I’ve been thinking about the concept of ethnic origin a lot since I arrived in Jamaica ten days ago. I realized how much I have changed in the past four and a half years since moving to Panama. Alex feels the same way this time, on his third visit to Jamaica, he can see how much more at ease he feels now walking down the streets of Port Antonio.

Argentina and Chile are quite different from the rest of South America in that they are the southernmost countries in the continent. The bottom half of both countries is covered in snow during the winter, some areas have all-year-round glaciers. Argentina even owns part of Antarctica. Which explains, in part, why we did not retain the African population after slavery was abolished. Uruguay, with its milder temperatures, did. But this was also a political decision.

In case any of you is interested in a little Argentine history, you’ll probably be surprised to hear that my home country was the world’s 10th wealthiest nation per capita in 1913 after Australia, Britain and the US but ahead of France, Germany and Italy. During that period, the migratory flow into Argentina (escaping the war or seeking a better future) was such that half of its population was foreign, mainly Spanish, Italian and Eastern European. The 20th Century was filled with political instability and military dictatorships and the economy naturally plummeted; we never managed to recover. But culturally speaking, these migratory waves changed our perceived national identity.

I grew up in Latin America which, needless to say, accounts for a lot when it comes to who I am. But like many other people in the Argentine urban centers, there has been no indigenous mix in my family. Also, because Buenos Aires is such a large city with such vibrant cultural life, I always felt foreign during my travels, that is, until I went to Europe. I was treated like a white “gringa” in many places in Latin America and like a “beaner” in the US. (It’s funny how sometimes in the US we are all perceived like Mexicans since Mexico is actually located in North America. Until high school when I started seriously traveling I had never tried black beans, corn tortillas or chili peppers. Mexico City is nothing less than 4,581 miles away from Buenos Aires, which, for you to have an idea, is longer than the distance between Buenos Aires and Cape Town (4,278 miles) or New York and Belgrade (4,524 miles).

When I started traveling to Europe, I was surprised that most people didn’t realize I was South American, they thought I was Italian or Greek. I can personally trace my family roots, with photographs, to my great-grandparents on my mum’s side of the family (they were all Spanish) and to my grandparents on my dad’s side (my grandpa left Croatia when he was 20, and my granny’s parents I believe were both Italian). My Croatian last name literally means “son of the Saxon”, which probably means our Yugoslavian ancestors were actually from Central Europe, Germany perhaps. Yet I wonder whether there was an African trace anywhere in my European ethnic origins. I look at my family photos and everybody is very pale with thin lips except from my mum’s Spanish grandmother. She’s got olive skin and full lips. I wonder whether there was someone from Northern Africa in her family, from Egypt or Morocco, perhaps?

According to Wikipedia, over 6.2 million Europeans emigrated to Argentina from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries. Argentina was second only to the US in the number of European immigrants received. There was plenty of fertile empty land to give away in the Pampas, and the weather and landscape was very similar to Europe; the German and Swiss settled in the snowy mountains and icy lakes of Patagonia, the Southern European in Buenos Aires where they could enjoy opera, ballet and cinema just like back at home. There wasn’t (and still isn’t) a laid-back, palm and mango tree atmosphere in Buenos Aires. If you have no roof over your head and wood to burn in the winter, you literally die. But that was not the only reason why the now free families of African origin did not stay in the country. There were diseases they had never been exposed to, but also, following the trend of Social Darwinism, some Argentine politicians and members of the intellectual elite decided to begin a “whitening” process, which meant importing as many white immigrants as possible, and getting rid of the black population by sending them to war for example in exchange for benefits for their families. Our rich “black” historical heritage was unfortunately also erased from school curricula, as if it had never existed.

In regards to our native history, it suffered the same fate as in the rest of the Americas. They were decimated by the Spanish conquerors through murder or disease, and the few who were left were converted to Christianity, forced to forget their traditions and beliefs and pushed away from the main urban centers into other areas of the country, where it’s easy to see the traces of their blood still today.

Anyway, I was telling you about my holidays to NYC in 1993. I was 17. I remember I was in a record store and this African-American boy very casually looked at the music I had chosen and started talking to me. Listening to his particular accent, and being the second black person I had ever talked to, I realized then how little I knew about his culture. In the media and the entertainment business, as you know, they are too often portrayed like criminals and that causes fear, segregation and violence. It is high time we fought against such evil, poisoning media, even if it’s just throwing away the TV set. But even when things do not escalate in that way, this lack of cultural knowledge creates a wall which prevents us from enjoying the wonders of each other’s company.

