that Australia provides “emergency” access again. After the scare of a big cyclone tearing through Fiji this season, some boats did go on to Oz. They were required to quarantine in a hotel room selected (and serviced: here’s breakfast!) by the government, at the yachties’ expense, while the boat is (also at their expense) in a marina. Expensive.
  
• Pony up for a New Zealand refit. Commit to spending $50,000 NZD (about US$35,000) in New Zealand on vessel refitting and maintenance work, and you can apply for entry. It is not a guaranteed pay-to-arrive, boats have been turned down; but it is one gating factor that opens it as a possibility for non-NZ crews. Damn, this is actually near the level of our annual budget!

Why are people going?

I mentioned at the beginning that there are a few circumstances where it makes sense to set off. Below are the scenarios, but the crews I read about looking to cross … mostly don’t fit into the criteria for following through on them. Basically: the options aren’t horror shows, but they are either quite expensive (fine if you’ve got it), quite inconvenient, or quite significant passages.

• Exit and return to French Polynesia. Leave the boat at a marina French Polynesia and fly out. After 90 days outside the country, your visa clock is reset and you are granted another 90 days. This may be a hardship for many ‘typical’ cruisers who don’t have a land base waiting for them, but it is an option.
  
• Route to Hawaii (if immigration status permits) and from there, back to the North American mainland – or back south to French Polynesia again after spending the requisite 90 days outside of the country. Must have immigration status that allows entry to the USA and love long passages. And once you’re there, anchoring permits cost more than a marina in Mexico and marina waiting lists are real. So not many choose this path because, well, it’s harder.

• Make a North Pacific loop to Japan. Friends on the Leopard 384, Maple, have made plans to sail from French Polynesia to Japan (then, onward home to Canada), which frankly sounds pretty sweet although it may be thwarted by a leaky fuel tank. We’re rooting for them!
  
• Nationals repatriating as is the option available to Aussies and Kiwis – who are still subject to quarantine. (That’s over $6k per person in New Zealand!)

Since the rest of the South Pacific (and most of the North Pacific) is closed, and offers NO indication of opening anytime soon (regardless of protocol, regardless of vaccines – in fact, Vanuatu and New Caledonia just doubled down to be 100% clear on their we’re-not-open status), it is baffling to me that there’s so much murmuring about plans for the Pacific.

I suppose that’s a little like wondering why back in our home country so many activities are opening up despite transmission risks being pretty much worse than ever. Pandemic fatigue is real! If one were to believe that vaccination distribution will occur widely and quickly (despite all evidence to the contrary), it might be possible to have this hope. But it’s not happening quickly, and vulnerable countries have no more incentive to take the risk now than they did in 2020. I really don’t know what most people making plans are thinking.

Here on Totem, we just keep on keepin’ on. You bet we want to be back in the South Pacific, and into the North Pacific, but… oh well!

Our 2021 plans? Safe to say… they don’t include any big Pacific passages. Even if it weren’t for my view on the probabilities of countries opening up, we’re staring down big engine work.

Meanwhile, this week the memory care home where my mother is a resident had a COVID outbreak. Seventeen cases, hopefully no more, but it remains to be seen. Every single one of the residents who tested positive for COVID already had their first vaccination shot. There is plenty of reason to remain more cautious now than ever. And four known COVID variants… We hope every day to see this through without the pain in our family, as we have seen in our friends and their families, to suffer from the disease’s direct impact.

So much going on!

Join us this coming week at the Seattle Boat Show! You can register for as little as $5; Jamie and I are offering several seminars and joining the salty crews from Mahina and Kaiquest for our annual offshore panel.

Diesel engines – coming to TOTEM TALKS: Register here for Sunday, Jan 31st at 3pm Pacific / 6pm Eastern. What does a dumb sailmaker know about marine diesels? Come find out! The truth is that after 13 years of full-time cruising, it’s a surprising amount – and that’s out of necessity. A reliable engine is part of safe cruising, so cruisers should all know about engine care and maintenance. This session will start with a zoomed-out view of component parts, then discuss DIY maintenance including priority and commonly overlooked procedures.

Thanks to everyone who joined us for the Toronto Boat Show this past week! If you registered for seminars, ours can be replayed at leisure.

The post Sailing Totem: South Pacific Cruising in 2021 appeared first on Cruising World.

At a time of year when cruisers might point their bows south to escape winter in North America, or head to cyclone-free regions across the Pacific, instead they are contending with a wide array of restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic as a new normal has emerged over the summer. § Looking ahead, top health officials expect the pandemic to increase this winter—and that in 2021, the threat of coronavirus will remain. We hope for a vaccine and yet expect that any success will take time to reach far-flung corners of the world. For the cruiser, or hopeful cruiser, is it possible to plan a safe watery adventure?

Despite a world shrunk by globalization, regional and national responses to coronavirus continue to vary dramatically. There is no crystal ball, of course, so to form a view of what cruising might look like in the year ahead, we reached out to sailors around the world to see what might be possible.

North America

If the mainstream traveler rediscovered staycations, American cruisers are reminded that from Penobscot Bay to the Dry Tortugas in the east, and Puget Sound to San Diego in the west—the United States coastline offers extensive cruising for all seasons. The US border never closed to maritime entry, but a number of states had lockdown periods, and several continue to require different degrees of testing or self-quarantine. A pandemic flare-up could limit movement or require isolating. Other cruisers are placing their bets on a new period of slower-paced Caribbean cruising.

Allan and Lavonne Shelton were bound for Panama after several leisurely months in the Bahamas when borders started snapping shut in March. Making a rest stop in Jamaica en route, the crew learned that Panama had closed. They rerouted back to their home waters in Chesapeake Bay. “We were concerned about the possibility of being stranded somewhere with fewer cruising options than we would have by returning to the US, and we didn’t want to be a burden on another country’s health system.” Lavonne says.

Like many, the added risk of the virus put a damper on their 2021 plans. “We want to be able to socialize freely while cruising. We love hosting visitors aboard Vinyasa, and enjoy visiting others too. Realistically for us, cruising freely means waiting until a reliable vaccine is widely available and we’ve both received it.” The Vinyasa crew plans to sail between seasonal bases in Florida and Maryland until they feel safe to voyage abroad again.

Vivian Vuong and her husband, Nathan Zahrt, call the Compass 47 Ultima home. And 2020 was meant to be their breakout year, leading offshore training passages with John Kretschmer Sailing, but closures in the Bahamas and Florida Keys put a pall on plans. “By July we were finally able to do a training passage from Solomons, Maryland, to Newport, Rhode Island, and had an epic sail in nice weather, full of wildlife sightings. We saw whales, sharks, and pods of hundreds of dolphins feeding on schools of fish,” Vivian says. But they postponed further training passages, and instead shifted to working on superyachts to afford planned upgrades for Ultima. Vivian speaks for ­many cruisers when she says, “The ­hardest part of this pandemic is the uncertainty that it causes,” and in their case, it’s not just where this ocean-girdling couple can go, but the future of their work as well. Looking ahead, they anticipate this winter that Caribbean islands will offer opportunities for their own cruising and, hopefully, voyages they can share with others seeking a life afloat.

