Coastal Policy Case Study (c) 2002 Steffen Schmidt
Back to course - http://www.public.iastate.edu/~sws/coastalcase%20studies/coastalhomepage.htm

In an article titled "Daniel's Bay Lost" published in Sail magazine, David Content wrote the following piece about a remote coastal area and what was about to become it's major transformation (basically turning it into a Hollywood TV hype venue). Read this piece and note the general tone and conclusions. Then you will read a second short piece on the same subject. http://www.sailmag.com/html/NewsFeat/Danlsbay.html

"Since 1970 cruising sailors have enjoyed refuge in Daniel's Bay, an exquisite anchorage in the southwest corner of beautiful Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands. Charted as Taioa Bay, its eastern arm, Hakatea Cove, is the best natural harbor in the Marquesas with 360-degree protection, good holding in mud, cruising manta rays, and soaring cliffs surrounding it. The white sand beach once boasted a pipe with a freshwater shower head and a tap fed with delicious drinking water from a distant hillside stream. Daniel planted pamplemousse [grapefruit], bananas, mangoes, papayas, and coconuts around his solitary beach front house and shared them abundantly with visiting sailors. He patiently explained to each arriving boat how to find the landing at the river and the trail to the cool waterfall. The reliable and generous hospitality of Daniel and his wife, Antoinette, extended to cruising boats for more than 30 years, gave Daniel's Bay its name and character."

"But now it is gone. I was anchored in Daniel's Bay last October, watching the yellow bulldozer on the beach scrape up portions of the foundation of Daniel's house. Only the white toilet and bathroom sink remained, standing exposed on their concrete base. When I entered the cove earlier in the afternoon a small speedboat came by and said the bay was closed and I had to leave. "I'll leave tomorrow," I responded to the wake of the boat. Instinct told me I should fill my water jugs at the spigot ashore immediately. On the beach I stepped around the now resting dozer, but plainly all signs of habitation, including the small jetty, were being forcibly removed." "The next morning I took the dinghy to Hakaui Cove, the western arm of the bay, and found a stunned Daniel and Antoinette in a brand new two room prefab house with bright, smooth linoleum flooring. He welcomed me and pointed with amazement at the house, built in three days. "The Americans are quick and rich," Daniel said. "They took the bay to use for the television show `Survivor.' We didn't want to move, but there was strong pressure."

"I stayed four days; my Yamaha 36, Barefoot, was the only boat in the bay. The second day the yellow dozer took out the shower head and water spigot. The third day a landing craft appeared with a second dozer and dump trucks for loading the concrete. On the fourth day no one would have known the bay had ever been inhabited. At 6 o'clock every morning men in white suits, boots, and masks, with tanks on their backs and nozzles in their hands, boated in to spray insecticide on the beach to suppress the white no-nos, a local type of no-see-ums."

"Daniel is now 74 years old and has one tooth. He toiled for decades building the house, planting the fruit trees, piping in fresh water, and erecting a small pier. He watched in dazed silence while equipment he never dreamed would come to his cove crushed and carried away in three days the proof of his existence."

"Over at Taiohae Bay, the main village on Nuku Hiva, the 1,700 residents faced an onslaught of 250 American and Australian "Survivor" staff. Crews of Australian boat drivers arrived with 14 person dual outboard surfboats. The VHF radio was monopolized by Australian accents coordinating transport for the divers, builders, challengers, survivors, directors, and video and sound crews to and from Controleur Bay Anaho Bay, Aotupa Bay, and Daniel's Bay. All locations were off limits to tourists, sailboats, and even the local population. Native fishermen were unhappily barred from adjacent waters. At the new pier a "prop" crew of Australians was busy ten hours a day with power saws, lathes, sanders, stain, and paint, making crude paddles, torches, tikis, rafts, canoes, and similar ersatz Polynesian items for the production."

