Now his award-winning company, Sea Canoe, has a host of copycats. In a world in which tourism has been touted as a promising way to save nature, his experiences illustrate that, once out of control, tourism can become a precarious force that can actually destroy the nature it intends to save. The story of Gray and Sea Canoe is a kind of ecomorality play. The charismatic protagonist, better known as Caveman, lays his life on the line for an uncompromising vision of ecologically benign tourism but may one day be remembered as the person who violated the caves of Phangnga, a victim of his own success. We set off for the caves early one afternoon aboard a Sea Canoe mother vessel with 14 adventure-seeking tourists.
Jagged islands shimmer through the late monsoon haze.
Entering a cave, the company policy goes, should be done with the same reverence as entering a temple. From prehistoric rock paintings, it is known that people had plied these waters for at least 3,000 years and along the way probably discovered some of the sea caves. He came well prepared. As a teenager in Southern California, Gray rehabilitated hundreds of injured birds and vividly remembers crying when a burrowing owl died in his arms. After studying both filmmaking and international relations, Gray moved to Hawaii.