Sept 5, 2005 - Local Knowledge
by Scott and Wendy Bannerot

	This is Wendy steering through the coral-studded lagoon of Fakarava, Tuamotu Archipelago, secure and relaxed in the knowledge than I am perched high in the crow's nest with an excellent view of potential hazards.

When researching a new destination, we check out general travel guides, primarily Lonely Planet and Moon Publications offerings, for information on local customs, security, things to do and see, and notes on human and natural history. On the nautical side, we look for a competent, recommended cruising guide, keep our ear to the ground for sailor's grapevine tidbits, ask questions of anyone we meet who's actually been there, and seek other ancillary information where available - for example, association newsletters. We also bear in mind that the most important information is up-to-date nautical charts, tide tables, notices to mariners, and other current safety and weather faxes and bulletins - with these you can go anywhere in the absence of any sailor's guides, stories, or rumors penned by someone who was themselves just passing through. Where possible we like to obtain charts and faxes produced by the destination nation, and, similarly, to avail ourselves of locally generated weather reports. If at all possible, we like to speak with commercial fishermen and other professional mariners with long experience in the area regarding weather patterns, optimal seasonal timing for visits, and any unmarked hazards we should know about. Seldom can information from visiting voyagers match the accuracy of an experienced local, with the exception of items like specific GPS routes for safe passage through shallow areas that worked for a given draft, tide, and weather condition.

Wendy took this photo of me with our friends and crew members Hans Swete (left) and Ken Kiddie (right) as we made our way to the customs anchorage in Opua, North Island, New Zealand. We used local knowledge learned from experienced Kiwi sailors and commercial fishermen to time our passages, as well as excellent local meteorology information, and with a pinch of luck had four easy passages between Tonga and New Zealand over the years. We're all grinning widely this time because it was the easiest passage of them all, with maximum wind speed for the trip a mere 22 knots.

In our experience, information from other sailors about clearance procedures and the best places to buy parts and provisions tends to be valuable and accurate, as are their perceptions and comments about degree of local security. Most folks have really sharpened their skills in these areas, and it shows. We treat nautical advice from unknown visiting seafarers with more caution, as we have noticed far more variability in the accuracy of the data. On the other hand, some of the most valuable advice we've ever had was from very experienced sailors familiar with a given set of islands or a route between destinations. The least reliable information of all, understandably, is the opinion of a visiting sailor about the people and places he or she has visited, and whether or not someone else will enjoy it there. Let me put it this way - if they love the place, we always agree with them; if they don't like it, then, at least to date, we beg to differ.

Our approach to the degree of reliance on specific information tends to be conservative when it comes to vessel and crew safety. We almost never enter an unfamiliar port in darkness or extremely limited visibility. We almost never enter GPS waypoints from another boat into our electronics and then blindly follow the route. We use waypoints to navigate through open water to port entrances, and then use the charts and old-fashioned coastal navigation techniques with radar confirmation to sight our way in. This provides some insurance against electronic or paper chart omissions or inaccuracies. Once we've marked the route electronically the first time ourselves, we then use it with far more impunity.

In the early years of our voyaging lives we spent far more effort than we do now reading what others had written about places we intended to visit. We concluded after a while that too much research resulted in expectations and pre-formed opinions that actually inhibited the accuracy and speed of learning the truth about a place, or at least "the truth according to Scott and Wendy". We actually like to show up these days with a clean slate, with only a rough framework of general history and custom, major physical and cultural features, and the rest all blank and ready to fill in ourselves according to what we learn firsthand.

	Thanks to local knowledge we expected to encounter this Japanese troopship in the lagoon of Maleolap Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands. Had we no prior knowledge, and provided we entered the area in good light, this is one navigational hazard that would be fairly hard to miss.

When at all possible we apply our own seamanship to develop local knowledge - failsafe techniques like lounging in the crow's nest on a sunny day with handheld GPS and VHF radio while puttering around to mark a useful path through coral-strewn lagoons, free-diving anchorages thoroughly and examining the set of the anchor face to face, checking out local channel currents at different tide stages, and so on. On a larger scale, we've learned not to allow sailor's grapevine rumors to discourage us from visiting places provided we feel that we can expect reasonable security, a safe anchorage, and it's not hurricane or cyclone season. Two places given a bad rap by many in the past are the Republic of the Marshall Islands and Pago Pago, American Samoa. We passed a productive and enjoyable eight months in Pago one year, finding Tutuila to be one of the most beautiful islands in the South Pacific, and the eight-month interlude we spent in the Marshall Islands ranks among the very top voyaging experiences of our lives. Yet had we read the wrong (for us) cruising advice and believed it, we'd have never set foot in either place. Another example is that we have a good friend, a very experienced sailor and circumnavigator, who absolutely hates Fiji. This opinion is to us incomprehensible, but then I don't know exactly what happened to her there. While we may not agree personally with that assessment, we try to understand and respect her feelings on the issue. Nevertheless, we absolutely love the place and can't wait to get back, even though we'll have to sail well over a thousand miles to windward.

As the years roll by, we worry less about clearance procedures and formalities - we learn what's expected and follow the letter of the law, but it's really only a few variations on a basic theme; once the officials understand you are compliant and willing to help out they have never failed to be kind and easy-going (at least zig-zagging from Florida to Australia). The lack of "entry tension" only enhances our enjoyment, and part of the reason we occasionally seem to deviate from the opinions of some fellow sailors is that we've had a sincerely great time at every single port of call so far for the past decade. And any time we have to stop sailing to work for a while, like right now here in Australia, we miss it and can't wait to get back out on the next voyage.