"A huge screened dining and cooking pavilion sprouted near the old pier. Survivors and crew received three full meals a day, monopolizing the tomatoes, onions, and potatoes that are normally plentiful only after the arrival of the island freighter. The advance team survived in tents, but then from Los Angeles came the 320 foot luxury cruise ship Spirit of Oceanus to provide refuge for the workers, video and sound crews, and production staff. The ship was anchored beside us in Taiohae Bay, running 100 tender trips to shore each day and burning 4 tons of fuel daily to provide the survivors with air conditioning. The entire sumptuous Pearl Lodge Hotel, with an infinite edge swimming pool overlooking the bay, sheltered the actors, directors, and executives. All rental cars were engaged, and local taxis raced along the short streets answering calls in English. Two helicopters, one fitted with a forward video ball, whizzed vital players and instant replays to and fro. The few cruising boats anchored here were struggling to survive the sudden and total loss of tranquility."

"CBS's "Survivor" production had been scheduled for filming in Jordan the props of the pharaohs were ready and the fakirs engaged but, as is true of so many things, had to change location after September 11. Who would have thought that Daniel would lose his bay and his house because of our tragedy in the United States? When filming is completed on Nuku Hiva, Daniel will be able to, but probably will not, return to his bay and have a new house built. With luck the shower head and water faucet will be reestablished at the beach, but maybe not. With certainty, an American TV "survivor" will receive a million dollars and, thanks to the men in the white suits, probably not even a bug bite."

(Source: David Content in "Daniel's Bay Lost", Sail magazine, March, 2002, p. 16-17 http://sailmagazine.com)

Great minds travel in the same space. Also in March of 2002 the magazine Cruising World, published and article titled "Can Polynesia Survive Reality TV?" The subject of thise piece was, you guessed it, Daniel's Bay on Nuku Hiva.

"When the bulldozers arrived, Daniel was asked to leave. Production crews flattened his house, removed the small jetty, and wiped out all traces of habitation along the shores of Hakatea Bay, known by cruisers as Daniel's Bay, on the southwest shore of Nuku Hiva, in the Marquesas. Three days later, no sign remained of the life the Polynesian man, known only as Daniel, took three decades to build."

"Last November 12, Daniel's Bay, restored to an uninhabited state, was deemed ready for Survivor IV. Sixteen contestants swam ashore from a cruise ship anchored in the bay, and the games began. The latest season of Survivor, the CBS reality-TV show, which had previously featured contestants "surviving" in Borneo, Australia, and Kenya, was filmed in Daniel's Bay and at other locations along the southern and eastern coasts of Nuku Hiva."

"For years, Daniel, 74, and his wife, Antoinette, grew pamplemousse and papaya, piping in fresh water from the nearby mountains. He lived in his modest house on the white-sand beach and maintained the small jetty that was his welcome mat for Pacific cruisers. Since the 1970s, this idyllic bay, with its nearby 600-foot Vaipo waterfall has been considered the best anchorage in the Marquesas by voyagers, for whom the news was upsetting."

"However, the people on Nuku Hiva were totally behind the show, said A1 Keahi, managing director of Tahiti Tourisme. During the filming, CBS production crews filled Nuku Hiva's hotels and restaurants, and more than 200 local people earned money, some for the first time. "Can cruisers do that?" Keahi asked. "The people here see it as an investment in their children's future."

"Coming to the Marquesas is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for many sailors, Keahi said, but they want the islands to stay the same, which is selfish. Cruisers arrive on boats no one in Nuku Hiva could ever afford, Keahi said; 'Why shouldn't we have the same things?' "

"With the permission of Daniel and his wife, the structures were removed by the territory of French Polynesia, the owner of the land they occupied, said CBS publicist Colleen Sullivan. Daniel and his wife were relocated to a prefab house built by the territory. Other houses built for the production crews were to be given to low-income families after filming was completed. Computers used by the production crews were to be donated to island schools. Although there may be a collective groan across the Pacific Net when they hear that Nuku Hiva is ready to log on, Keahi countered, 'The sailors all have the Internet; why shouldn't we?' "

"All of the areas placed off-limits during the shooting were reopened after Christmas. The government offered to rebuild Daniel's home on the beach, but according to Sullivan and CBS, Daniel and Antoinette prefer their new home. CBS has assured the citizens of Nuku Hiva that the areas used by Survivor IV will be returned to their original condition."

"In theory, everything will be the same in Daniel's Bay. In reality, nothing will."

(Source: Theresa Nicholson in Cruising World magazine, March 2002, p. 14. http://www.cruisingworld.com). Graphics by SEAS (c) 2002.