Mediterranean

At peak uncertainty when borders closed throughout the region, boats transited the breadth of the Mediterranean without options for landfall. The region later swung hard in the other direction, with uncomplicated movement between most European Union countries with just a few extra steps for clearance. But crews from nations outside the Schengen Area have more to juggle than just the stay limits in member states. If cases surged, how might countries respond? Uncertainty around the answer to this has encouraged many cruisers to focus on a safe harbor where they can make longer-term plans, saving active cruising for a post-pandemic environment.

“Most folks we talk to have a sense of being in a surreal film,” Shannon Morrelli reports from the catamaran Sweetie. They were spending their second winter in Tunisia when cases of COVID-19 surged, and the Monastir Marina ­provided a friendly haven. “It was treated as a single-family residence; cruisers could walk the docks and the marina’s headland during lockdown.” The lockdown started days after Monastir denizens, the American crew of the catamaran Grateful, flew back to the US for a brief visit in March; they weren’t able to get back to Tunisia until September. “Our circuitous return depended on the fact that Turkey (a non-EU country) was happy to have us and our tourism dollars,” Niki Elenbaas says.

When European countries began to reopen borders to their citizens, EU-based sailors left Tunisia for summertime cruising grounds closer to home. It was about another month before non-EU crews were able to sail north. To mitigate uncertainty ahead, Shannon and her husband, Tony, purchased a yearlong marina contract for Sweetie in Monastir; Niki and Jamie Elenbaas have done the same for Grateful. For 2021, they plan to cruise between Tunisia and other Mediterranean countries as restrictions (and Schengen rules) allow— and they expect ongoing changes.

Complexity’s crew, Barbara and Jim Cole, hail from Puget Sound. They have similarly doubled down to reduce their risk from instability in the Mediterranean with a long-term contract at a Cyprus marina. Barbara recalled the stressful passages they made across the Indian Ocean and up the Red Sea in the first months of the year. Although overdue for a trip home, they don’t think a flight to the States is viable given the risks of virus exposure coupled with the possibility of being barred from returning to their Hallberg Rassy 36. “Our resources and health could be taken away by careless exposure; it would be terrible to suffer a devastating illness so far from loved ones,” Barbara says. Meanwhile, the couple purchased a car to better travel the island. These experienced cruisers are upbeat; they don’t talk about being stuck but rather about the historic ruins and local delicacies: “As cruisers do, we are all making the best of our situation.”

Friends aboard the Ovni 41 Xamala empathize. “We have not moved much since our arrival in Crete [via the Red Sea] because of the uncertainty with infection clusters and lockdowns,” Anita Farine writes. Fortunately, as holders of Schengen Area passports, they’re able to extend their stay in Greece. “We feel for our international friends who don’t have many places to go to after the three months in Schengen.”

The Griswold family had just returned to Trifecta in Turkey. “From April through June we lived at anchor with very few boats, cruising the Turquoise coast,” Matt says. Family intentions were to continue west in the Med, then cross the Atlantic as the American family’s sabbatical cruise winds down. Then Turkey closed the border with Greece, and they gained empathy for cruisers who had felt trapped by the pandemic. Malta’s decision to open a corridor for EU access was a welcome relief. “In Malta, we filled out an extra check-in paper on arrival for the health department; otherwise no questions were asked. Life returned to ‘cruiser normal’ in an instant.” They’ve since sailed to Italy, Monaco and France, and are organizing an informal rally of boats bound for the Caribbean for the winter.

South Pacific

Island nations and protectorates in the South Pacific were among the first to lock down borders, and most remain closed. With dispersed populations and limited healthcare facilities, they remain conservative about reopening: To date, only Fiji and French Polynesia have a process for yachts to apply for permission to enter. Most cruisers responded by remaining in place; a minority made a move to Fiji when their Blue Lane Initiative—a program offering cruising boats easier entries, although with strict protocols—to enter a country commenced, and a few are choosing extensive passages to more-distant safe havens.

Like many cruisers, the crew of Maple intended to sail west from French Polynesia in 2020 after enjoying over a year in the islands with a long-term visa. With about two years left in their cruising kitty, they planned a winding path of island hops to reach Southeast Asia before wrapping up to go home to Canada. When the coronavirus stymied this plan, they evaluated how best to make the use of their family time left. Given the closed borders (or unpredictable restrictions) in their original plan, they’ve determined that it will be best to sail a loop through the north Pacific back to Canada. They’ll begin in January with a 5,400-nautical-mile passage from Tahiti to Okinawa, Japan.

“This will be our longest single passage, probably will be for the duration of our cruising lives, but we are oddly looking forward to it,” Darryl Lapaire says. The route will carry them close to islands of closed countries: Tuvalu, Kiribati, Federal States of Micronesia, and Guam. “Some of the islands are quite small, so we will need to be watchful and ensure we are zoomed in on our electronic navigation devices for this segment. Cyclonic storms in the equatorial North Pacific breed in the waters around the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, so from this area to Japan will form the area of greatest risk for us.”

Fiji and French Polynesia have created extensive permissions processes to request entry, making those countries possible options for those crossing the Pacific. Kris Adams and David Frost are longtime cruisers aboard the Kaufman 49 Taipan. Moored in Huahine, their attitude models that of many cruisers in French Polynesia: “We are very content here. We were hoping to be home after 19 years,” Kris says, but “the east coast of Australia is still nearly 3,000 nautical miles and then still a Southern Ocean passage away from our hometown in Albany, Western Australia.” This crew has the chops; they’re just choosing, as are most, to appreciate where they are instead. They can migrate to eastern island groups in French Polynesia for relative safety during cyclone season.

These are the difficult options facing cruisers in this region: Either remain in a hurricane zone for the storm season, or sail significant distances like the Maple crew, or hope for the continued generosity of a host country, or go against prevailing conditions to find an open border—all options fraught with uncertainty of future closures.

Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean

Although most countries in Southeast Asia aren’t welcoming arrivals, those within borders already are largely accommodated. The lack of options for landfall halted Indian Ocean transits early on; these are now easing, allowing cruisers already there a path from the region. But cruisers are challenged by bureaucracy here, as well as a lack of understanding for their situation, in countries that feel particularly far from home. Cruisers sheltering in place must juggle this uncertainty; many who can are sailing on.

The family aboard Dafne has cruised from North America across the Pacific and through Southeast Asia. As cases of COVID-19 surged, they sequestered for months in Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands. But with a teen heading to college and other family tugs to the US, they made plans to cross the Indian Ocean as soon as there were signs of South Africa opening up. “We would have stayed in Asia if we felt positive about being able to move between countries, but that seemed unlikely and now looks even worse,” Lani Bevaqua says. If a family emergency called them home, they’d be stuck: Interisland travel halted, making it impossible to reach a marina where they could safely leave their boat and access an airport, except by sailing Dafne out of the country. “We felt uncomfortable being caught somewhere that we literally couldn’t leave,” she says from their anchorage in Seychelles. They expect to arrive in the Caribbean next spring, and cruise North America in 2021.

In Indonesia, Adamastor’s crew were ­relieved that the state of emergency allowed continued visa extensions in this notoriously bureaucratic destination. But Jess Lloyd-Mostyn was troubled that “once the emergency stay permit amnesty was over, the first thing we were asked was, ‘Why have you not sailed back to England?’ It’s very hard to explain calmly how impossible such a thing (a journey of 13,000 odd miles) would be right now, with three young children, and not feel frustrated.”

