Steve Gates - whom I encountered through my involvement with VILLA MAMANA - lived in Hawaii for 31 years, raised two kids, built and repaired boats for a living, then sailed to Tonga in November 2003 for a unique job as caretaker on the very remote 40-acre private island of Telekivava'u in the already very remote island group of Ha'apai.
It was an idyllic lifestyle, spending weeks at a time alone on the island, his Searunner 37 trimaran 'Manu-O-Ku' anchored in the lagoon. He did that for three years before sailing on to the Vava'u islands where for the next four-and-half years he ran 3-5-night charters for couples. As he wrote, "Tonga provided for me an incredibly comfortable comfort zone which was very hard to leave."
But being a nomad at heart, a wanderer, he finally escaped his comfort zone and left Tonga in June 2011, sailing west - Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Palau, Philippines - wandering the world yet sleeping in his own bed. As he wrote, "Change isn’t always easy, but once you do it, if feels so fresh and energizing."
Originally created in 2008 for his charter business in Tonga, his website suggests that he set up a new base in Palawan in the Philippines where he started chartering again. However, this is an archived copy as the original website has gone "off air".
As the original creator of VILLA MAMANA once said, "Steve is a nice man, doing what I wish I could do." Indeed, what we all wished we could do!
Where is Steve Gates now?
