After a month of traveling in Fiji, I headed to Bali for what I hoped would be the Eat, Pray, Love leg to my sabbatical, a much-needed break I was taking after 10 years of founding and running a nonprofit. Though Bali was a surfer’s paradise like no other, it wasn’t paradise in other respects. I quickly found myself amongst chaotic streets full of noisy motos, surfing in an ocean full of plastics and dodging loud Ozzies who moved through Kuta as if they owned it. Unsure of the energetic match between myself and this tiny surf haven, I flash backed to the advice my friend Tim, the fisherman, had given to me back in Fiji. I had shared with him my longing to visit Tahiti to pay homage to the roots of its dance and music, which I loved and had been studying for some years. But it was too expensive. Upon hearing this, Tim suggested I go to a place called Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Often referred to as Tahiti’s English-speaking cousin, Raro, as Tim called it, had a rich dance and music culture similar to Tahiti. After a few weeks in Bali feeling a bit like a sardine in a tin box moving from one packed surf camp to another, I’d take Tim’s advice and redirect my travels back to the Pacific Islands, destination Rarotonga.

I managed to get an accommodation in a one-room, wooden bungalow with a small loft directly in front of the beach. Built on a platform of beams, it had a sea green roof and light grey, wooden sides. It looked out over two short palms which were planted close to its railing. Beyond was a beach whose white sand blended with small chunks of corals and met brown rocks bulging from a gentle shoreline as the reef exposed itself in low tide.

My bungalow was part and parcel of a group of 3 other bungalows owned and maintained by an artist couple from Hawai’i who made their retirement income off rentals of the units. Paul was a musician in his 60s. He had a gentle presence and eyes only for Leilani. Leilani was a petite woman with long, brown hair who wore a small flower on her left ear to signify she was married. A visual artist, she drew large fish in iridescent blues and greens on canvas. She had a secret stash of Tahitian pearls of varying luminosity that she offered at groundbreaking prices from the foyer of her home. She was also very connected with the culture and traditional ways of life on Raro.

The bungalows were built right next to one another and shared a courtyard made of sand interspersed with splotches of grass. The sanded area then met grassy turf where small palms and other native trees were planted, each tree surrounded by borders of circles of white sand. There was a square gazebo and picnic table with two reclining wood chairs to chill. There were ample papaya trees which I did not hesitate to pick from for breakfast, slicing them in half to reveal their salmon interior and blackish grey, tapioca-like seeds. There were avocado trees, medium-sized palms, taller green trees and shrubbery lining a quiet paved road which led down to the lagoon, the main location in town for much of the tourist activities. Taking in the slow, lax pulse of the island, it felt like a small piece of heaven and a welcomed respite from the chaos of Bali.

As beautiful as Rarotonga was though, it felt lonely. It was a place for couples or families more than single travelers. I realized early on I was going to have to put effort into making connections. I tried to make friends with my neighbors, a couple from England, but they only said hello and good morning, asked what I was up to in the day, and pretty much kept to themselves. No invites. No group socializing.

One day I was walking on the side of the road when a bald, stocky, muscular, young man on a motorcycle pulled over and asked me if I wanted a ride. Why not I thought? It was a bit of a walk. At the time, I did not understand accepting a ride from this particular guy on this island might be code for something else. In my naivete, I hopped on his bike and off we went. As we pulled up to the property, I thanked him for the ride and chatted for a bit. I learned he was from one of the outer islands, a place I’d later learn, known in particular for its lasciviousness and free spirit. He asked me if I wanted to go out for an island night. In Raro, island nights are traditional shows of dance and music which are hosted at a different hotel each night. Eager to experience Raro’s rich music and dance culture, I gladly accepted the offer. As said goodbye to him and headed back to my bungalow, I ran into Leilani, excited to tell her about my day. “I met a nice guy that gave me a ride on his motorcycle,” I said. “And we are going to go to an island night together.”

“Oh what’s his name?” she asked, delighted that I had made a new connection. Upon revealing his name, she nearly fell out of her pareau. Let’s just say he was known as quite the ladies’ man on the island. I still went to the island night when he showed up on his motorcycle and enjoyed the show. After, I wished him a polite goodnight and walked back to my bungalow. He looked perplexed, to say the least. Leilani, in her protective “auntieness”, had some words with her friends on the island as well, who had some words with the young man, and I was never approached again for the remainder of my time there.