Splendid is moored next to a Panamanian town called Puerto Lindo. The inhabitants are mostly black, and there are a couple of foreigners too, people who came by boat from Europe and the US and after a few years decided to build or buy a house. The first few months I lived there I have to admit I was a bit intimidated by the locals, I heard stories of robberies and drug trafficking many times until somebody had anything nice to say about them. Slowly, after saying hi to them in the street many times, I started getting to know amazing families and Alex and I have grown not only fond of them, despite the clear difference in experiences and economic class we have built close and strong bonds of friendship and trust with them. They are a very important part of our daily life and one of reasons why we love living there as opposed to anywhere else. Our closest friends in Panama are the couple who own the boat next to ours, he is German and she also happens to be of African descent (her mum Panamanian, her dad from the US). Through many conversations with her, I was also able to better understand how the more accommodated black citizens feel about their heritage in those two countries, the mix between pride and feeling
different or inferior.

A friend told me the other day how in some Caribbean islands the locals openly make white people feel unwelcome. He told me how for instance he would be queuing at the supermarket and the cashier would be very chatty and smiley with the black customers in front and then very quiet and cold to him. And that it continued happening throughout the trip, that it was very upsetting, even though they were not “afraid” of him, they were not treating him like a dangerous criminal. He couldn’t even imagine what that must feel like. I wish this kind of thing happened to us more often, so that we could really understand how aggressive and shitty, and how uneducated and embarrassing it is to be afraid of someone just because of the color of their skin, or how they dress or talk.

I realize now when I travel to the US, and especially now that I am in Jamaica for the first time, how I am able to be myself and move naturally among black people and the impact that has on how situations develop and unfold. The other day we were walking down the street going to a local vegetarian restaurant and we saw this pretty female tourist who was suddenly approached by a local man we’ve talked to before. They can be quite intense in their way of talking or approaching others comparing to other places but she got so startled and afraid she actually jumped and screamed. I understood her, of course, but it was pretty embarrassing. I realized, bycontrast, that now when someone approaches me in the street here, I look in their eyes to see what they want to say. Sometimes they want money, of course, we have too much and they have too little in comparison, much more because of sheer luck than effort, sometimes they’re selling amazing art but many times they just want to make friends with us, they ask us what we’re looking for and recommend restaurants or places to visit. They’re interested to meet people from other countries and learn from the exchange, like every other person in the world. Can you imagine that for a minute? Someone comes to your town and is walking around and you want to make friends, or try to help them and they jump and scream in fear at the mere sight of you. In your own town. And it happens to you regularly. Can you see how ridiculous and infuriating that would be? Many times it is that fear that makes you a target, because you are the one who threw the first punch. Openly being afraid of someone who hasn’t done anything to you (crossing the street, holding your bag close to your body, not looking at them in the eyes) is violent.

Alex feels the same way, he realizes what a better traveler he is today than when he left the US. Travel, for some, is seeing new places. But it can be so much more than that. Alex always talks about how in his opinion being educated has nothing to do with attending university. How nobility placed great importance on travel as a means to educate their young. At university you learn a trade, or learn about a particular subject, but that does not mean you understand how the world works. Travel becomes a real journey when you interact with others and learn first hand how they live, how they feel, the things they love. The only reason we feel so different from others is because we are ignorant of our many similarities. It is only then that you will know who you really are and what you stand for. And that changes both you and the world around you. Much of the destruction of life and resources on our planet are the direct result of this lack of knowledge and education. You can’t love, appreciate or protect what you don’t know. And it feels so nice to learn. Don’t miss out. Our life on this planet is so brief. Don’t hide behind a stupid computer screen. Make the most of it. Make it beautiful. See what’s out there with your own eyes. Taste new flavors, dive into new waters, take a nap under a tree you’ve never seen before, smell the cool breeze of a new mountain, learn a new language, lie under the sun, dance in the snow.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0AMqG5d6vf4zm50PgXekcOblsbgU0yd4N

Nacho and I spent the last month up there with them and it was such a blast. After a year and a half of owning Eleanor I had only spent a handful of nights on her. Alex flew in first to get her sort of ready (and kick out all sorts of critters and rodents) and after a couple of weeks Nacho and I came to join him. It was so nice to spend a month all together on our new boat, and she’s such a beauty. It was love at first sight and we love her more everyday. Nacho hasn’t quite figured out how to get in and out of the boat but he’ll get there. We need to build something for him to get onto the bed but that’s it, no biggie. Also we want to convert the aft bunks into a queen size bed
like we have on Splendid, it’s a bit of a challenge because the mizzen mast comes all the way down but we’ll try, the three of us like to sleep together, especially Nacho, he can’t make up his mind who to sleep with otherwise, we’ll have to fix it. Other than that she’s absolutely perfect in every sense. There’s so much light and so much room and so much storage. And she’s heavy at anchor, such a comfortable boat to live on. My favorite place is the settee with the table, Alex loves the couches/bunks in the sitting room (we got one now, fancy).

