For some people, cruising isn’t all about the people

P1060742A common theme in cruising writing is the idea that cruising is all about the people you meet. For a lot of people, I would say the majority of cruisers we’ve met, this is true. For most cruisers, cruising is all about the other cruisers they meet, or it is all about the local people they meet, or both.

I don’t know the right way to put this so I’ll just say it bluntly – for us , it’s not. It’s kind of difficult to explain so bear with me while I do my best. Meeting people (cruisers or locals) isn’t our main reason to cruise. Neither is experiencing local cultures. We LIKE other people. We LIKE experiencing cultures. But…

Our primary reason for being in the S Pacific is the amazing landscape, the amazing seascape, and the opportunity to live and to play in both.

We set off cruising with a love of the outdoors, a love of natural beauty, and with adventure in our hearts. When we went to the Grand Canyon, no one found it weird that our primary focus was to view and experience the Grand Canyon, not to meet local Americans and get invited to their daily functions. However, we get some weird looks when we try to verbalize the fact that this is also why we are here in the Pacific Islands. In fact, until recently we just didn’t mention it because we didn’t want to a) have to explain ourselves and b) get labeled as anti social by other cruisers when we are not. We are very social people, but although we’ve met wonderful, life-long friends cruising, we didn’t need to go cruising to meet great people. Quite the opposite - we left some of our favorite people in the world when we left to go cruising.

Now that we are coming out of the closet as nature cruisers, we are meeting many others like us. Carol likes to blurt out “We don’t really like people” (which isn’t true, but it is priceless to watch others react to this statement). Once we admit that we are nature cruisers rather than people cruisers, a number of other cruisers have come clean as well. We are actually a fairly sizeable minority.

Of course, it is not an either-or subject and many cruisers are super into people and super into nature rather than favoring one heavily over the other.
We reserve the right to change. We change cruising plans and destinations like we change shirts so maybe we’ll change our vibe and cruising goals as well.

12 comments:

  1. Yay! A new category to choose from! Given those two, I'm definitely in the Nature Cruisers camp. One of my favorite stops in my cruise so far was my 9 days at Beveridge reef - nobody around for hundreds of miles and absolutely gorgeous. The blues I saw there are still my reference point for all other blues I see, and nothing else has come close. When I got to Minerva reef, I though "nice, but too crowded" as there were 12 other boats there - then they all left over the next few days and the place improved dramatically! I understand Carol's point of view. Nature Cruiser isn't quite right for what I'm doing, I'll need to define my own category. Thanks for getting the process started!

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    1. I'm looking forward to your eventual writing on the subject :)

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  2. I know what your saying. We all have our reasons for being out here. We love diving and fishing, that's why we cruise in the South Pacific. A great effect is meeting nice people who share our interests. All people are just people, usually trying their best in life. Scratch the surface and there is more than you might want to know. Cruisers and locals. Our big word when dealing with others is respect. Miss our dive buddies. Weather has been windy and rainy for a few days now. Love your writing . Another view - One of our friends says, "you want culture, watch the discovery channel"

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    1. I know who this is and miss our dive buddies too! And it is surprising how people forget that people are people and they expect islanders to be much better people through and through than anyone else. Love the quote.

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  3. Ah, someone writing about my dirty little secret. It's totally about the nature for us. We love people, but we have those here so we don't need to cruise to meet people. And we don't tend to run with the crowd so trying to fit into a crowded anchorage so we can enjoy one night after another of potlucks kind of isn't our style either.

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    1. We have some amazing friends back in N America so it would be awful to think we had left to go cruising to make friends (although of course we make friends!). We alternate - we love having entire atolls to ourselves, and then we like to switch and enjoy big city and cruiser gatherings. Over time we realized that that busy, busy time is the spice to the main meal of remote beauty.

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  4. Thank you, I never realised why I felt I didn't quite "fit in". Now I do

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  5. People are okay... but there is so much more!

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  6. Carol, peux-tu m'envoyer un mail prive a robert.lamoureux@cit.com - je suis a Singapore et aurais quelques questions a te poser. Je possede un Beneteau Sense 55 a Singapore. Merci. Robert

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