From then on, I discovered a bike on the grounds and ventured out to nearby beaches. I did the famous lagoon tour where I learned to wrap a pareau in various ways and watched island men husk coconuts in an awe-inspiring display of masculinity. I even rode ATVs in the middle of the island through the rainforest. I took a trip to Aitutaki, the outer atoll, known also for its beautiful sand bars and absolutely pristine waters. I sea kayaked alone to the island where they filmed Survivor. Though there were waves in Raro, the surf was for highly advanced surfers only, comprised of thick waves breaking further out in the ocean over shallow reefs. So unlike Bali where there was a plethora of waves for any and every kind of surfer to choose, I was not able to surf in Raro. Instead, I immersed myself in honing the myriad of classical Indian dance compositions I never had time to work on and practiced my Tahitian Ori repertoire religiously. Though I deeply appreciated the solo time, I couldn’t help but wish I had some people to share in the adventure.

Luckily, Leilani helped a lot in this regard, chatting with me in the mornings, taking me with her to town on occasion as she ran errands, and ensuring I was looked after. She had the skinny on all the important events happening on the island, including the impending arrival of a fleet of Polynesian voyaging canoes guided by traditional celestial navigators. They were making their way from Aotearoa (New Zealand) to Hawai’i via the South Pacific islands as part of a project to raise awareness about the impact of global warming on island nations. We got word of their arrival and joined the island community to welcome the valiant seafarers. We went to an area of the island shaded with many trees and looked out as seven double hulled, hand crafted, wooden voyaging canoes with red and white sails emerged in the distance. It looked like something out of an old picture book. Each canoe was comprised of crew from their respective lands: Cook Islands, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawai’i, Aotearoa, and Fiji. There was a Pan Polynesian crew as well. We welcomed their arrival with festivities of traditional music, dance, heartfelt speeches and lots of food. They brought with them a sense of community and connection, and an energy that dispelled any loneliness I may have been feeling there.

With about a week to go on Raro, I had finally settled in to a content rhythm and had just enough left in my budget to rent a car. Now I could actually get around at night. One night, alone in my bungalow after a solitary sunset, I hemmed and hawed about whether to go by myself to an island night at one of the bars downtown. I felt the same emotions one would feel before the first day of school. Would I meet anyone? What if I sat there alone and looked like a fool? I convinced myself to just go, reminding myself that if I felt uncomfortable, I now had a car and could just leave.

When I arrived to the bar, the dancing and drumming was in full effect. Gorgeous women in coconut shell bras, feathered hair ornaments and tiny pareaus tied in a dainty knot at the waist danced alongside muscular men with patterns of black Polynesian tataus (tattoos) adorned on their chest and thighs. I tried to find a place to sit as soon as possible. I noticed there was a woman sitting alone at a big round table in front of the bar stools. Like me, she had brown skin and long, curly brown hair. She looked like she could be my cousin. Perfect. I’d sit next to her. As intermission came, she turned to introduce herself. “Hi! I’m Nofo,” she said. “I’m a sailor. From Tonga!”

And that’s how I would meet the (eventual) first female licensed captain from the Kingdom of Tonga who at the time, arrived as part of the fleet of voyaging canoes we had just welcomed a few days prior. It felt like I had hit the connection jackpot and that I was in the presence of a Polynesian celebrity. In the days that followed, not only did Nofo invite me on the canoes to meet all the other voyagers, but she’d sail with her fleet to San Francisco the next year, traveling over 11,000 nm in total without reliance on fossil fuel energy. I’d partake in their welcoming ceremony with First Nations as they arrived to Ohlone territory (San Francisco). Then I’d join Hinemoana, the Pan Polynesian canoe on which Nofo sailed, on a small leg of their journey down the California Coast. Who knew the only thing that stood between loneliness and a once in a lifetime journey was a car rental and a self-pep talk through first day of school jitters?

14 years ago when I met Nofo, she and her crew were sailing their canoes across the Pacific Ocean to raise awareness on ocean acidification, global warming, and the importance of solar energy sources. She was also keeping her ancestral traditions of celestial navigation alive, attempting to revive and pass on the traditions to future generations. At the time of our meeting, average ocean surface level temperatures were .5 degrees higher than average. Today, they are around 1.2 degrees higher than average, a record high in surface level ocean temperatures. The graph below shows average surface level temperatures of the ocean from 1880–2000 and just beyond.

While my tale ended in a personal victory over solo travel loneliness, and an unexpected connection with a unique and incredible indigenous seafaring community, I wish the voyagers could claim equal victory for the ocean and their ancestral islands. The voyagers were using art and tradition to put climate change front and center in their own voice through their beautiful journey. All. Without. Fossil. Fuels. And yet today, our ocean is at a record level of warming. Who’s responsible? According to a 2023 report from EDGAR (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research), China, the U.S. and India are the top three emitters of CO2 (carbon) and CH4 (methane), the main greenhouse gasses responsible for warming our oceans and atmosphere.