The challenge for this trip was all the stuff he has to bring to Panama. We are bringing all of Joe’s boxes from his house in Okeechobee, plus the new bike, all the equipment we bought for the movie which is in Pelican cases, plus (hear this) a washing machine and an acoustic guitar Alex’s sister Sara Jane gave us, plus my new cello hahaaa yep my dad got me a cello to compose music for the film. We had to devise line systems here and there to keep all that stuff from falling during the sail but I think it’ll be ok.

Another exciting piece of news is that Pete Shaner is giving Alex a hand sailing to Panama but he’s also a film maker and might join our team behind the camera. We’re keeping our fingers crossed, he’s super fun and talented. We took two afternoons to try the new equipment and were very impressed with the results. We are so looking forward to shooting this film, we really can’t wait. We feel it’s going to be a much easier and more effective way to let everyone know about our lifestyle and the freedom it can bring about. Alex has been growing his hair for the character, you can already see some changes in the photos he sent me this morning.

During my stay in Florida I also got to spend time with my dad and my brother’s family, which is always lovely and fun. We also received a couple of amazing visitors: Todd Townsend (another proud new Westsail owner, who has been helping with Eleanor since the beginning, remember?) who will play the part of a street musician in the movie, and David Wilson, who ran this website
for over a decade. We also hung out with Alex’s friend Chuck who lives there in Palm Beach and has a mooring in the same anchorage where we stayed those weeks. His 15-year-old son, Zach, plays the viola wonderfully and might join the soundtrack team. Boris, the charango player from Bariloche, has just entered the studio to record a new album, so we will have more material to choose from soon. And a few girls from Argentine band Las Taradas are also writing music for us. They’re amazing, check out who they are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afn4auf3i0E

Nacho and I would have loved to sail down with them, but we had to come back to look after Joe. He did not ask us to come back, but we knew he’d like the company. He’s been working hard on the script too, making his character deeper and more interesting. We’ll be shooting his scenes first so that he can relax. If we take a long time to finish the movie, at least we want to make
sure his scenes are done. He’s doing great, we’ve been even talking about doing a second part later with him too. But he’s 84, we know he’s got lots of energy now, we have to take advantage of it.

Pete has to go back home before the end of the month because his latest independent production has been selected for a film festival, he’s flying back for the screening. After that he’ll decide whether he’s interested in coming back to Panama to help us shoot The Minimalist Sailor. His fiancee, Vick, is a very talented actress too, we were hoping she would also play the part of Alex’s sister. But we have to wait and see. Alex will have to take some time off when he gets here anyway, he’s been working like crazy and has been having a lot of pain in his shoulders. If they can’t make it, at least I’ve seen Pete work in Florida those two days and I have a better idea of what to do if I end up having to be the one behind the
camera. He has been an invaluable asset during these past couple of weeks, we’re so thankful.

Now they won’t have a working phone or internet for the next couple of weeks, they are planning to sail straight here as quick as possible. Pete has some satellite email sort of thing. But at least the Spot page seems to be working, so we can see their trip on the map.

Can’t wait to have the movie to share with you, guys. We’ve been quiet but we’re working hard. It’s a very small production, but we’re putting our hearts and souls into it. Talk to you soon!

Take care,

C.

First of all, Splendid is looking sooo good!! We spent nearly two months on the hard fixing all sorts of things, with the help of our friend Carlos we sanded the bottom completely, fixed cosmetic blisters, painted the whole thing with epoxy and applied 5 gallons of bottom paint, we painted the hull and the toe rail, Alex did a lot of engine work with the help of a mechanic, painted the whole engine room, we also emptied and painted every cabinet and lazarette, I finished restoring the companion way, forward head and V-berth. All I have left is the main saloon area where the settee is, we have to varnish the floors and re-paint the cockpit and non-skid outside. I might make a brand new bimini too. We’d like to have a black one. Let me show you some pics, my camera died recently so I’ve been taking pictures with my crappy phone, sorry about that but you can get an idea:

The journey is hopefully about becoming more balanced and less self-centered. For some, that means becoming more giving -less greedy and selfish so that you don’t end up becoming abusive. For others, it’s to become less giving -stronger and less sensitive so that you don’t become a victim.

