Thank you, Mr. McCue

The captain’s voice comes over the cruise ship’s public address system, “We are now directly over the beginning of the Mariana’s Trench. From here it extends to approximately 200-300 miles southwest of the island of Guam where it is 36,201 feet deep. Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain, is 29,035 feet. At the deepest point, a bowling ball dropped from the surface falling at 10 feet per second would take over one hour to reach the sea floor.” And on he goes with other trivia about the trench. The tourists standing on the ship’s deck look out over the empty ocean and contemplate just where they are at that moment. Of course many snap photos. Will this be another aspect of the CNMI tourist industry?

Mr. William McCue’s letter last week and most recently (Saipan Tribune, Oct. 1, 2008) do present very real obstacles facing the proposed marine monument as a tourist attraction. It seems to me that he is correct in his analysis. Since I am not an experienced ship’s captain and have no idea about the operational costs of seagoing vessels, it is reasonable to assume that his estimates of costs for a vessel to travel to the northern islands on a monument tour are correct. That is a good start for a business plan is to compare your business costs against the necessary revenues to come up with a breakeven part.

Did you know that some people spend from $1,600 to $10,000 plus air fare to go look at polar bears in Churchill, Canada? To tour the Galapagos Island starts at $1,200 to $4,500 plus air fare. A trip to Antarctica can set you back from $3,500 to $37,000 plus air fare. About 15 years ago, seven friends and I went on a 10-day fly-‘n’-fishing trip to Manitoba, Canada. Round trip air fare from Sacramento, Calif., to Winnipeg, Canada, was $600 each. For a 14-passenger van for the road trip from Winnipeg to Lynne Lake and back was $100 each. The fishing package was $800 each for the float plane trip, small fishing boats, a cabin with no running water, no showers, no flush toilet and no electricity, located on a lake with lot of fish in the middle of nowhere. Plus we had to provide our own food and drink (the beer alone was about $2,000). I will never forget the look on the face of the float plane pilot when he saw all our gear, food and 80 cases of beer waiting on the dock to be loaded on his plane. Yes, they weighed everything to make sure the plane was not overloaded. Thank goodness we did not have to leave any beer behind on the dock. We ran out of beer on day 8, so they flew in six more cases. We caught and released a lot of fish. Overall we each spent around $2,500-$3,000(or $20,000-$24,000 group total) for the trip. And we were not rich people. My point is that there are many people that spend big bucks to have fun and unusual adventures. Tour package costs to the northern islands of $3,000-$10,000 per person are not outside the adventure tour market price range.

Mr. McCue is also correct about the U.S. Coast Guard being unable to continuously patrol the monument for poaching or other illegal intrusions due to budget limitations and the size of the area. However, this will change in the future as Guam becomes a more strategic military location. As Guam grows in military importance, the military’s interest in what is happening in the waters in this section of the Pacific, including the northern islands, will increase. Then we will have the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard keeping a more diligent lookout on just who is in our waters. That is going to happen with or without a monument.

Now we have the potential expenses and potential revenues to calculate a “ball park” break even point for a cruise to the northern islands. Let the entrepreneurs and their analysts get hard figures and make it happen. The money and the public interest in adventure tours are out there. I am quite sure that the U.S. military will be keeping a diligent eye on the northern islands in the future. That would be in their and our best interests. Support you marine monument.