The actions we take in the next five years will be critical for our goal of reaching a zero emissions future. The key path to attaining this vision involves stabilizing concentrations of CO2, a gas that concentrates for a long time in our atmosphere and reducing CO2 emissions to zero. Doing this requires reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and using alternative energy in how we make our countries run. If Nofo and her fleet of seven wooden, voyaging canoes could travel 11,000 nm across the Pacific Ocean using only solar, wind and traditional navigation techniques in our modern era, what is possible for us in the global north to reach our destinations and goals in gentler ways? Perhaps it’s time to embrace the idea of seafarers as wayshowers, here to remind us of the original ways humans designed and lived in harmony with nature, and not in exploit of her

After 10 years of leading the nonprofit I founded, I was granted a sabbatical to take some time off and rest a bit from what felt like a decade-long sprint in nonprofit leadership. I craved being in a place where I could be anonymous, live simply and be in the natural world. I was deeply drawn to the South Pacific and her family of tiny islands or motus, as they are called in many Polynesian languages. My love of surfing and years of Polynesian dance study made me ever curious to visit.  Plus I had heard from a surfer I once met that Fiji was a place where you could take a boat out to the middle of the ocean and find bejeweled crested waves peeling over shadows of dark coral reef. For me the choice was easy - Fiji is where I’d start.
 
After spending my first week on a tiny outer island in the North small enough to walk across in 10 minutes, I decided to make my way South to a motu called Nagigia, just off the Western coast of an island called Kadavu, home to the largest producer of kava in all of Fiji. Stepping off the plane in Kadavu on the tarmac, I was surrounded by a deep bed of navy blue water that met a backdrop of brown mountain terrain covered in lush green rainforest. From there, I headed with a boatman to the island, a journey which exposed miles upon miles of coastal rock and deep beds of reef, with not a single stretch of white sand in sight.
 
Upon arrival to the island I noticed it was completely surrounded by reef and bordered by thick, dark green trees and plants giving it a mysterious feel. I was met by Leena, a bubbly, smiling, warm Fijian woman in her early 20’s and her team of various relatives from the nearby village. Leena showed me my bure and true to Fijian hospitality, made me feel right at home on this lush island as a guest of one.
 
From the island, I could see the King Kong surf break, named so because the 1976 remake of the original movie was filmed on Kadavu.  It presents as a mirage from afar as being fun!  But upon closer inspection, let’s just say you start to understand why they named it after King Kong. One day, I took a boat ride out to see it.  It looked like a sea monster rising from below, wanting to envelope you in a thick hug over a sharp, shallow reef. So I opted for the smaller surf break around the corner.
 
The smaller break was closer to land and broke in front of tree-covered land serving as a natural sea wall that dropped off into the ocean. Hopping off the boat, I noticed the tiny gathering of brown boulders in front of me, the dark shadows of corals below crystal clear waters and the view of the green mountain in the distance. The only one out, I noticed when a wave came, the water would suck off the reef, exposing an entire ecosystem of brilliant underwater life, from purple corals, royal blue starfish, to black, spiky sea urchins. Whereas the waves up North I had surfed were bigger and broke under a deeper bed of ocean, the waves over this reef were tiny and thinner in comparison, requiring a type of precision, care and lightness in order not to touch the reef.
 
After a rough first day trying to catch waves on a stiff longboard that only seemed to be resulting in me nose-diving on each take off, the next day I decided to change my strategy.  I’d try a smaller board. It can be a struggle to find a sweet spot of balance when surfing on an unfamiliar board. Despite the shakiness I felt with this board change, I was determined. This time, a bigger wave came, sucking up and leaving only a thin layer of water between the reef and myself. As I hopped to my feet, my eyes went straight to the fish on the reef rather than down the line of the wave where I should have been looking. I thought ‘wow look at that how clearly I can see that fish’ and ‘crap, if I wipe out there’s no water between me and the reef to land on’. (This thought happened in a millisecond but I’m giving you the slow-mo version that went on inside my head.) In my slight panic, I kicked off the wave, and tumbled below as I felt a bang on my leg. When I surfaced from the water and looked down to inspect, I had a line of blood oozing from my shin from my fin. And that’s pretty much how the start of Nagigia went – bleeding over baby waves on a reef.
 