Jess, husband James and their little ones intended to leave Indonesia earlier this year to avoid exceeding the three-year cruising permit; with no borders open nearby, they might face a hefty bill to import the boat. Yet Jess remains optimistic as they progress toward a clearance port to demonstrate their intentions to depart when it’s reasonable, and appreciates their relative security. “I think that things are harder for cruisers in Thailand because the immigration laws want foreigners to leave, but the Customs laws state that boats can’t be left unattended. Couple that with all the surrounding borders being closed, and what can you do?”

Interim Models for Cruising

While the options vary by region, there are clear themes. Even under the assumption that 2021 will continue with many countries inaccessible, there will be fluctuating regulations in those that are accessible, and added hurdles for clearance into nearly all locales. Two basic approaches stand out: first, taking longer passages to fewer destinations; second, cruising within a country or region where clearances are easier. More-experienced cruisers are better-prepared for the first, and any can choose the latter.

For most cruisers, the patience born of our adage that plans are made in the sand at low tide is playing out in new approaches. Some are reducing range, or keeping potential passage distances to reach backup-plan harbors in mind when making destination decisions. Others are slowing down, whether forced by quarantine or to enjoy fewer places for longer. And nearly all anticipate more hurdles—for more paperwork, more communications ­requirements and more fees.

What’s gone until the world has a widely available, reliable vaccine is the model for visiting a string of countries in a season or even a year. Bucket listers in search of a circumnavigation can’t count on the access to ports (regulations might change while underway) or access to goods or repairs in a typical fast-track loop.

Starting Under Pandemic

Should those with a long-held dream to go cruising hold off on a 2021 departure? This decision is based on individual circumstances and risk tolerance, just as in any other year. The stakes are just higher now, and the well of patience, perseverance, and skills needed for safe and comfortable cruising tapped further.

On the west coast, the reduced size of a casual rally that annually progresses down the US West Coast highlights this decision. The Coho Ho-Ho is an informal fleet where crews head south from Puget Sound on their own timetable, sharing information and camaraderie along the way. In a typical summer, the fleet is comprised of a few dozen boats; this year, all but two canceled southbound plans. Cruising in Mexico on his Lord Nelson 35 Jean Anne, Steve Olson says: “I was a bit shocked and saddened when I heard that cruisers were opting not to sail down to Mexico due to COVID. Knowing what I now know about Mexico and Mexican cruising, I feel much safer and less at risk of contracting COVID down here than I would in the US.”

Yet for many, the pandemic is motivation to set sail despite the challenges. Yacht brokers report that boat sales are booming. Subscribers to the coaching ­service my husband, Jamie, and I have to help cruisers and potential cruisers ­succeed is running at double pre-­coronavirus levels. One family we’re working with recently flew to Grenada (via a couple of other island hops because there are no direct US flights); they waited out a 14-day quarantine in a beachfront cottage there before moving onto their new-to-them catamaran. Another family flew from the US to Latvia for a 14-day “country cleaning” before heading back across the pond to Martinique to a boat waiting for them. Still others are ­beginning on the US coast, where no international clearance is needed to spread their cruising wings.

While 2021 might not be a good year for new cruisers to strike out across oceans, ranging from a point of ­departure is reasonable. The slower pace and necessity to watch regulations might even facilitate softer landings into the lifestyle, and open experiences missed on a faster track.

Looking Forward

As this issue goes to press, COVID-19 ­cases are rising again in many regions. Lessons from 2020 suggest that advance planning will continue to be difficult, and travel corridors might not emerge. Many common cruising routes—such as exploring the Caribbean chain, sailing coastwise through Latin America, or winding across the South Pacific—include migrations through countries that are more vulnerable to outbreaks, with healthcare systems that sailors might not wish to test. While it is still possible to cruise, it is more complicated.

Cruising now leans on deeper skills and resourcefulness. It requires patience and research, and costs more. But a focus on experiences rather than route schedules can bring fresh perspective into the joys of voyaging. More than ever, cruising will be about sensitivity to the locales hosting our vessels. It will be about taking the time to find empathy for the outlook of the local communities we anchor near.

Aboard Totem, our family’s cruising plans were upended in 2020. Instead of ­departing Mexico to sail to the South Pacific, we self-isolated for months in the Sea of Cortez. As much as we crave a return of passagemaking to faraway places, I expect that 2021 will continue to feature tacos instead of bringing back poisson cru. But for our crew, as for many cruisers, the joy of life afloat stems from experiences within the journey—not chalking up destinations. In the past week, wildlife encounters with a transient pod of orcas, filter-feeding whale sharks, and yipping coyote packs in the moonlight reminded us again that magic exists wherever you choose to seek it, and doesn’t know there’s a pandemic on.

Follow along with Behan Gifford and the rest of the Totem crew at cruisingworld.com/sailing-totem.

New Clearance Requirements

Arriving into a new country just got more complicated. Processes and paperwork vary; this list is based on a common range of requirements among Caribbean islands.

• Have arrival authorization issued prior to departure from a previous port.
• Take a pre-departure COVID-19 test, generally specified to be the RT-PCR (nasal swab).
• Carry proof of health insurance.
• Expect a health check on arrival, including additional COVID-19 testing.
• Expect quarantine days, depending on travel history; some islands credit sea time.
• Carry a supply of approved face masks and a thermometer.
• Use a contact-tracing app while in country.

The post The Outlook for Cruising 2021 appeared first on Cruising World.

A seasoned skipper and sailboat that has successfully anchored in the Caribbean might not have the gear or expertise to safely anchor in the Pacific. Why? Because the anchorages in the Bahamas and Lesser Antilles are generally benign, with shallow depth, white sand, no swell, few katabatic gusts and zero current. Not so, say, in French Polynesia.

I recently spent a month anchored in Huahine in the Society Islands and was surrounded by dragging sailboats. Anchoring here looks so easy on Google Earth, but it’s extremely challenging in this section of the actual planet Earth. Every single evening, the crews of large vessels (many high-windage single- and double-hulled chartered bareboats) return after a night at the waterfront bars of the main village of Fare to discover that their boat has gone on walkabout. This requires these bewildered crews (if lucky) to find their vessel in the dark, board it in possibly rough conditions, get it underway in treacherous, reef-strewn waters in the pitch-black of night, and then safely ­reanchor it in a crowded harbor—no easy task.

Why?

The reason is simple: They anchor for the conditions they are currently experiencing, not the conditions they will experience. I repeat: A seasoned sailor realizes that he must anchor to withstand the wind and sea conditions he might get, not the conditions he is currently in.

Conditions change. We know this. These changes must be anticipated.

Is it possible to anchor safely in Huahine? Absolutely! We’ve had no ­problem (other than people hitting us), and not one fully crewed charter boat manned by a Polynesian skipper (that we know of) has dragged. Does it require unusual or extraordinary gear? No, all that is needed is regular rode and hook—well, a generous amount of chain helps.

