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A few months ago while on a charter, we picked up a mooring in Île Fourchue, a little nature preserve off the coast of St. Barths. It’s thought to be the tip of a submerged, dormant volcano, and the c-shaped island cups a shallow natural aquarium. It’s an unbelievable shade of Caribbean blue, and since it’s so shallow, the protected water is warm and evaporates quickly, leaving a high salinity that gives everything a buoyancy boost. It’s almost otherworldly, like experiencing zero gravity.
Not everyone was keen to go in, but as a former competitive swimmer, there’s little that will keep me out of the water. I’d never been so glad to have packed a pair of googles. Rays skimmed along the bottom, kept company by a handful of fish. I swam to the water’s edge where shallow slot caves are an adventurous soul’s dream. Further ashore, signs welcome you to hike on the island—but only if you’re wearing cactus-proof shoes. Five turtles drifted near our cat, taking turns lazily surfacing just a few yards from me as I floated and watched them, mesmerized, for an hour. For the first time in awhile, I felt truly present.
You go to a boat show and see a new carbon rig or a massive engine bank (or God forbid, a price tag), and it’s hard not to get caught up in the tech of the boating world. I get press releases every day for new products. The machinery of the industry never stops, and while that has brought us groundbreaking innovations in safety and comfort on the water, it also means that the informed consumer has to make a part-time job of keeping up. It’s my full-time job, and even I feel overwhelmed sometimes.
Île Fourchue felt like the antidote to all of that—a little corner of natural heaven on Earth where time slowed down and emails couldn’t find me. The boat I was on that week, TradeWinds’ brand new Fountaine Pajot Smart Electric, Aurora, had eight people on board, all different nationalities and backgrounds, sharing sunsets and stories from past voyages or life on land. We ate meals together, comparing what counts as a breakfast food back home or discovering mutual acquaintances across continents.
And, perhaps Île Fourchue’s most important lesson was a reminder of why we do this. At the end of the day, it’s the experiences you have and the people you meet that you remember, not the specs of a new model (though when you’re out adventuring, the latest sometimes does make a world of difference). And while we’re on the doorstep of a Starlink-led connectivity revolution, improving life on board in myriad ways, I think we’ll look back on this simpler time with the same fond nostalgia with which I look back on the pre-cell phone days of my childhood.
There’s no doubt that evolving tech opens up exciting new frontiers on the water. Aurora is the first electric boat in TradeWinds’ fleet, and they have committed to replacing the entirety of their fleet with electric cats within 12 years. This isn’t as simple as investing in the boats, though. It means completely redrawing charter routes to take full advantage of the wind and the more leisurely pace of a fuel-saving boat. Sure, it’s more work and more expensive while the infrastructure is still developing for green boats, but the company has decided it would rather invest in becoming better than bigger. After all, if you don’t protect places like Île Fourchue, who will come charter there?
It’s all about finding that symbiotic relationship between tech and the human element. Whether you’re talking about green propulsion or Starlink, some of the best innovations these days strive to support those basic, intrinsic joys of being on the water: a connection to nature and community.
— Lydia Mullan
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