Bummed at the injury, but grateful it wasn’t my head that was bleeding, I hopped back in the boat and Mareva, a woman who brought me out to the reef on the boat, steered us back to the island. Leena brought me some leaves of a local plant and suggested I put it on the cut but I opted instead for the triple antibiotic cream I brought with me, afraid it might get infected and that we were too far from any town or hospital to deal. Because I had an open wound, it was not a great idea to get back in the water. I wasn’t sure what else I’d do. After a quick e-mail of concern to the Australian tour operator, within days, Tim, a Fijian surfer and fisherman arrived as a guide.
 
Tim was a tall, solid man and introverted in his slow, thoughtful communications.  He gave a new meaning to the temperament chill. He went out one day to surf King Kong and came back with small, bloody gashes and scrapes on his back from hitting the reef. It didn’t phase him though. To Tim, it was just part of surfing. And yes, he did put the leaf stuff on his cuts. At the time, Tim also was the son-in-law of the King of Fiji, and seemed a perfect bridge in connecting guests to the local traditions and ways of the area.
 
Surfing was only one of Tim’s many talents. He was an experienced fisherman too. With Tim now on the island, we starting trolling in a boat searching for birds, catching yellow fin tuna, building fires from scratch to roast our fish on a remote motu, and going on hikes in the mountains to search for crabs as bait. It was a simple delight to be able to feel the pace of life and to have someone give me a peek into the incredible harmony of how the community of this region lived with the natural world.  And, I learned some interesting things about reef rights in this part of Fiji.  In Kadavu, local villages owned the rights of the reefs surrounding their villages.  So if you were wanting to fish on the reef, you’d have to dock your boat, pay a visit to the chief, do a kava ceremony together and then ask for permission to fish.  If you just go and cast a long line on the reef, there were men from the village who served as watchdogs who’d swim out and cut the line. So there was still a very old world etiquette around the ocean and reef rights in this region.
 
Tim and I were eventually joined by a few more visitors on the island and so I was no longer a guest of one, which was great. I did manage to catch a few waves. I paid a visit to the local village and their tailor who sized me up without taking one single measurement and sewed me a perfectly fitted skirt and top. To this day I am still in awe at her seamstress skills. Towards the end of my stay I managed to also get stung by a Portuguese Man of War jellyfish.  Then, a cyclone ended up ripping through the region, stranding us on the island and cancelling all flights out of Fiji. What I thought would be a surf adventure with food, surf, music and people ended up being a surprising immersion into a stunningly beautiful, traditional and remote part of the world, with humble people so welcoming to share. I was not a guest in some resort in remote Fiji; I was a guest in someone’s home.
 
As I share with you this trip from 14 years ago, I’m present to our record high ocean surface temperatures we’ve had this year resulting from the ocean absorbing 26% of the world’s carbon emissions. These emissions come mostly via fossil fuel use in energy and transportation. When I think about such a tiny place in the world as Nagigia, where people’s entire subsistence depends on their natural ecosystems, delicate reefs and minimal tourism, and where there were zero cars, climate change is an injustice to say the least.  Despite contributing the least in global emissions, it is these small island nations of the world that are the most vulnerable to climate change. Fiji has been the first of island nations to relocate an entire community due to rising sea levels and climate change, forcing communities to leave behind their ancestral lands. (Article)  Today, there is no tactic they can take like cutting fishing lines to protect their reefs when the threat is existential; the warming gasses are already spread in the air and throughout the sea.  How do they stop that?
 
I know our global target is to keep warming below 2°C, a target that would put many island nations under water. So the small island and developing nations led us to focus our target to 1.5°C instead, a global goal formalized in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Though the goal has been stated, it is of increasing concern by the world’s leading scientists that that is even realistic at all.
 
It makes me think how important it is to acknowledge our global impact on one another when it comes to climate.  Only when we expand our consciousness and are able to connect how actions of the global north impact the global south and ensure the communities most impacted have an equal voice at the decision tables will we be able to truly tackle climate change though a justice lens. And only when there is some level of accountability in impact of emissions on vulnerable nations will we have true justice.
 
We are now in an era where Mother Nature is requiring of us to not only clean up our pollution, but to realize how the choices we make, from transportation to materials design to the food we cultivate, impacts entire communities in the most remote parts of the world.  Perhaps what’s needed at the moment is a collective reframe of our presence on earth.  Maybe we need to consider ourselves all as just travelers here - temporary guests on this beautiful, big blue planet. If we have the ability to create such impacts in far off places of the world, what is our ability and role in reversing them?