Most of the visiting boats arrive from Raiatea or Bora Bora in the afternoon. Afternoons are generally pleasant in July, the season most sailors pass through. Navigation is easy—the white sand jumps out from the deep blue water, and the hundreds of coral heads are easy to spot.

Basically, new arrivals tend to anchor in a millpond and immediately go ashore. This is one of the friendliest isles imaginable. They meet some locals, fall in love, and everyone retires to the Huahine Yacht Club for a wonderful night of local music and food, and laughter.

Alas, every single evening for days on end, we had katabatic wind gusts over 30 knots, and three evenings, the gusts reached 40 knots. Please understand, these are not the winds offshore, which are generally in the 18- to 22-knot range. They are the savage stop-and-go gusts from the high mountains and low ­valleys of the Haabai area. Of course, any cruising vessel properly anchored should be able to withstand a 30-knot gust. However, a 30-plus-knot gust is much easier to survive from a 20-knot steady breeze versus no wind and then howling. Why? Because your relaxed boat and its chain rode will build up a lot of speed and inertia before it suddenly comes up short. This can, and regularly does, snatch out anchors that have too little scope or too short a snubber.

And all of this takes place inside the lagoon, which, as a child, I thought would offer 360-degree protection; as an adult, I now realize it’s also a 360-degree dead lee shore. Basically, you can’t drag for long off the town anchorage of Fare without hitting another vessel, rock or reef.

But that’s not the whole of it. The moment the wind comes up, the seas build and slop over the windward (east) side of the reef. Each wave contains millions of gallons of water, and all this water has to exit the lagoon somehow and fast. Thus, one’s almost always anchored in some current, and occasionally in more than 4 knots of it.

This means that no vessel in the harbor is lying downwind of its anchor, and some deep-draft monohulls of traditional design can be tide-bound, transom facing into the wind. Centerboarders sometimes lie ahull sideways to the wind. And often catamarans scribe huge circles around their anchors at high rates of speed. (One night we saw a Catana smash into a steel boat, and the sound of the crash almost sickened me.)

Some of the local boats or experienced New Zealanders who regularly cruise these waters have small anti-hunt sails they hoist off their backstay to prevent their vessels from scribing circles when wind and current oppose. We are ketch-rigged on Ganesh, and hoisting our mizzen often either stops this completely or greatly exaggerates it. Given that, we never go ashore with our mizzen sail up in case conditions change.

And, oh, wait—we’re not done. While all the boats anchored off Fare appear to be in a group, they are actually anchored differently. About half are anchored in 8 feet of water, and the other half are anchored in 65 feet of water. Wow!

Now any sailor worth his salt knows the importance of scope: You have to have enough rope or chain deployed to anchor safely. I use a Rocna anchor with 7-to-1 scope when I can, and 5-to-1 when I must. This means that in 65 feet of water, I must deploy 350 feet of chain to safely anchor at the minimum 5-to-1 scope, or 490 feet of chain to anchor with a safety margin of 7-to-1 scope.

That’s a lot of chain. I carry only 225 feet of it, because otherwise my boat goes bow-down and begins to hobbyhorse excessively at sea. True, I have numerous nylon rodes I can add, but this makes retrieving the complicated mess in the middle of the night (say with a 30-foot-wide catamaran jammed on our bow) difficult.

Thus, I avoid anchoring in difficult conditions in 65 feet of water.

I also know that most (but maybe not all) recreational sailing craft anchoring ahead of me in 65 feet of water haven’t planned for 7-to-1 scope or 5-to-1 scope; more likely they’re at 3-to-1 or less, which is totally inadequate for the conditions they will soon face.

Now some Cruising World readers have very sharp pencils and are jumping up and down in protest because my scope numbers are wrong: 65 times 5 isn’t 350, but rather 325! Why am I being so sloppy with the numbers?

I’ll get to that in a second.

My ketch draws 6 feet, and in the ­lagoon, I was anchored in 8 feet of water, so I deployed 65 feet of chain plus my ­nylon snubber. Excessive? No, it’s minimal. I should have paid out 91 feet for 7-to-1 scope. Why? Because scope is calculated from the bow roller to the bottom, not by the depth of the water.

Think this doesn’t matter? Think again.

Anchored near us is a centerboard Skipjack-esque vessel (it looks like a Tarpon Springs sponge boat) with a large amount of sheer and a long bowsprit pointing skyward. It’s anchored in only 3 feet of water but requires about the same amount of scope as we do in 8 feet because its side-roller chock is so high above the water on its bowsprit.

There’s another factor: I was anchored on the edge of a sandy shelf, with my anchor well dug into the bottom, in 8 feet, as I said, and eventually with 7-to-1 scope out. So it was almost impossible to anchor ahead of me on this ledge because you couldn’t put out enough scope. Still, two boats anchored in 65 feet of water dragged back toward me until their anchors caught.

This “uphill” anchoring didn’t make me happy because the skippers of these boats couldn’t put out proper scope without hitting me, so they left their rodes as they were, though they were still in deeper water. If the wind reversed, they’d both drag back downhill and then go on walkabout.

In such a situation, what’s my ­responsibility as a cruiser? Tell them? Don’t tell them? Get in a fistfight or anchorment—er, I mean, argument?

I’ve found, from long experience, that the best thing to do is move. I ignore who is right or who is wrong and who anchored first; I just leave and reanchor my vessel safely. I have no right to tell others how or where to anchor, but I do, most certainly, have an obligation to anchor my boat safely. And that means moving when others anchor improperly around me.

Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying to not anchor in Huahine. I recommend you do, because this island is one of the nicest places in French Polynesia. And it is certainly possible because we never dragged, and none of the local skippers do either.

How do you do it?

You need a lot of chain because the Pacific is so much deeper than the Caribbean. I’m often forced to anchor in 80 feet of water in this ocean. Never have I considered such a thing in the Caribbean. (In northern Tonga, I managed to anchor in 105 feet for a month!)

And then you have to anchor far away from others. This usually isn’t a problem, but the fact of the matter is that someone without knowledge of any of the above might anchor right next to you and there’s nothing you can do (save move).

Example: My writer friend Dudley Pope of the Lord Ramage series wanted to finish his novel, so he purchased three spools of nylon line and anchored in more than 100 feet of water off Virgin Gorda. Just as he was tidying up, a Morgan Out Island 41 bareboat dropped its hook right next to him. With a smile, Dudley asked politely, “Do you realize you’re anchoring in over 100 feet of water?”

“No problem,” its not-yet-sunburnt skipper hollered back. “We only draw 4!”

Remember: Anchoring is the bedrock skill of sailors. Once mastered, the world is your oyster. But it can be tricky, especially at night, in Huahine, when the katabatic gusts blow.

Cap’n Fatty and Carolyn Goodlander are sitting out the pandemic aboard their ketch, Ganesh, in Singapore. You can read more about Fatty’s thoughts on dropping the hook in his book Creative Anchoring, available online.

The post Anchoring in Paradise appeared first on Cruising World.

The novel coronavirus sent the entire planet, including the sailing world, into a complete tailspin, and at least temporarily altered or even erased the very freedom we enjoy while cruising under sail. The following five COVID-19 dispatches from both near and far-flung waters are a testimony to the resiliency and fortitude of sailors everywhere, serving as snapshots of our time.

