Let me start by saying that being a “Lionfish Cruiser” has nothing to do with boat design or financial worth. It has everything to do with an attitude I see spreading through the cruising community. The belief that one has the right to travel the world, take whatever one pleases from local communities, and sail away with little regard for their laws, customs, culture, or respect the people who call those places home. And like the invasive lionfish, these cruisers aren’t just aggressive toward the communities they invade. They can be equally destructive toward members of their own cruising community.
In my day, sailors had integrity. I’m not suggesting that integrity has vanished, because I know many wonderful sailors who still live by it. But somewhere along the way, what was once an unwritten code of the sea seems to have become the exception rather than the rule.
Whatever happened to leaving only footprints, treating people with respect, and leaving gratitude in our wakes? Whatever happened to helping one another simply because it was the right thing to do?
This is perhaps the biggest reason I stopped blogging ten years ago. I watched what I had always considered my tribe slowly transform into something I was becoming embarrassed to call myself a part of. And it wasn’t simply the gentrification of the sailing community, although that certainly played a role. It was something deeper. A change in spirit. A loss of the very things that once made voyaging so extraordinary.
It brings to mind one of my favorite passages from Sterling Hayden’s Wanderer:
“To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… ‘cruising’ it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.” — Sterling Hayden, Wanderer
Back in the day, a voyager with little money, like myself, could find himself sitting aboard a multimillion dollar yacht, breaking bread and sharing stories with its owner. Nobody cared what your boat was worth, how much money you had in the bank, or what you did before you sailed away. We were sailors. That was enough. We shared an ocean, a philosophy, and an understanding that the world was something to experience, not something to conquer. The sea was the great equalizer, and the friendships forged upon it often crossed boundaries that would have been insurmountable ashore.
Unfortunately, the cruising community seems to be becoming as polarized as politics. The divisions of the land have followed us out to sea. And somewhere in those troubled waters, the Lionfish Cruiser emerged.
I’d like to share something I’ve experienced here in my home port of Puerto Lindo, Panama. The name translates to “Beautiful Port,” and for much of my life, that is exactly what this place has been to me.
About five years ago, I began noticing a troubling change in the relationship between the local community and the growing number of cruising sailors passing through or settling here. COVID had devastated the local economy. Poverty was increasing, tourism had evaporated, and opportunities for the people who had lived here for generations were disappearing. At the same time, I was watching the attitude of my own tribe deteriorate. The friendship and mutual respect that once existed between sailors and locals were slowly giving way to suspicion, resentment, and eventually theft. I decided to do something about it.
I started a WhatsApp group with a very specific purpose. To build a bridge between the cruising community and the local people. A place where we could communicate, understand one another, share information, and perhaps preserve some of the goodwill that had made this anchorage so special. It wasn’t complicated. It was simply an attempt to bring people together rather than drive them apart. I started building the community. Then my old phone number expired. WhatsApp reassigned the group’s administration to another “cruising” member. I knew the fellow, so I approached him at the local watering hole, explained what had happened, and politely asked him to return the group to me and restore my administrator privileges. His response, delivered rather drunkenly, was simply, “No. Maybe when I leave this place.”Well, he eventually left, but he never returned the group. Instead, administrative privileges were passed along to another individual whom I would describe as a Lionfish Cruiser. And so, something I had created to build bridges seems to have become another instrument for tearing them down.
Today, rather than encouraging understanding between sailors and the people who live here, much of the conversation appears to deepen the divide. Accusations fly, resentment grows, and the distance between the two communities becomes wider. Meanwhile, theft is increasing, tempers are rising, and I genuinely fear that someone is eventually going to get hurt.
The irony is painful. A group created to help preserve a community now risks contributing to its unraveling. And the people who will suffer most are the very people who have the least.
What Have We Forgotten? The world is in disrepair.
Aid is being cut from those who need it most. Children are being targeted in conflicts, and even our most basic human instinct, to protect the innocent, seems to be disappearing into a very dark place. Perhaps that is why this troubles me so deeply. For most of my life, voyagers have been my favorite people. Men and women with enough salt in their veins to cast off the lines, sail beyond the horizon, and discover that the world is far larger, more complicated, and more beautiful than the one they left behind.
People who understood that arriving in a foreign land was a privilege, not an entitlement. That hospitality was something to be grateful for, not something to exploit. That the people living along those distant shores were not simply part of the scenery, but human beings with histories, struggles, families, and dreams of their own. We were guests in their world, and if we were fortunate, we left with friendships that lasted a lifetime. I still believe in those sailors. I still believe in that philosophy. And I know there are many of us left who remember what it meant to be a voyager rather than simply someone who owns a boat.
The ocean has always had a way of stripping away the unnecessary things in life. Money, status, possessions, and all the little illusions we build around ourselves tend to mean very little when you’re a thousand miles offshore with nothing but the wind, the stars, and your own judgment to guide you. It seems a terrible shame to travel so far, only to bring ashore the very attitudes we once sailed away to escape.
Let’s not forget who we are, where we came from, and what we once stood for.
And speaking of lionfish, Please go out of your way to remove every one you can from the reef. Know what your doing first as their spines are full of poison and they are difficult to handle. they’re devastating native fish populations and disrupting fragile marine ecosystems.
Besides, they make excellent tacos.
I’m going to raise my coffee cup this morning and end this blog with a toast.
There are good ships and wood ships, ships that sail the sea. But the best ships are the friendships we make along the way, may they aleways be.
Peace,
Sail far and live slowly.
- Alex