I’ve always belonged to the second category, I’m a non-confrontational, deeply sensitive person. Moody and opinionated yes, but never greedy. I always focused on other people’s needs rather than mine and, more often than not, that got me weak and depressed. My journey has often been about learning how to defend myself and set boundaries to prevent the world from collapsing on my head.

And still today, at 40, it makes me angry that some people are insecure and greedy and need to accumulate money, property and power, taking it from others just to sit on it instead of just enjoying life and using their time in more fulfilling, intelligent and interesting ways. I really cannot live in this system we’ve created because I just don’t like human nature sometimes. The Earth would be such an amazing place if we just learned to share our toys, wouldn’t it? You may say I am dreamer… but as you know, I’m not the first or the only one. And I will not accept defeat. I will keep using any media I can get my hands on to try and raise awareness.

I’ve been quiet here for a while, so has Alex, but so much happened lately. We often preach about how money or possessions bring us more head and heartache than happiness. We speak from a personal point of view of course, everything is always subjective, but you would be surprised how many people do not believe us. And since we have not been actively involved in the urban way of life for so long, living on the hook and off-grid, sometimes it was hard to know whether we really knew what we were talking about anymore. Until recently.

Since the moment we met Alex’s dad in the States andwe started the process of bringing him to Panama we had the most eye-opening, incredible series of events: from the point of view of an American old man with a good regular income and some savings in the bank we could see the darkest, most ridiculous forms of greed, deception and
stupidity. It’s amazing what happens when old people do not have younger relatives to defend them. But it was even more amazing to see what happened to Alex and I when we came back to Panama to look for property for him. We saw the big contrast: the difference between how people had been treating us for years knowing we did not have money, and how they treated us now that we were driving the car Joe gave us and were looking to buy a house.

Shadier people started approaching us and everything started getting so complicated, dealing with debit cards, and international wire transfers and credit card fraud, medical insurance, lawyers, real estate agents, land surveyors, bills, car part dealers and mechanics. We started feeling sad, angry, ill. Being the Dorseys official translator in Panama I had to learn once again how to be a warrior and defend my family from the human vultures money always attracts. All we wanted was to come back to the boat. To our $250 bucks a month for groceries. Row. Fish. Read. Swim.

And after a few weeks I saw a new me appear, like that photo of Jack Nicholson which circulated around Facebook a while ago, I found myself having no more fucks to give, no more patience for negative or insensitive people. I stopped feeling sorry and started getting angry. I felt the need to do something about it. It’s not a coincidence that since Joe appeared in our lives “The Minimalist Sailor” is finally happening. 

This movie is our grain of sand, our revolution. We’re so excited. Stay tuned :)

Last year, during those crazy four days since the time we found Eleanor on Ebay until the end of the auction, while we alternated between hoping and getting discouraged that we wouldn’t be able to buy her, one afternoon while we were resting in the aft cabin I suddenly got sick of feeling stuck and living on a wonderful boat that was never done. So I grabbed a metal scraper and just started thrashing the aft cabin hahaaa.

You see, when Alex got her, Splendid was a perfect example of a Cheoy Leaky. It had been on the hard and abandoned for so many years that her beautiful teak decks and cabin house were rotting and water was coming in through many places. So the first thing Alex did was glass it all. He took every single screw and bolt, fiberglassed the whole thing, epoxied every hole and re-drilled them. So now we have a fantastically dry boat with no leaks. But we could see, and we knew, that behind most of the veneer there were soft spots where the plywood had gotten wet. Nothing really structural, because there was original fiberglass behind it, but still, we just knew at one point we would have to rip all the veneer out and fix the damage. Also, the aft head walls were strangely covered in heavy tiles with moisture had obviously made it behind them too.

So, as I was saying, I just sprung out of bed, grabbed a scraper and started destroying all the veneer in our room. Alex looked at me as if I was going insane, but I had just had enough of it. I was sick of apologizing for our beautiful boat in bad cosmetic state. That was it. Splendid deserved better.

She’s such a majestic boat inside. She is not the majestic sailing boat Eleanor is, of course, she is slower, but still very comfortable at sea. Now her interior design is just unbelievable and there’s so much storage room you have no idea, our pantry, the lazarettes, it’s huge. We have the most amazing cockpit I have ever seen. And it’s so cool, for a 40-footer she feels huge. I have neighbors that often ask me if I want a ride to shore “to get off the boat for a bit and stretch my legs” but I have to say I have never, not once, felt the need to leave or go somewhere else other than to the water for a swim or a paddle. She has four large comfortable areas to hang out in, all absolutely independent, well-lit, ventilated and separated from each other.