This past spring, the global pandemic resulting from the novel coronavirus upended the world—­including the cruising world—as sailors around the planet scrambled to seek safe harbors and dash together new plans even as borders and waterways slammed closed and the notion of “quarantine,” always a feature of the conclusion of a long passage, took on a whole new meaning.

There was nowhere, literally, that was not affected in some way, shape or form. Working from home here in Newport, Rhode Island, the stories began trickling in. Some of those filtering back were troubling; others were inspirational, bordering on outright heroic.

Take the case of Argentine sailor Juan Manuel Ballestero who, as reported in The New York Times, was stranded on a small island off the coast of Portugal in mid-March aboard his Ohlson 29, Skua, when the pandemic struck. Desperate to see his father, who was soon to turn 90, Ballestero decided to sail home. He was denied entry to Cape Verde to reprovision and pressed on anyway, ultimately spending 85 days at sea before reuniting with his dad in Mar del Plata, where he did receive a hero’s welcome.

Or what about the great yacht designer Rod Johnstone, one of the principals of the family-run J/Boat company. According to an account in The Royal Gazette, a Bermuda newspaper, Johnstone’s friend Jean de Fontenay was visiting the United States, with his 67-foot boat, Baraka, docked on the island nation in St. George’s, when everything closed down, including all international flights. Hurricane season was approaching. What to do? Well, Johnstone, de Fontenay and two crew hopped aboard a new 33-foot J/99 and sailed from Connecticut to Bermuda. They were never allowed ashore, but a Bermudan friend left groceries in their dinghy, and the four sailors split up and doublehanded the two boats back to the States. They were not to be denied.

What follows are five more dispatches from around the globe, of sailors facing and reacting to unprecedented circumstances in this dreadful season of COVID-19. They speak for themselves. And they make us proud to be members of the community of cruising sailors.

Problems in the Pacific

By Alvah Simon

The best-laid plans of the cruising sailor oft times go astray. But no matter Mother Ocean’s wind or waves, tides or tantrums, bluewater sailors always knew that somewhere on that distant shore, a port of refuge awaited them. Then along came COVID-19.

Perhaps most illustrative of these dystopian times is the saga of New Zealanders Daryll and Maree Walker and their two children on board their 57-foot yacht, Talasker. They had set off on the trip of a lifetime: a clockwise voyage around the Pacific Rim, up through the islands to Japan, over to Alaska, down the West Coast and back to New Zealand via the fabled South Pacific.

Things were rolling along splendidly but, while in Micronesia, rumors of a global pandemic began to filter in. They headed straight for Guam, arriving a mere three hours before the borders closed. They hoped to push on to Japan but began to suspect that the Japanese government was underreporting COVID-19 cases because of the effect on the coming Olympics. In any event, they could not be sure that the Japanese border would not close while en route.

They made the hard decision to turn around; as it turned out, it was much harder than they could have imagined.

For added safety, they chose to voluntarily isolate on board for two weeks before departing Guam, thus depleting their supplies. They sailed to Ponape, where they were flatly refused entry. Using dwindling fuel supplies, they soldiered on to the remote Kapingamarangi Atoll. The locals were friendly but firm: no entry. Understandable when put in historical context; the Marquesas Islands had a thriving population of over 100,000 when they first allowed foreign sailors to enter with inadvertent but devastating diseases. Their numbers bottomed out at 4,000 souls.

Talasker headed south to the Solomon Islands, emailing ahead for permission to rest, refuel and resupply. Not only was this denied, but they were even refused permission to transit Solomon Islands’ waters toward another port of refuge. Then they were commanded to stop and were visited over several days by police and immigration vessels who threatened fines, jail and impoundment for ill-defined violations. After several days of fear and confusion, they were told they could proceed through Bougainville Channel. But at nearly 100 miles out, they were ordered back to Honiara. They wisely ignored these orders and pushed on toward New Caledonia.

There they were told they would be granted only 24 hours in an isolated anchorage and then must depart. They were tired, low on everything, and dangerous weather was predicted near New Zealand. “Bureaucrat” is actually a French word that roughly translates into English as “cover your butt.” Those were the “official” restrictions, but they were granted two days of glorious rest before they were even approached by officials, then given access to fuel and limited supplies, and allowed to await a safer weather window. Viva le France! Ultimately, they stayed 10 whole days before a weeklong sail to New Zealand. There, after nearly two months at sea, they gratefully dropped their lines on the immigration dock.

But what of the future? While Daryll said that they are raring to head out again, many cruisers are nearly crippled with uncertainty. There are presently 40 foreign vessels “trapped” in Whangarei alone because all Pacific islands and Australia have closed their borders. Many sailors who landed in New Zealand flew home to the States or Europe and now cannot return to their vessels. The New Zealand government has extended all visas and customs exemptions for foreign sailors but, frankly, many skippers feel they are in the safest place in the world and are in no hurry to depart. In fact, normally each year the town of Whangarei hosts an appreciation party for the 100 visiting yachts that contribute an estimated $20 million to the local economy. This year, however, it is the cruisers hosting the party to express their appreciation for their treatment by the town and the Kiwi government.

For local sailors, such as myself, the lockdown was fast and furious. The restrictions were so strict as to prevent me from even rowing out to my yacht to check the mooring and bilges for an agonizing six weeks. Those who were genuine liveaboards—along with those who, against government directives, fled their land homes to self-isolate on board—were given an almost hostile reception by locals in more-remote anchorages such as Great Barrier Island. The locals felt that the yachties were depleting the island’s limited supplies and unnecessarily exposing them to possible infection, and perhaps resented the appearance that while people on land were being desperately inconvenienced, the sailors seemed to be enjoying a holiday of swimming, fishing and moving from anchorage to anchorage. Finally, the police were asked to intervene.

The New Zealand Marine Association last year sent out emissaries to Fiji and Tahiti, and as far afield as Mexico and Panama, to entice cruisers toward New Zealand for the Southern Hemisphere cyclone season. Presently, 300 westbound yachts are waiting in Tahiti for the gates to open. The Whangarei Town Basin Marina receives daily inquiries from the Americas saying: “The Galapagos is closed. Can we come if it is nonstop?” Any response would be obsolete before the ink was dry because the situation is too fluid.

Soon, as a French Territory, Tahiti will open. But New Caledonia, while sharing the same status, will still require a ­14-day isolation in a hotel at the owner’s expense and then a further seven days on board without credit for time at sea.

The point is, there can be no real clarity while nations differ in pandemic strategies, bend to political and economic pressures, brace for the dreaded second wave, and await results of vaccine research, production and, undoubtedly, uneven distribution.

But take heart: By nature we cruisers are an adaptable lot. This COVID-19 crisis will test our patience, but in time we will once again escape to the boundless blue.

Two-time circumnavigator and author Alvah Simon is a contributing editor to Cruising World.

Offshore in the Blue Atlantic

By Hank Schmitt

I have been fortunate to spend the past 15 winter sailing seasons in the Caribbean. My regular port of refuge is St. Maarten, with numerous flights and a high level of quality marine services. Most fellow veteran sailors thought the challenges inflicted by the one-two punch of hurricanes Maria and Irma were insufferable enough. But it turns out nobody had a pandemic plan in place from the smallest Caribbean island to world leaders. The quick shutting down of borders caught many skippers by surprise, locking many in place. Those caught at sea, as islands closed entirely, were in double trouble.

