Building a Sea Bridge
The island nations of Pacific Ocean are vast, numerous and politically complicated. However, Sea Mercy was created because they all share a common economic and logistical challenge; how to connect their outlying remote island communities to the same level of health care, economic opportunities and disaster response aid that are readily available on their primary islands.
Sea Mercy has created a consistent and affordable Sea Bridge of service delivery vessels to provide those 'last mile' programs and services to their 'at risk' remote communities.
Who we are serving
There are eleven island nation communities that Sea Mercy is targeting with their Sea Bridge programs, with many experiencing service delivery shortfalls for their 'at risk' remote island communities. When we look at a map, we often only see the handful of primary islands listed there. However, there are thousands of remote island communities that are also a part of the island nations. Without a Sea Bridge, access to these same health, economic and disaster response services is almost impossible.
Below is a list of how many remote islands our Sea Bridge services need to reach:
- The Kingdom of Tonga (1 primary island, 176 remote islands)
- The Republic of Fiji (2 primary islands, 332 remote islands)
- Solomon Islands (5 primary islands, 900+ remote islands)
- Federated States of Micronesia (4 primary islands, 607 remote islands)
- Palau (3 primary islands, 250 remote islands)
- Vanuatu (2 primary islands, 81 remote islands)
- The Marshall Islands (1 primary island, 34 remote islands)
- Kiribati (1 primary island, 32 remote islands)
- The Cook Islands (2 primary islands, 13 remote islands)
- The Mariana Islands (1 primary islands, 14 remote islands)
- Tuvalu (1 primary island, 8 remote islands)
The need for a Sea Bridge
Often separated by hundreds of miles, one of the greatest challenges for the survival of the thousands of "at risk" remote islands across the South Pacific, is staying connected to health care, disaster response, education and economic development services that are mainly found only on the few primary islands.
In search of these missing services and economic opportunities for their families, there is a growing exodus of talent and youth from the remote communities to the primary islands. This exodus is putting the very future and cultural of these remote communities at risk.
If that is not enough of a concern, there is the growing danger and frequency of natural disasters (cyclones and rising sea levels) due to climate change. With each new disaster, there is a further depletion of what little infrastructure in place (water catchment, food production, shelter, income and health care) prior to the last one.
Sea Mercy’s mission has been, and will continue to be about bringing hope and a future to the often forgotten and neglected people living on the remote islands of the South Pacific. Since 2012, Sea Mercy and our partners have slowly been connecting the remote islands to these much-needed services through our Sea Bridge of volunteer yachts, services and expertise. Our goal is to develop a sustainable and affordable service delivery platform for our island nation partners and their remote communities .
Micro Sea Bridges
There is a growing movement and passion across the Pacific Island nations to transition away from using fossil fuels for island transport, and embrace sustainable (wind) transport. Unfortunately, restoring the lost art of sailing to the South Pacific will not be easy, as the past 3 generations have been taught to embrace and rely on the ‘iron sail’ (engine) for all their transportation needs and now there are few left who know how to sail. Without it, their ability to access comparable health, economic and disaster recovery services will be compromised.
Sea Mercy has taken up that challenge and developed Micro and Macro community based programs to achieve that goal. Sea Mercy’s Amatasi Project for the South Pacific is the first (Micro) step in creating the local Sea Bridge link needed on the remote communities of the South Pacific. This local link empowers local communities to be self-sufficient in a sustainable manner (moving away from expensive fossil fuels) and educates and trains local populations in the lost art of transport, vessel construction and fishing using the wind. With funding support from international community groups from around the world (schools, charities, organizations), Sea Mercy coordinates and delivers the materials and supplies needed for a simple to build and culturally sensitive sailing catamaran, the Amatasi 27, designed by award winning catamaran designer James Wharram.
To learn more about this important project and ways you or your organization can participate help empower these 'at risk' communities, please follow the below link.
Macro Sea Bridges
Sea Mercy’s is using our fleet of volunteer and dedicated yachts and shipping partnerships as the foundation for our Macro Sea Bridge service delivery platform solutions. This includes our Floating Health Care Clinic programs, our Disaster Response & Recovery programs, and our Economic Development programs.
Since 2012, our Floating Health Care Clinic vessels have visited hundreds of remote island communities (most multiple times), delivered over 350 health care volunteers (doctors, dentists, nurses, etc.), treated over 30,000 patients, distributed over 12,000 reading and 1,200 near-sighted glasses, provided dental surgery for over 1,800 dental patients (2,700 extractions).
Often the first to arrive and the last to leave, more than 50 Sea Mercy Disaster Response vessels have responded and brought emergency aid and care to the devastated remote islands following five of the largest Category 5 cyclones to have hit the South Pacific (Ian – 2014 in Tonga, Pam – 2015 in Vanuatu, Winston in Fiji – 2016, Harold in Vanuatu & Fiji -2020 and Yasa in Fiji) delivering over $1.5 million in shelter, food, water storage and medical supplies.
Our Economic Development programs have provided soils training and teaching, coconut oil production, Organic certification. We are currently forming partnerships with international universities and colleges to expand the teaching and learning opportunities across the South Pacific.