The moment Alex left that very week last year to go see Eleanor for the first time, I just emptied the aft cabin and took every single bit of veneer out to analyse the plywood underneath. And spent the next couple of weeks getting rid of the soft areas by digging into the wood and covering those holes (sometimes half an inch deep) with a mix of epoxy and talcum powder. Let me show you some pictures:

The hardest part was sanding, my arms are not so strong and it was a lot of surface because it was not only the walls around the portholes, it was the big walls inside and around the head as well. And that plywood underneath the tiles or the veneer was not supposed to be exposed, so it was full of imperfections, huge bolt heads, holes. It really took a long time to make the surfaces smooth and even. It is not perfect, at one point I had to say “alright that’s good enough” because I needed to move on to the other rooms, they all have the same situation.

Then, once the boring dirty work was over, I moved on to the varnish. There was original varnish everywhere, old and kind of red, non existent in some places. So I took it all out with chemical paint stripper and my favorite tool, you know, the old scraper. After that, I painted everything with primer, sanded and then used cream colored two-part polyurathane Sikkens paint (really a great product we can get here in Panama) and I finally put five coats of varnish everywhere, the first two coats diluted with some thinner.

I also stripped the floors, but I want to use two-part varnish for them so I just sealed the wood until I can afford to buy it. We still have to change the two counters because they’re in bad shape, one is formica, the other veneer. But anyway, I’m so excited with the results! The paint does not look as classic as the veneer of course, it makes it look more modern, but the future new owner of Splendid can easily put new veneer on, just that it will be on solid walls this time. More images:

So now I’m moving onto the V-Berth! I can’t wait for Splendid to look the way she should, the way she deserves. Of course I can’t wait to move onto Eleanor, but that’s only because we want to start traveling far, to colder areas perhaps, and the Westsail 42 is better prepared for  more challenging latitudes. We will both miss Splendid terribly. Our dream was to be able to give her away to someone who would really really love her, but there’s no way we will be able to pay for Eleanor if we don’t sell Splendid. So at least we will take the time to find that very special buyer who will understand who she is.

Splendid found Alex the moment he realized Namaste was too small because he wanted to have a family. Splendid was the boat that called me to come to Panama and who made us meet right here, totally by chance, in a horrible bus stop neither of us was supposed to be at. And she taught us all the boat restoration skills we needed. And when we decided to get married, and have a dog, and felt that Splendid was nearly ready, then the elusive Westsail 42 of our dreams finally came to us. I am positive that Splendid will find that unique new owner that needs her the way we needed her before. She is no longer a project boat, I won’t stop until she looks magnificent everywhere, inside cupboards and under floorboards. I’ll keep you guys posted!

Love from Panama.

I live in the sea and I’m not afraid of sharks. Why would I? They’re not looking for me, I’m not their food of choice, I’m far too skinny for their diet. They’re territorial of course, and they’re predators, I know a big great white might eat me if I ever end up floating for hours in the middle of the ocean, their territory. They have big teeth, and they look mean but in all my travels I have never met anyone who was attacked by one, or anyone who knew anyone who was attacked by one. Not one person. Still we are killing over 70 million a year.

Did you know that? Fishermen are trapping them, cutting their fins off, and throwing them back into the sea to sink and die slowly. Their meat is not even used to feed anyone. Shark fins are very expensive, they’re used for soup, even though they’re not tasty or particularly nutritious. It breaks my heart. Sharks are incredible creatures, they’re ancient, they have evolved for millions of years, and in a decade we have nearly annihilated them just because their soup has been advertised to reduce the chances of cancer.

We know for a fact that smoking causes cancer. Eating shit food causes cancer. But cigarettes and shit food are available everywhere, they’re advertised and happily consumed everyday. They kill us but we do not mind so much.

Sharks do not kill us; there are only a handful of incidents a year and they’re usually by accident because of murky waters or because of a surfboard or wetsuit that makes us look like a seal. They certainly don’t knock on our door to attack us, or sell human meat in their grocery stores. We are actually more likely to be bitten by another person than a shark. But we fear and loathe them because of a blockbuster from the 70s and a couple cheap movies with annoyingly bad acting that came out in the last two decades. And so we don’t care if they all go, even though we need them to control the other fish populations, life on our planet depends on it. We can’t produce sharks and they definitely do not deserve our cruelty. I’ve contacted an NGO that’s trying to open people’s eyes and stop shark finning. I have not received a reply yet, but I really want to do something about it, make sure that everyone knows, especially in Asia where shark fin soup is so popular.It’d be so easy to just stop buying the freaking soup. If there’s no profit, they’ll leave them alone.