Obligations to departing charter guests in Dominica, along with confusion over the ever-changing closing dates of borders, caught me solo-sailing 180 nautical miles in 24 hours from Dominica to St. Maarten…arriving 11 hours after the island had closed. A 48-hour reprieve under Q flag only deepened the resolve of customs and border patrol to enforce the closure, which led me to Plan B: a sail to the United States Virgin Islands. I could not get into St. Maarten, but with my Swan 48, Avocation, being an America-flagged vessel, and me being an American citizen, I would be guaranteed entry.

In my mind, onboard email capability is not a necessity. So, before leaving St. Maarten, I therefore had to relay by text to friends ashore my answers to the COVID-19-related questions that US Customs was posing that were required 24 hours before arrival. After another solo overnight sail from St. Maarten to Charlotte Amalie, I dropped anchor off the Customs office located at the Blyden Ferry Terminal to clear in. No one in the office had received my pre-arrival health declaration, but no matter. Ten minutes later, I was legally welcomed back to US territory with no quarantine, no restrictions, no fee—not even a temperature check.

This is not to say that everything was normal. At the airport, the National Guard was performing temperature checks for passengers arriving by plane. The cruise-ship terminals were empty, hotels closed, charters canceled and the nearby British Virgin Islands under a no-sail edict. Seeing zero sails traversing Sir Francis Drake Channel at the height of the Caribbean sailing season was somewhat apocalyptic.

Finally having an island to shelter in place allowed me to watch from afar via The New York Times app and WhatsApp video calls as the world changed under pandemic lockdown. As the days turned to weeks that were closing in on insurance-­policy-imposed deadlines for moving to safe harbors ahead of the impending hurricane season, I was witness to the looming logistical nightmare of stranded boats within closed islands with no way for owners or crew to board. Some owners chartered planes—and in one case an entire cargo plane—to get to their boats via St. Thomas.

The group that runs the annual Salty Dawg Rally quickly pivoted to invite boats to join a loose federation of yachts departing weekly over several Sundays, helping roughly 185 boats get home. Almost all chose to listen to weather routers who decided the safest way to return to the States was through the Bahamas to Florida and up the coast. Since many were cruising couples sailing shorthanded, this seemed a safer choice. One big COVID-19 change: Sailors were setting sail shorthanded and not flying in additional crew to help.

I have made the passage from the Caribbean to New England every year since 1999. Normally I sail with a full crew of paying charter guests, but this year I decided to return doublehanded. Most years, I stay east and sail almost due north on a beam reach to Bermuda on the first stretch before making the second, more-challenging leg from Bermuda across the Gulf Stream to Newport.

This year, with a departure from Red Hook—100 miles farther west from my usual departure point—we were lucky to not have to maintain easting to get to Bermuda (which was closed anyway) and were able to sail a relaxed broad reach. I seldom set a waypoint sailing offshore, but rather try to find a comfortable and quick sailing angle for the first half of a passage. If you are within 20 or even 30 degrees of your desired course, you are OK, as long as you have a good idea of the next wind shift. It gets even more important to follow a compass course to a waypoint the last couple of days.

By the time we hit the latitude of Bermuda, we were 160 nautical miles west of the island, and had shaved 100 miles off the traditional passage. After four days of trade-wind sailing, the breeze kicked up from the northeast above Bermuda, which allowed us to crack off and sail west on a broad reach to set up our Gulf Stream crossing. When the winds went southwest a day and a half later, we were able to tack over and sail north to cross the Gulf Stream with the winds and current running in roughly the same direction. Our course was north, but we were making northeast over the ground while in the Stream. We rounded Montauk, New York, some eight and a half days out and were docked before noon, just shy of a nine-day trip dock to dock.

Now that I am home, I look back on my shortened COVID-19 Caribbean season and am trying to predict what next season will look like. Will there be the same rallying cry to return next winter or will many cruisers feel required to stay close to home as a theoretical second wave reels up? Or will more sailors than ever choose to social distance by taking off on their boats looking for safer places to shelter until a vaccine signals the all-clear? At this moment, who knows?

Veteran voyager Hank Schmitt is the founder and proprietor of Offshore Sailing Opportunities, a networking service that links boat owners with prospective crews. For more, visit its website.

Marooned in the Maldives

by Judy Sundin

We are a couple, Sherman and Judy Sundin, sailing the world on our Bristol 41, Fairwinds 1. We arrived in Uligan in the northern Maldives on March 15, with plans to continue to transit the Indian Ocean and then sail back to the southern Caribbean, completing our circumnavigation. In the three days it took to sail from Sri Lanka, so much had changed. The check-in was unusual with our temperatures being taken, but the masked and gloved officials did not come aboard.

At midnight on March 20, the Maldives closed its borders. Several boats that arrived after the closure were provided with a brief time to rest and take on fuel, food and water, but were then asked to leave the Maldives. Borders were closing like falling dominoes, and we were grateful we could officially stay put. Access to shore was prohibited, but we could swim around our boats. SIM cards for cellphones and other supplies were provided. Then we waited. As the weeks passed, our small home became even smaller: 36 steps for a round-trip spin around the deck; seven and a half steps from bow to stern belowdecks; two paces across.

We looked at our options. Tanzania was the only country open, but with our own healthcare concerns, we couldn’t go to a country that had basically ignored the virus, other than suggesting that herbal tea and prayer were a cure. After 20 days, we were given permission to mingle with other cruisers in the anchorage but were not granted shore access. Just how serious was this situation? How long would it last? Had the world gone mad?

Lots of questions, no answers.

COVID-19 cases started to explode in the capital city of Malé. A city of approximately 220,000 people on an island measuring a little over 3 square miles, it is one of the most densely populated cities on Earth. In the meantime, behind the scenes, many of our fellow cruisers were toiling away tirelessly, organizing supply deliveries and searching for alternative anchorages that we might get permission to go to. With a strict no-movement order in place, the latter was not getting any traction.

We once again made contact with our respective embassies to see if they could seek permission for us to return to Malaysia. No luck. We had to stay put. Yet the southwest monsoon season was approaching. The weather was clearly turning and the wind shifting, so we moved across to the western side of the lagoon and found some protection behind the reef and the small island of Innafinolhu.

Several boats successfully sought and received permission to sail to Malé and prepared to continue on their journey. Some had permits to go to the British Indian Ocean Territory in the Chagos Archipelego, while other EU-registered vessels received permission to sail to Reunion Island. As US sailors, both of those places were still closed to us. The rumor was that the Seychelles would open up on June 1, but where to after that?

Our agent was able to secure us permission to go ashore on Innafinolhu. After six weeks of limited exercise, my first walk on the island was blissful. We had turned a corner somehow, and the fact that we could once again resume sundowners on a beach felt like life had taken a turn for the better. Our conversations could be about trivial things instead of our stagnant situation.

