Tonga 2004
OCSC Sailing gets the mooring ball rolling in Tonga …
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“Take only pictures, Leave only footprints”- an ecotourism motto that has become somewhat cliché, we hear it so often. Walking gently on the Earth is what we’ve become accustomed to, what we expect and woe behold the Californian who’s leaving any thing more behind than the tread of their Timberland hiking boots. Easy to grasp for the land lovers among us but then 70% of the planet is made up of water and we all know what sport lies at the heart of explorers. With a Captain Cook’s glint in their eye, sailors around the world are setting off for idyllic cruising destinations, plotting courses to blue lagoons, soft white sand beaches and perfect snorkeling spots. Out of their foulies and set loose in a sun drenched paradise, one may wonder if they’ve got little more on their minds than making a palm kissed anchorage by sunset with an ice cold Morgan’s & coke soon in hand, the sizzle of a fresh yellow tail on the grill behind them.
This Summer, the adventure became real for 70 sailors from Berkeley’s OCSC Sailing, a sailing school on San Francisco Bay, as they traveled to the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga. Only a fool would believe that the above images never came to fruition for them but the OCSC sailors had packed something else with them in their sea bags beside their sunscreen and flip flops – a long-standing tradition of “Give Back”.
OCSC President & Founder, Anthony Sandberg, explains: "On OCSC Flotillas, we donate 5% of the charter fee from each boat back to a worthwhile cause in an effort to do our part as leaders in this industry. It’s only fair that we do what we can to preserve Tonga and any other place we visit for future generations to come." This time round though, the 11 yachts that OCSC chartered from The Moorings’ base in Neiafu Harbor would go above and beyond the standard 5% Give Back, adding an additional $2500 to the final check.
The funds raised by the group –almost $7000- including the extra contributions made during the trip – are now being directed to a mooring ball placement program in the Vava’u island group. Each floating buoy will be attached to a permanent anchoring device on the sandy seabed by a rope. Visiting yachts grab the buoy and then attach the boat to the rope, securing themselves to the seabed. By providing an easy alternative to anchoring, mooring balls prevent damage to the fragile coral ecosystems beneath them. They are easily visible and immediately eliminate the need for difficult trial-and-error anchoring attempts on shores ridden with coral beds.
"Charterers are presently only able to anchor in most of the anchorages they visit" noted trip leader Max Fancher (OCSC C.O.O). "With so few mooring balls and increasing numbers of visitors, coral reef destruction by anchoring has started to become a sad reality in Tonga." The Vava’u Tourism Association (VTA) will manage the new project, pooling roughly U.S. $500 into each mooring ball. OCSC’s contribution alone will result in 14 placements.
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Max Fancher is excited by the fact that “the mooring balls will continue to generate further income, which will then go towards placing more balls in Tonga anchorages. The key is in that the locals in Vava’u are doing the collecting, taking a percentage of the funds and thereby creating a sustainable system that empowers them and leads to the placement of additional balls.” He adds: “We all need to use the environment with a sense of responsibility, not entitlement”.
Recent OCSC projects have been equally successful. In 2003, efforts were focused in Belize, where flotilla participants contributed $6,250 to TIDE (Toledo Institute for Development and Environment), a local grassroots environmental organization. TIDE targeted the donation towards a monitoring program in the Port Honduras marine reserve. This past February, OCSC boats raised another $2000 for the same cause. And, further a field in the Mediterranean, OCSC’s Flotilla to Turkey in September 2001 worked with TEMA (Turkish Foundation for Combating Erosion), channeling those collected funds into a reforestation effort.
So, we go from the Mediterranean and Caribbean to the South Pacific and back to San Francisco Bay…The OCSC Tonga sailors will now wistfully be sharing their photos and reliving warm memories of Tongan feasts, humpback whales and kava sunsets. Their contribution to a South Pacific paradise will continue but they’ll still know that they left behind only footprints and mooring balls.
- Antonia Hare, August 2004