I know there’s a million battles going on right now. It seems we’ve screwed up everything that could be screwed up, Monsanto is even playing with the cannabis seed now and so it’s becoming legal all over the US, even though it was officially considered the worst of evils for decades, it’s such a joke. So, now more than ever, I think it is important that we use our time and energy wisely. Turning off the TV is no doubt the first move. Stop their spoon-feeding of fear and advertising by just not watching. You don’t need to give up entertainment, have a hard drive with world cinema and TV shows you do like instead. Or watch Netflix or something like that if you have access to the internet. But most of all, realize we do not know how long we are going to be around.

Life must be lived today. We are capable of so much love and compassion, so much connection. There is so much bliss in giving and sharing. It’s instantaneous. We must not let a day go by without being kind to others, a big contagious smile is so powerful! We cannot change everything that’s happening but we can open our eyes, share the information we find important and make good choices. We must speak up against injustice and cruelty. Some problems are solved just by being informed: when we stop choosing something, it becomes obsolete. And humans instinctively learn by example. Be the change you want to see and you will be amazed at the results.

Have faith in humanity, we are it. What it becomes depends solely on us.

It’s your typical dystopian novel, a negative kind of utopia, a dark view of the future of our social and political life, the fate of humanity or the planet. There are so many books and movies I have loved about that, like 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, More than Human, The Island, V for Vendetta, The Martian Chronicles, The Lord of the Flies or A Clockwork Orange to name a few. I find them highly entertaining and food for thought at the same time.

It got me thinking about the whole point of having this website running. Because one could not say Project Bluesphere is a sailing blog, apart from the fact that we haven’t been sailing much lately, the focus has never been to describe our travels as much as talking about an alternative lifestyle, a different world view and philosophy, not in order to boast about it but to inspire and offer guidance to every single person who might be interested in giving this sunny, salty and slow way of life a go.

A quiet, low-stress, healthy life in nature is not a utopia. We are a real community made up of tanned, messy-haired sensitive people of all ages, nationalities and backgrounds. And that’s why we’re here. Man, if there’s something I wish for all of humanity is this life we have. It has had such a huge impact in my life and the lives of those around me in the last three years. I’ll never get tired of trying to spark this passion in others. And offering my hand whenever someone needs it. I’m so excited about Ryan joining the team too! His journey will hopefully inspire lots more to just go for it, to see what it takes, to see how it feels from the very beginning, the obstacles one encounters, the beautiful people and wisdom one finds in the process. And, at the same time, I know you guys with your comments and emails will help him stay focused and positive, offer the advice and support he needs.

What was I talking about? Ah, yes, Children of Men. The book also made me think once more about society. I’ve been observing our small local sailing community and the Kuna Indians a lot lately, and I’ve been wondering why life in the urban centers has gotten so complicated; I guess the key to having a peaceful community is small numbers. People, no matter where they are born, are nice, kind and generous when they feel safe and whole, and they get greedy, aggressive and power hungry when they’re not, when they feel they are what they have because what they are is not enough. Like I always say, wealth has nothing to do with happiness. The goal is not to have more, the goal is to need less, to be free from the need to own, and to cherish learning, doing and giving instead. That is the road to happiness and freedom. And I’m not trying to sell a postcard, or New Age bullshit, I’m talking about our lives and the lives of the people around us right now, on the boats I wave at when I go for a paddle in my surfboard with Nacho on my back. A life at sea is the best way I know to find that bliss inside of you. Not the only way, by any means, but surely the easiest. There is something absolutely magical about not being part of any particular country anymore, to see no tangible borders, and to be part of an international community of freedom seekers that is always moving, searching, learning.

Politically speaking, our freedom is really mind-blowing. Even though we cruise around or through countries, we are not really part of them, we are only given temporary cruising permits, we can pick up the anchor and leave any minute without telling anyone really and the authorities know it. This creates a very special circumstance, we are always “just passing by”, we do not belong, locals and tourists take pictures of us, we are a rarity, the strange ones who speak with an accent, always tanned, with flip flops, Asian tattoos and tattered clothes. We don’t really bother anyone, we don’t live or work on land, we usually spend money on groceries, fuel and propane, but are otherwise self-sufficient.

After a couple of years of traveling on our boats, we don’t seem to fit in our own country of origin either. We love our friends and family even more than before at times, and the lucky ones among us who get to go home and visit enjoy their company and the things we have been missing immensely. But everyone can see we’ve changed, and not in a million years could we get used to living in a city again: we have gotten so used to a life of nature and silence, tides and starfish, sand and salt that city life, with its velocity and consumerism, becomes quite hard to handle. You wouldn’t believe how stressful running an errand or going grocery shopping can become for us: traffic, sirens, pollution, street violence, unhealthy food, we feel it all a lot more intensely because we are not used to it anymore.

