Matt Fletcher
Hanneke Boon, a collaborator with the multihull designer James Wharram, is a lifetime designer, boatbuilder, and seafarer. In this photograph, she is at the helm of LAPITA ANUTA approaching Raboul, Papua New Guinea, in 2009 as the Tavurvur Cone ash plume rises behind her.
The water taxi speeds off from the dock in Olhão on the south coast of Portugal at mid-tide, around 3:30 p.m., its oversized outboard engines propelling us east along the Algarve toward Armona Island. It’s a warm spring day. My two teenaged boys cling to the after rail as spray lifts over the wake while I shield my one-year-old daughter from the sun, strapped tight against my chest in her carrier. My husband, Rémy, wedges our groceries between his legs, visibly relieved to be out of the car after two long days driving across multiple climates from southwest France.
Our host, Hanneke Boon, beams beneath her linen sunhat.
As the powerboat taxi throttles back, a huge Polynesian-inspired catamaran slides into view: red-painted hulls, carved wooden stemheads rising like punctuation marks at each end, and two pale wooden masts reaching into a blue sky brushed with thin cloud. The boat sits lightly, almost expectantly, on the water.