However, a cyclone was forming in the Bay of Bengal—not that far away, but heading north. Its tail was sucking all the energy out of this side of the Indian Ocean, and we were about to get hammered. Our agent, horrified at the videos sent to him showing our tenuous anchoring conditions, immediately called the embassies on our behalf to try to get them to put pressure on the government to give us permission to move to other anchorages for our safety. It wasn’t granted, turning it into a wild week of broken rode snubbers and open-sea-passage conditions in our anchorage.

With a combination of the restricted-movement order and bad weather, our supply boat had not made it up this far north. Our supplies were dwindling. We continued to wait for news of any path to open up. The confinement and constant weather worries had surely tested our patience and our mental health.

Finally, we were given permission to move south to Malé. This had become the epicenter of COVID-19 in the Maldives, so we sailed there with some trepidation. Still, it felt wonderful to be on the move and at sea. With the assistance of our agent, we were able to resupply, collect our parts and get our medications. There are four boats remaining here in Malé. After 90 days of being in lockdown, the restrictions were lifted. We will stay here for the time being while we seek permission to go to the Seychelles. From there, we will decide where to go next: South Africa if it opens, the Med via the Suez Canal, or back across the Indian Ocean to Asia. Our uncertain travels continue.

Judy and Sherman Sundin, an Aussie and American, respectively, met while working for American Express in Sydney. They purchased Fairwinds 1 in 2012, and set sail for the Caribbean. They’ve been living aboard and exploring the world ever since.

Isolated on the Intracoastal

By Tory Salvia

On December 6, 2019, I awoke aboard my Mariner 36 sloop, Sparkle Plenty, to sun streaming into the cabin, totally unaware of the crisis that would unfold in the months ahead. Outside, a chilly Chesapeake Bay wind blew out of the south. With two crew, we soon motored out the narrow creek on the West River, about 10 miles south of Annapolis, Maryland. I contemplated the voyage ahead to Georgetown, South Carolina. There I would spend the winter in relative warmth. My plan was to return in April and resume my life.

After a rough three-day trip to Hampton, Virginia, we carried on to the Elizabeth River and into “the Ditch.” On the FM radio I heard something about “China” and “virus” but paid no attention. My focus was on bridge openings and making our designated anchorages before the early winter sunset. Our trip south was relatively uneventful except for one grounding on a mud bank that required a tow, my first ever in nearly 45 years of sailing. Soon I would be aground again.

In Georgetown, South Carolina, on December 21, I docked at Harborwalk Marina, just 100 yards off Front Street, the town’s main drag. I flew home for Christmas and returned at the end of January. By then, Wuhan, China, was starting to appear in the news with reports of a new virus. “Just another flu,” I thought.

By the end of January, the Wuhan outbreak was starting to make international news. In the US, February was a lost month. Even though the number of countries reporting the virus had exploded, locally it was business as usual. Then in early March, the country seemed to wake up. Once the focus shifted to “community spread,” I suddenly realized the virus might be here. Perhaps aboard the next transient boat? My slip mate’s boat? My boat?

Until now, our small group of liveaboards had shared drinks and cooked dinners together. As COVID-19 became a local issue, we started looking at each other with apprehension. What effect would the virus have on our plans? What about Intracoastal Waterway bridges? Would the Corps of Engineers close the Ditch? What about the hundreds of boats about to head north? Should we sail or remain in port? As public health officials called for people to stay home, I decided to remain in Georgetown through April, for my own safety and the general good. Soon marinas started closing along the ICW, local businesses shut down, and social distancing became the new mantra. Few transients passed through. Cruisers went into hunker-down survival mode.

With cases spiking in Maryland, I extended my stay in South Carolina through May. Each morning, I awoke early with plans to accomplish several tasks, but my energy quickly dissipated. I experienced what many have described as “COVID-19 malaise.” In the evenings, I walked the historic district. The streets were deserted. I had a cab deliver provisions purchased online. I did laundry at midnight. I avoided my slip mates. I wore a mask and gloves whenever I left the boat.

Once Maryland allowed recreational boating to resume in late May, it was time to return home. But my June voyage was not what I had envisioned. I had wanted a leisurely passage, visiting towns and isolated anchorages along the ICW, followed by a week or so of cruising the lower Chesapeake. But that was the pre-COVID-19 world. Now, a fast passage was in order, with limited to no external contacts. Then, suddenly, my local crewmember became unavailable. I immediately put out a crew call on my social media and crew finder sites.

The first reply was from Bill Cullen, an extremely experienced sailor known for his gear talks at boat-show seminars. Our passage would be a delivery with as few outside interactions as possible; we would sail as many miles as possible during the long summer days before dropping the hook. During the entire passage, we stayed at only one marina, in Myrtle Beach. From our departure, we raised sail whenever possible. Contrary to some “experts,” you can sail or at least motorsail much of the ICW when the wind is off your stern quarter.

With two weeks of provisions stowed aboard plus extra diesel and water, we made 12-hour runs and 70-plus-mile days; consistent southerlies allowed us to keep sail up along much of the Ditch. We free-sailed the wider rivers, sounds and the Chesapeake. Sailing added 1 to 2 knots to our motoring speed and more to our morale.

It was a fast but eventful trip, so quick that my relief crew was unable to join me, but Bill carried on. Ten days out of Georgetown, we pulled into my slip in the small village of Galesville.

As I write this, I am nearing the end of my self-imposed 14-day quarantine aboard. I made this decision long ago to protect my family and friends once I returned. Outside the marina bubble in the village, most people are not wearing masks. What are they thinking? In rough weather, sailors wear PFDs to protect themselves and their crewmates. If you go overboard without a PFD, you make a rescue much more difficult, putting yourself and other crew at greater risk. Right now, because of COVID-19, we are all experiencing some very rough weather. Like PFDs, we need to wear masks to protect each other.

Once my quarantine ends, I am apprehensive about leaving the boat. I feel like a singlehander returning from a long voyage at sea, unsure of my land legs. I am already weary of constantly being on guard. I am unsure about my future. Will I remain here, or will I sail south again? The only certainty I have is that Sparkle Plenty still pulls at her dock lines.

Filmmaker Tory Salvia specializes in nautical productions and is the president of the Sailing Channel LLC.

Quiet and Connection Down Under

By Lin Pardey

Cruising on,” I wrote to my family in the early days of the pandemic. “Not much has changed.” And in most ways, despite the COVID-19 restrictions here in Australia, that was true.

In mid-March, after a two-and-a-half-month layover near Melbourne to spend time with David’s first granddaughter and to welcome his first grandson, we set sail east and then north aboard his 40-foot cutter, Sahula, slowly meandering toward Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef. “Slowly” is the operative word. We didn’t want to get into the tropics before the end of the cyclone season. We enjoyed beautiful, isolated anchorages near Wilsons Promontory National Park and the excitement of crossing the shallow river bar at the coastal village of Lakes Entrance. Because we had little internet access, we enjoyed days of solitude, reading, catching up with onboard projects, and walks on shore.

Only when we ran low on provisions and headed into the town of Eden two weeks later did we learn the government was ­clamping things down to contain the virus. Self-isolation was to start the very next day. The last nonessential shops were being closed indefinitely as we walked through this normally vibrant little town. The market shelves had dozens of bare spots as I topped up our supply of fresh food. I was thankful I had ­previously done a large reprovisioning, so didn’t need toilet paper or paper towels.

