Quote:
Originally Posted by JPA Cate
Hello, comesatime,
We have never done one. I'll try to explain why.
....
Someone will probably share some good rally experiences with you, comesatime, and I hope you remember the cons I've mentioned, as well as taking in the pros.
Ann
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I think Ann's post above is a very good summation. But I'll pick up on her statement:
One such Rally stopped at the remote Tuamotuan atoll of Rarroia. We were on our second trip there, and the local people were exhausted by visitors. It's what happens when you go from being the 14th in a year to the 14th boat in the lagoon. Our first experience there had been really good. For the locals, with a limited water supply, the additional yachts became a burden rather than a pleasure. I wished we hadn't lauded the place to the SSCA, and now am more circumspect.
So my experience is in Fiji and
Tonga. I think that there were 25 in the fleet, and the majority Americans, 3 or 4 from NZ and a couple of boats from Oz. I was just helping out as crew for a friend and his
family on their boat for a couple of weeks from when the fleet left Opua,
New Zealand to sail north.
Most of the US boats were huge plastic fantastic cats. My house would have fitted in the
saloon of one or two. And they had everything including big
screen TVs, Air con, microwaves etc. Some of the people (not all) were loud and obnoxious yanks, total clichés of gross American tourists. And they were wealthy, obviously. But it seemed to me that almost no one in the fleet appreciated how dirt poor the local people are.
We'd turn up and
anchor off some village where they literally have nothing. The locals don't live some idyllic life on a remote island enjoying the sun and the beach. They eek out a very tough existence, have almost no
health care (so life expectancy is appallingly low) and live day to day on very poor diets.
But there was a consistency between all villages when the fleet arrived. The fleet's people would first all sit round and have the sevusevu ceremony, basically drink muddy tasting kava out of a shared bowl, clapping vociferously. The Chief then gives the freedom of the village.
They had an opportunity to 'sell' and get
money from these big fat "kaivalagi" (Fijian for white people, some what derogatory) with bulging bellies and even fatter wallets. And so they
sold everything that they possibly could, because to them this gold mine had arrived. It was a one off opportunity and would probably never come again.
I was so glad to leave and fly home. I just couldn't stomach the exploitation. Why anyone would want to be friends with people like this I do not understand.
And this statement struck me as very very real.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Farang
... To make matters worse they were all genetically challenged and the men just bitched about their sexless marriages. .. |
So what do you think that (some of) these sexless blokes would do at a poor village in the middle of nowhere surrounded by people that would do anything for a dollar? And it's a patriarchal society so the men will sell their mothers, their wives and certainly their young daughters. And the females have no choice. (Perhaps we need a thread about old white guys on yachts and young village girls, you know the sick thing is that the
family of the child seem to see this as a sort of honour in their village. It's a horrifying aspect I've seen in Fiji especially repeatedly.)
And when the fleet had passed by, the village had
sold almost everything they had. Their typically one
single little hut of a shop had nothing much left. Most of the
food sold (at very extravagant prices). And who would know when the next supplies would arrive. Such people really do live in the moment. And what happens to all the money? The men buy kava at $100 a kilo and get drunk and get drunk and get drunk until the money runs out. And when they're drunk many of them get nasty, and the
women suffer again.
But the rally 'tourists' seemingly had no
concept of the damage they were causing. They had beach parties and sundowners and free dived and kite surfed and watched movies on their big
screen TVs. I guess today they'd all be editing their silly Youtube channels for the vicarious viewers.
On one occasion (and I wasn't actually there that day but a good friend was and this is his recount) it was Sunday morning. A very drunk cruiser (about 30) came in from his yacht on his
dinghy.
Beer bottle in hand then decided to follow the villagers in to church. Churches are typically just rows of benches under some sort of thatched awning. And he sat at the back laughing and shouting out occasionally. The local people are just too polite to do anything in such a case, in their Church. As fate would have it, later that morning he went back to his yacht and had an
accident on his dinghy. The locals totally viewed this as a retribution from the Christian God. Very remote island. I'm not sure their god cared but that's not the point.
Yes I am biased about Rallies.
After we saw how the rallies affected people, we decided we wouldn't do them. It's a personal decision, and we had accumulated a fair wee bit of sailing experience before we left the States the 2nd time. It may be that for people with less experience, rally participation offers them a support group, and therefore, a greater sense of 
. Never again will I join a rally. To make matters worse they were all genetically challenged and the 
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