The strange thing is that we still have our legal “ghost” residence there. I, for example, am a legal resident of Buenos Aires, Argentina, yet I have not lived there for a decade, I have not paid taxes, voted, or carried out any other citizen duties apart from renewing my passport in 2011 and getting married to Alex in 2013. That won’t change even if I spend the next 30 years at sea and do not set foot on Argentine soil. I will still be a resident of Buenos Aires. We live outside of life on the continents, literally and legally. Alex paid for an internet search on himself and found out that he disappeared in 1999, his last known address is in South Pasadena, California. He always says we live in the cracks of societies and it seems so true. The community of sailors becomes the only community we really belong to, small tribes of people brought together by common interests, not just geographical proximity.

We are spread out across the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes of the world but we do share anchorages very often and that’s when our community life begins. We have neighbors who never go anywhere, others who come and go constantly. And each anchorage has its own style and characteristics. But something quite amazing is that even though we are a society, a group of individuals sharing a geographical space and its resources, we have no leaders or representatives. Our interaction and organization is based on common sense, not on legal restrictions. In that sense, the international community of sailors can be considered anarchic.

Just like some people who have never lived in a rural area or owned a boat consider the bartering system “a fantasy”, even more people think that there are no anarchist communities in the world today, that anarchy is either a crazy, silly concept belonging to comic books and punk music or the ridiculous, basic, uneducated violence proposed by skinheads.

Problem is, anarchy is a very broad term that encompasses absolutely opposed and conflicting ideas. It can be “a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority”, which is a temporary state during a crisis, as much as it can mean “the absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual”, which is the concept I think best represents our community of international sailors.

Now, let’s not get silly here. Of course we must respect basic maritime laws, but, at the same time, since we rarely set foot on land, their laws do not really apply to us. We reside in areas where we are considered “tourists” no matter how long we’ve lived here, and as such we do not have any civil duties or responsibilities. On top of that, many times we enter and leave a country without checking in, or having used a single one of their resources, we have our own electric power, our own water supply, a couple of propane tanks last for a year, we might carry a lot of fuel, or use no fuel, etc. Many times the country does not even know you’ve used their politically defined waters. And if you don’t own anything in your country of origin (like Alex and I) then they do not know what you’re up to either, they don’t know if you will ever come back, they totally forget about you.

As much as there is no privacy left on the face of the earth (any one of us can be monitored through cellphone signal, internet use, and even actual cameras that can follow us from traffic lights or satellites), the truth is that governments have no time or interest in following all of us. To me it’s a very teenage concept to think you’re that important. I don’t believe anyone’s really watching me and if they are, I can honestly say I feel sorry for them, what a bore.

Some countries do have a lot of national security. When you sail to Australia, for example, you are contacted by radio a few times and even approached by helicopters before you get there, they make you throw away all of your food, they check your bottom paint to make sure it’s not toxic, etc.

Then other countries have the illusion of security, like the US, where the airport staff nearly makes you strip naked to go through machines and dogs and stuff but when you arrive with a boat (this happened to Alex personally and to other people we’ve met) sometimes you get to a harbor and are asked to stay onboard until the next morning when you will be boarded by the coast guard. You can go out for dinner, ice cream or a movie, or deliver your illegal drugs and weapons, and patiently wait for security to arrive after breakfast.

Other countries have very little control. When you sail to Panama, for example, sometimes you have to travel hours to get to the office and let them know you have arrived. Nobody knows you’re here until you take the trouble to announce it officially. In countries like this, and there are many, you visit the local authorities only once a year to renew your cruising permit, but that is if you’re responsible and diligent, otherwise you get to sail around and live your life without anyone knowing you’re here. It’s really quite an amazing thing, to know there are still places with such freedom.

And something I love about this, is that most of us never fail to show, on time, to present all our papers and pay for our cruising fees. When authorities trust you’ll do the right thing, you do it more eagerly. I remember when I lived in the UK, one of my Irish friends came to visit and told me he was playing for the frisbee league, it’s something like American football or rugby, but with a frisbee instead of a ball (I’m a girl, can’t really tell you more, haven’t got a clue). But the most interesting thing he told me about the sport was that there was no referee, even in international competitions, teams had to agree on whether the player was in or out, or whether a foul had been committed. Being so used to soccer in Argentina, where referees are such central figures, I asked him whether that worked out or if it was a mess. He simply replied “if there’s nobody to hide from, if nobody’s watching you, wouldn’t it be silly to be pulling from your opponent’s T-shirt? There’s nobody to fool, you look like a total idiot”.