We carefully read the new regulations and found no direct ­reference to people living on yachts, other than to self-isolate and go out only to exercise or buy food. As we journeyed northward, we tried to avoid shopping for groceries more than necessary and took the recommended precautions when we did. The only other times we were within 100 meters of another person was when we topped up on water and fuel.

It was three weeks after the self-isolation orders had gone into effect that we reached Sydney Harbor. And there I had a small taste of how difficult the COVID-19 restrictions were for most other people. Since it was legal to take walks ashore together for exercise purposes, we called David’s daughter, who lives in an a very small terrace house only a few miles from where we anchored. “Come on down to the park here at Blackwattle Bay. Bring Peaches (the dog) for her walk. We can stroll and talk as long as we stay 2 meters apart.” My arms actually ached from wanting to give her kids, Emily and Lachlan, hugs when we met.

Fortunately for us, Sydney Sails was considered an essential business because the crew there makes safety gear bags for the ferry fleet. Thus we were able have the boat measured and a sail fitted, then test the new nylon drifter Sahula needed. Kale, a fine marine electrician, was another whose occupation was declared essential. He did yeoman duty when we accidentally roasted our house batteries. The comings and goings of these tradesmen helped us feel little had changed as we had contact with other people.

It did feel spookily quiet on Sydney Harbor: almost no city sounds, only the occasional rumble of a truck across the normally traffic-laden bridge only a few hundred meters away from our anchorage. And almost no wakes to rock the boat as local yachts stayed tied up, and only a fifth the usual number of ferries crisscrossed the harbor.

When we went ashore for a walk, we did chat casually to half a dozen local liveaboards we passed. “As long as we spend most of our time on board, the local authorities don’t care if we move from anchorage to anchorage,” one told us as we lingered alongside in our dinghy.

The marine police in some of the ports to the north of Sydney had different interpretations of the regulations. On April 28, six weeks after the self-isolation period began, we left Sydney to continue northward. At a small market in the Pittwater region on Broken Bay (about 20 miles north of Sydney Harbor), we chatted with an American sailor who had been told he must find a mooring and not move from there until the lockdown was over. But no one approached us during the two weeks we spent in the isolated-feeling rivers and creeks of Broken Bay.

The American sailor was the first of almost two dozen overseas cruisers we met who were questioning their next moves. They were all stuck meandering the coast of New South Wales as Queensland closed its border to everyone other than residents. Many of these cruisers are having to fight for visa extensions to keep their stays legal. Because I hold both an American and New Zealand passport, David is a returning Queenslander, and Sahula’s hailing port is Townsville, the two of us can sail on to the Barrier Reef, then back to New Zealand.

It was also in Broken Bay that we heard what to me felt like exciting news. As of the next day, anyone in New South Wales could safely and legally have two other adults over for a visit. I immediately invited two Sydney friends to join us on board. Suddenly I realized just how much I missed entertaining, having an excuse to dream up special treats, give the boat an extra bit of sprucing up. When Ben and Di climbed on board, and Di reached out with her elbow, I began to do the same.

“No, that doesn’t feel right tonight,” Di said. Then we both shook our heads and eagerly grabbed each other in a hug. Now I knew what I had craved most of all in these strange COVID-19 days: the warmth that comes from true human contact.

Two-time circumnavigator and prolific sailing writer Lin Pardey is a longtime, cherished and regular contributor to Cruising World.

The post 5 Sailors Tell Their Stories of COVID-19 Quarantine appeared first on Cruising World.

Finding a way to finance your lifestyle while cruising in ­remote places is one of the many challenges faced by sailors. Adrian Cartier Millon, a French kitesurf instructor, had a unique idea in mind when he set off from France six years ago aboard his Laurin Koster 28, Eureka. He was headed for New Caledonia in the South Pacific, where he’d heard the conditions were perfect to start a kite school, which he wanted to run from his boat.

Originally from Marseille, Millon set sail from the south of France and headed west across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, transited the Panama Canal, and entered Pacific waters for the first time, teaching kiteboarding as he went. He never made it to New Caledonia however. Instead he stumbled across a lesser-known kitesurfing paradise on his way across the Pacific in the lagoons of the Tuamotu atolls. The location for his kite school soon changed, and he’s been kitesurfing and sailing around those great rings of coral reef ever since. Not yet an official kite spot, it was Millon’s experience and understanding of the conditions that allowed him to take advantage of being the first to set up shop there.

The Tuamotu archipelago consists of around 80 islands and atolls, blessed with almost-consistent 15-knot wind during the windy season from April to October. Inside the lagoon, sheltered by a rim of coral, the water stays comparatively flat, and there are no mountains in sight to interrupt the steady blow of southeasterly trades. Fakarava is the second largest atoll of the archipelago, with a lagoon that stretches 30-miles from north to south and 10 miles from east to west. In the southeast corner of this lagoon exists a small motu (a Polynesian word for “small island” or “coral islets”), which at high tide is just a few hundred square meters and changes shape with each tide as the swell pushes the sand around. Millon likes to joke that his “office” is on this sandbank, and he anchors Eureka downwind from here to take advantage of the ideal conditions for kitesurfing that the location provides. Free from the usual sprinkling of coconut trees so often found along the perimeter of these atolls, kitesurfers here can make the most of constant, uninterrupted wind.

Millon brought all the materials with him that he needed to set up the school with him when he set sail from France, renewing it over the years, upgrading the kites as the technology advances. He anchors a dinghy full of kites, boards, harnesses, wetsuits and helmets on this motu, which, due to his friendly, fun-loving nature, is starting to become popular for other kitesurfers on sailboats who come to hang out, enjoy the wind, and train on new equipment like foil boards. The surrounding turquoise waters are now often dotted with colorful kites zipping back and forth.

The remoteness of the school’s location has other benefits as well. With most atolls in the Tuamotus having fewer than 1,000 residents, and usually fewer than a dozen boats at a time in each anchorage, you won’t have to compete with other kiteboarders for space, and beginners don’t have to worry about getting lines tangled with others. Best of all, it also means you usually get an instructor all to yourself.

The beauty of running the school from his sailboat is that Millon’s classes aren’t limited to this area alone. He can move around the lagoon (or even the archipelago), changing spots to suit the wind conditions or the clients. Millon doesn’t even need a sandbank for his kite school because he can store the kit on his sailboat and launch a kite from the dinghy.

It is totally apparent from his instinctive reactions, behavior and manipulation of the wind, whether on a boat or a board, that Millon grew up with the breeze in his sun-bleached hair and waves under his feet. He’s kiteboarded for more than 20 years and been an instructor for over 10 after completing a strict yearlong kite-sport instructor program in Brittany, one of the roughest, windiest areas of France, which allows him to teach any watersport pulled by kite.

A large number of his clients are sailors, passing through on their way across the Pacific. The rest are mostly friends or residents from Tahiti visiting for their holidays. For the past year, Millon has teamed up with Aline Dargie from California, a fellow kitesurfer (also once one of his students) and captain of an Edel Catamaran 35 Open called Pizza. Together they already have kitesurfing friends visiting from all over the world and are expanding their business to attract new clients.

If you find yourself in one of the Tuamotu atolls and are interested in giving kiteboarding a try, check out Tuamotu Kite School.

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