Click on the map to get started or on the green marker above to go to the first leg of the voyage.

The following contains some information about the Moira's activities since this log was written you can safely skip it for now.

The research expeditions of the Moira took us to New Zealand, Australia, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, the Solmon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, Wallis, Western Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga. As an environmental consultant to the UN I also visited many other pacific islands.

The period from the end of the Log of the Moira until the turn of the century was one of direct experimentation on the the psychology of island populations - trying to discover ways of changing the environmentally destructive habits of the people that were steadily damaging the coral reef environments of their island homes. The basic idea was to get the island societies to actually perceive what they were doing and how it was harmful to themselves and their children.

I knew it would not be easy. Our experience with reshaping Australia's political and social views on holding dolphins and whales captive for circus performances had taught us a great deal about changing public attitudes and I knew that the millions upon millions of dollars spent every year on environmental aid projects were not having any noticeable impact on the steadily declining environmental conditions of the Pacific islands.

Our activities from 1983 until 2011 are summarized in various websites including www.richardchesher.info, the Sea Keepers for Schools project in New Zealand, www.tellusconsultants.com, www.icepac.org and, more recently our professional photography activities in New Caledonia and Vanuatu

South Pacific Travel Guides and Cruising Guides

There are a lot of interesting stories from those projects, and most of them were never written up in such an entertaining way as the log of the Moira. Mostly because we were serious about our goals and recognized the need for political discretion if we ever hoped to succeed.

But, at the turn of the Century, at the critical time when our ICE PAC ( Integrated Clean Energy for Peace and Climate) project was just about ready to fly the Moirae sent our planet a signal. GWB was installed in the White House by the Energy Cartel. The message didn't need the I Ching or any kind of prophet to know that the next 8 years would be very frustrating and unsuccessful for any serious projects involving integrated clean energy - or peace for that matter.

I was 60. I decided that enough was enough. If I couldn't move ahead, I'd go sideways.

Freddy and I created the Rocket Travel Guides to Vanuatu and New Caledonia

Millions of people dream of having a vacation in the South Pacific. Millions of people actually do visit the south Pacific islands, and two popular locations are Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

I had, while acting as a consultant to the UN, taught a course in the use of remote sensing for the use of resource management at the University of the South Pacific. The idea was to create geographic information systems for travellers. At the time Google Earth was just getting started - our guides were far in advance of Google Earth.

Our first guide was a cruising guide to Vanuatu. This was an enormous success with the yachties but we made a horrible mistake. It was not "locked" against piracy. In those days it was just not possible and not many yachts had CD burners aboard. We thought we would get income from advertising and sell the guides for a small fee to cover the cost of making the CDs - we started out charging $20. Well, the mistake was that the guide was so great that everyone started copying it and giving it to their friends. The yacht cruising community is pretty small and within 6 months we could not sell a single guide. Worse, we could no get any advertising because if we could not distribute more guides we could hardly expect to add new advertisers and the old advertisers saw no reason to pay again.

Our next guide was the cruising guide to New Caledonia. Likewise a great success and a horrible disaster because it wasn't locked either. We have completely redone both guides and they have been locked now for 9 years but the old first copies are aboard every yacht that enters Vanuatu and New Caledonia Guide Nautique Nouvelle Caledonie. Despite the early errors and the vast improvements in the software and information the yachties prefer a free copy to a good program.

More information about cruising in the South Pacific

Our primary customers are superyacht captains. Their Maritime Institute Training plus their clear responsibility for the safety of their yacht and crew make them realize the need for the latest, best information. Why ordinary yachtsmen do not equally value their yachts and families is a mystery to me.

The piracy actually turned out to be a blessing, because when we were unable to sell the cruising guides because of piracy we decided to create general tourism guides instead. These guides were "training tools for travel agents," and the tourism departments of Vanuatu and New Caledonia bought tens of thousands of them and distributed them to travel agents around the world.

The results were excellent and tourism increased in both countries while the guides were being circulated. Last year we began distributing the guides to the general public - to help anyone who is planning a Vacation in Vanuatu or New Caledonia Annuaire de Tourisme Nouvelle Caledonie.

More information about vacations in New Caledonia and Vacance en Nouvelle Caledonie

More information about vacations in Vanuatu

Travel Photography in the South Pacific

One of the major reasons Freddy and I decided to make travel guides was because I love taking photographs. But I really don't need or want 50,000 photos that are never looked at. Vanity photography does not appeal to my scientific nature. The travel guides became a terrific way to take photos of fun and interesting places and activities. Thousands of our images have appeared on travel websites, magazine and newspaper articles, brochures, catalogues, on the sides of buildings and even on busses.

We set up photo libraries online to assist in the use and distribution of our images. These include the New Caledonia Photography library, New Caledonia Accommodation Photos,New Caledonia Activity Pictures.

Our Vanuatu photo libraries include the Vanuatu Photographic Library,Vanuatu Accommodation Photos, and Vanuatu Activity Photographs.

Freddy has just set up a website to offer some of her exquisite hand painted silk scarves with designs inspired by the New Caledonia Lagoon. It's a neat website.