By LUCY MARCUS | Moonshine Ink
I was on a 50-foot sailboat churning through deep waves. I hadn’t seen land in over a week, and my body was racked from lack of sleep and seasickness. I was anxious to make it to the Solomon Islands and finally start our conservation projects. With cyclone season looming closer, we had only a short time left to work with the islanders who were awaiting our arrival. It had been a rough start. First the steering broke. Luckily, as long as the wind blew we could steer with the sails. Then the wind died. The captain showed our green crew how to access the rudder and attach an emergency steering tiller, which we roped in with numerous knots. We limped into the harbor in Port Vila, Vanuatu, nine days after setting sail with a smoking engine, which soon died and took another month to repair. Lesson from the sea: Sailing is not always as romantic as it sounds, and sailboats break a lot.
As a marine biologist and underwater filmmaker, I’ve always dreamed of living on a sailboat in the South Pacific. Last year, my dream became a reality when I received a message from Chris Bone, the director of OceansWatch, a nonprofit based in New Zealand that helps coastal communities conserve their marine environments, develop sustainable livelihoods, and ensure access to primary schools. He invited me to film a documentary on a six-month expedition to the Solomon Islands. Little did I know the many lessons I would learn along the way.
The journey to the Solomon Islands started in northern New Zealand in April 2014. Preparation for the venture was supposed to take two weeks, but three months later we were still packing the boats and gear for the expedition. Our crew of eight international volunteers gathered the safety equipment, shopped for and vacuum-sealed six months of food, and loaded the two sailboats for the South Pacific. Though I was frustrated by the delay and wanted to get to the islands, obtaining everything from a life raft to a ladle was critical. Lesson from New Zealand: Expedition preparation takes patience and persistence.
In July we finally set sail for Vanuatu, where we repaired the engine, and in early September we reached the Solomon Islands. We floated into a series of tiny, palm-covered islands around a huge coral atoll, a shallow bay full of reefs. The villagers of Mola, dressed in traditional grass skirts, welcomed us on the white sand beach and danced with us in a procession to the center of the palm-thatched village. A girl placed a garland of flowers around each of our necks and a crown of flowers on our heads. The kids held our hands, wanting to play on the beach. The women fed us cooked sweet potatoes, reef fish, fresh coconuts to drink, and gave us big hugs.
The village houses were beautiful and simple, made of rounded wooden pole frames with palm-thatched walls and roofs. Cool and shady, they were great protection from the tropical rainstorms and hot sun. Lesson from the villages: If you want your own house, go to the forest, cut the trees and leaves, and make one; it only takes three weeks. If you need more food, spend more time in the garden and plant more vegetables and fruit trees. Even 10-year-olds have their own gardens. Here there is no hunger or homelessness.
For the next two months we sailed to five villages in the reef islands and three other villages in the distant, collapsed-volcano islands of Utupua and Vanikoro. All of these villages had requested our help and ideas about various conservation techniques. In exchange, the native people gifted us sweet yellow watermelons, huge orange papayas, and bundles of purple and green beans. Lesson from the islanders: When there is nothing to buy or sell, gifts come in the form of companionship, love, homegrown food, and stories.
We trained groups of young men in each village to be Reef Guardians to monitor reefs that were closed to fishing. When we presented the new Reef Guardians with their own masks, snorkels, and fins, they beamed at us and gave us strong handshakes like graduates receiving diplomas, proudly donning their new Reef Guardians T-shirts. One Reef Guardian, John, a father of two, told us about the crocodiles that he sometimes sees while swimming on the reefs, but he wasn’t afraid; the crocs are just another tasty food source for the people.
To thank us for our help, the village of Buma hosted a huge feast where everyone gathered in a big square, sat on the ground, and ate fish, lobster, and root vegetables from plates made of leaves, while the new Reef Guardians danced in grass costumes and huge red and blue wooden masks with grass tendrils like giant octopi. Lesson from the Reef Guardians: Men can be both brave providers and graceful dancers, carrying on traditions that tell the stories of their ancestors.
Another aspect of our work in the islands included teaching the villagers about coconut oil processing. OceansWatch sells the coconut oil in New Zealand, and the money goes to the villagers to help pay school fees for their children. When we paid the women of Buma for the 20 gallons of coconut oil they made in the week we were there, they thanked us with big hugs, tears of gratitude, and deep breaths with our foreheads pressed together. This powerful Polynesian tradition of sharing a breath is both a greeting and farewell. Lesson from the women: When hard work supports your children’s education, a new job has immense value.
Sadly, it’s possible that far less coconut oil will be waiting for OceansWatch boats when they return to the islands this summer. In March I was devastated to learn that the Solomon Islands were hit by Category 5 Cyclone Pam, the third most intense storm ever on record in the Southern Hemisphere, with wind gusts reaching 200 mph. Facebook photos showed the village of Mola flattened, and the people wrote that the trees they depended on for their diet staple of breadfruit were all knocked down, and the coconut oil processing building was destroyed. I was relieved to find out that all 50 people in Mola were safe, yet saddened to find out that this marginalized, remote community was skipped over in aid distribution. The next OceansWatch expedition will arrive in the islands in mid-2015 to help rebuild, but new trees take many years to grow fruit. Lesson from planet Earth: Not everything goes according to plan.
I learned so much on this wild adventure, which opened my mind and heart to new cultures and experiences. I know these hearty people will thrive again. Working together, they will replant, rebuild, and continue to live close to the land and to each other.
To learn more about the journey and see clips from the documentary, please search for Sailing for Sustainability at indiegogo.com.
