Boat Bits: Much ado about very little...

Last time I checked the various forums were abuzz, online sailing rags were getting serious and not actually pimping something for a change... What, pray tell could be the cause?

Well, apparently, the south seas are rife with cannibals!

Now, as someone who grew up with "Tales of the South Pacific" and various pulp fueled dreams of the South Seas, I'll admit the idea of a scantily clad buxom blonde missionary in a big cooking pot was sometimes an idle daydream but the current manic reaction seems a bit over the top.

Yes, sadly, a cruiser was killed and his partner attacked but there is no real evidence that cannibalism was involved and that this was anything other than a simple botched murder and an attempt to hide the evidence. The cannibalism angle was introduced by a German tabloid (not unlike our own National Enquirer who, as everyone knows, is not the sort of rag to find news in...(unless you consider dog faced boys and aliens mating with Sarah Palin news...).

Yet everywhere I turn I hear questions and pronouncements such as this one from NAS...

"The possibility of cannibalism has shocked citizens of French Polynesia, who believed that such practices were long past.

Our thoughts are with Ramin’s family. And it looks as if another location needs to be added to the “do not cruise” list."

Latitude 38 on the other hand (always the best place in my opinion to get close to the truth on sailing related news and mayhem) looks past the lurid headlines and simply deals with the facts available with a researched and well done article. In other words, they cover the news...

L38 ends their coverage with this paragraph...

"If you were planning on doing the Pacific Puddle Jump and are now worried about personal safety in Nuku Hiva, our opinion is that this murder falls in the ranks of incredible aberrations. In fact, it reminds us of the case earlier this year when a young French woman on ultra-safe St. Barth inexplicably stabbed a harmless 57-year-old Haitian housekeeper to death on the main road into town on a Sunday evening. Apparently even the most serene and peaceful places are not immune to occasional mayhem."

Off hand, I don't think they were suggesting that St Barths should become part of the mythical "Do not cruise" list... Do you?

All that being as it is, I really do wish at least some of those pulp dreams might actually exist. You know the sort...