August 15, 2006 - Our Favorite Cruising Area
by Scott & Wendy Bannerot

Despite the fact that this is, along with the question about storm encounters, among the most common we get, we still don't have a very short answer. The first place we ever cruised was close to our original southern Florida home base: the Bahamas. These islands remain among our all-time favorites. We love the people, the beaches and reefs, and the superb diving and fishing. Further down the line in the West Indies, sailors who had been would sometimes repeat the refrain "Oh, wait until you see the South Pacific...", and yes, after our subsequent years in those islands, who could argue? Then we ventured to some far-flung areas of Micronesia, isolated places in the Line Islands and later the Marshall Islands, which continue to stand out in various ways as certainly among the very best lifetime experiences we've ever had. Then again we returned to Tonga six times, the Societies and Tuamotus three times each, the Marquesas twice...and we'd like to do the same with Fiji, Vanuatu, the Marshalls, and a host of other sunken atolls and islands here and there...not to mention a list of places we have yet to see for the first time.

That's Elan swinging peacefully on the hook at the wonderfully protected anchorage at Likiep Atoll in the Marshall Islands, with our dinghy in the foreground and a local fish cage to the right. We've never been any place better than this...different, but not better.

We've finally come to realize it's really not a specific area...it's a state of mind. That said, I think each voyager has a set of conditions that create the state of mind, and I think they vary fairly widely between individuals, and I think that in some cases they may be reasonably stringent. I can tell you mine. I love the tropics. I like high volcanic islands, atolls, and oceanic reefs like Minerva or Chesterfield equally well, just as long as the water is clear, warm, swarming with fish, and boasts profuse coral reefs. To that I would add consistent surf breaks not frequented by excessively dangerous predators, or if so, by those not having a particular propensity to attack surfers. We always enjoy the people, but in general it's not any particular flavor of human beings that attract us to an area, and since we thrive on pristine conditions, this usually means not too many people. Give me, Wendy, and Ryan such a place, and we'd never want for much of anything else.

Now, this state of mind can persist as long as you are living aboard, even after you exit the area or conditions of your choice, for example to avoid cyclone season. Personally, I always have this little inner glow while living aboard. I don't think the appreciation of the freedom gained by years of sacrifice could ever fade, and that's after my 20th anniversary of closing the deal on Elan (June 26, 1986) and heading straight for the Bahamas. If it's still like that at this point, it always will be. However, the longer you spend "out of the zone", the more you feel the urge to do whatever it takes to get back. And the further your surroundings deviate from those of your choice, the stronger the instinctive feeling of "time to get out of here". For example, if it's cold, windy, and rainy, and the water is murky, refit and departure plans are sure to be on the front burner barring other overriding factors. On the other hand, if we've landed on a sun-drenched coastline with good surfing a short walk from the marina, well, that's a different story. Our sense of adventure will eventually prevail and we'll get the boat together and go, but not nearly as quickly, all else equal.

Sunrise at Arno Atoll, only a few miles to the east of Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Majuro has U.S. postal service and currency, big grocery and hardware stores, and an international airport with daily flights from places like Guam and Hawaii...yet a hop and a skip away, you are in a classic tropical Pacific paradise with no one around.

By this time let's say you and I have had a couple of drinks around the aft settee. You accept my answer, but - c'mon, you say, give me something more specific. OK, we'd pick the central tropical Pacific. We'd never exit. We'd spend the respective cyclone seasons in the appropriate hemispheres, migrating back and forth from the Line Islands to eastern Polynesia - the Marquesas, Societies, and Tuamotus, then west to Tonga and Samoa and Fiji and Vanuatu, then north again to the Marshall Islands and points west in Micronesia. We'd regain our easting by riding the North and South Equatorial Counter Currents as we have done in the past. We'd scarcely break the 24th parallels, north or south. For us it'd be the endless summer.

What if we had to pick one place, one island group, to spend the rest of our sailing days, you ask?

Gee, that's kind of a tough one...it's against the whole principle of voyaging to stay in one place. We'll overcome that by selecting an island group of immense, scattered dimensions, one with a plethora of isolated, lush reefs and islands, and yet good international flight, communications, and mail service, and one that has areas close enough to the equator to be virtually cyclone-free. We'd need to have some sort of immigration rights and consequent legal protection of civil rights, and the right to work. There'd have to be some way to organize periodic haulouts. No malaria. Some chance at modern health care and medicines, with direct regular flights out to the U.S.A. or to another place with advance medical facilities. Only one place we've been fulfills all of these conditions: the Marshall Islands...but then we'd get homesick for Tonga and Fiji.

We've chronicled our travels, from a sailing perspective, primarily in the magazines Ocean Navigator and Cruising World from 1997 to present, and of course we have presented considerable material right here at SetSail.com. We've given extensive travel details including sailing directions, clearance details, and other location-specific information in past magazine articles on assorted locations. Of the two, Ocean Navigator is sometimes able to publish longer, more detailed informational articles, and they also have available long-term Internet access to the original articles plus "Web Extras" on their extensive website www.oceannavigator.com. Cruising World encourages a personal slant that allows considerable space on perspectives, while also including specific hard information, making those back issues very useful too. We plan to eventually include a complete list of these and other magazine articles at www.scottbannerot.com.