It would be very hard to think about an important anarchist community on land (although there are some small ones here and there). When numbers increase, leaders, rules, public services, etc become absolutely necessary. Anarchy, and also democracy, work really well when communities are small and resources are plentiful, it is overpopulation which makes things get out of hand. Representatives do not see who they represent anymore, your voice is not heard, you must comply with a thousand things you do not agree with. You’d be amazed at how the Kuna Indians are organized. They have such a beautiful example of how democracy should work.

The most important authority in Kuna Yala is the Congreso, made up of a few congressmen, who
consult the chiefs of every small community, who work together with yet a few other local advisers who consult the population.

To give you a concrete example of how this works, I recently had a long talk with a lancha driver in the Lemon Cays. I was asking him how come some families were looking after the islands for only three months before they were assigned a different place to live yet he always seemed to be in the same island, driving tourists back and forth from the main harbor. He told me that only a few islands were privately owned by some Kuna who bought them before the Congreso decided the rest of Kuna Yala was to be shared among every member of the community. He had a job with one of these chiefs, who owned this island, and that he was allowed to work there for 11 months a year. Every year, he had to go home for a whole month to do some communal work, like rebuilding homes or planting banana or coconut trees. He told me that the bananas they were eating today, had been planted by their grandparents or great grandparents. They needed to plant more trees today for the next generations, to make sure they would have plenty of food as well.

I asked him who decided what kind of work he had to do. He said that it was the Congreso who dictated what had to be done in each small community, but that the ideas came from the inhabitants of each area. He told me that if local chiefs decided people had to do some work that made no sense, then people would not be excited to do it, and
they would pretend they overslept, or say they were sick and fail to do it. That it was important that chiefs consulted the appointed local advisers, that he himself had volunteered to become one, because he liked to talk to his neighbors and see what needed to be done and bring that information to the chief, so that he could bring that information to the Congreso once a month.

I wonder when the old Western civilizations stopped working like that and got infected with such bureaucracy and corruption. I can only guess that it happened as they increased in numbers, I’m not a big fan of history to be honest. I spend my time and energy exploring the world today. Me, born in the southernmost country of South America, can’t be more sorry we were conquered once by such narrow-minded short-sighted idiots and that they actively destroyed all that indigenous wisdom, the love of nature, the care for the environment our life depends on.

Today, being as objective as I can be, and having actively traveled the world for 16 years, I can honestly say that a life on a boat is the closest one can get to that natural organic existence, to a slow healthy life of diving into warm salty waters at sunrise, playing with your loved ones on the sand, catching your lunch in the reef or picking it in the jungle, learning useful survival skills, feeling the elements and accommodating to them, watching the stars for direction and inspiration. A life better than the past, a life in-between cultures and borders. A life where you can pick and choose the best of both worlds without having to commit to either. Ancient wisdom, nature, and new technologies, the best of the East and the best of the West, and you in the center, an advocate of love, peace and freedom.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since we adopted President *Nacho* Camacho. He had a very rough “puppyhood”. Alex’s sister Sara Jane found him in a box in front of her house all wounded, scratched up; it looked as if bigger dogs had attacked him. She already had a cat, a baby on the way, a new house, a lot going on, but still she had the guts and the heart to take him into her home and offer him safety, love, food, shelter.
When we visited her in December, we fell in love with him instantly, he started following me around the house all day as if he wanted to tell me something. Sara Jane thought we would be able to offer him more time and energy and so she let us adopt him. Importing him to Panama meant some expenses (vet examination, international health certificate, authentications, etc) but I had a little money for a laptop (mine died) so I used the money for Nacho’s documents instead. Best idea we’ve ever had.

There’s something amazing about a life aboard a sailboat on the hook, away from land and urban societies. You quickly become part of the nature around you. The moment you see how pelicans hunt,
how little fish get eaten by bigger fish, and they get eaten by sharks, and how sharks look at you when you catch your own dinner in their territory, you realize you are just a mammal. And sharks should be very afraid of us, we are so destructive and irresponsible that we are annihilating them at an amazing rate. Without them, incredibly ancient and evolved sea predators, all other species get out of control, like everything else we seem to touch: forests, rivers, underground waters, etc. We are, no doubt, at the top of the food chain with the incredibly important responsibilities that brings about: all life on the planet depends on us really if you think of it. And we live here. Like the image of the guy sitting at the end of a branch and sawing it off the tree, we are so blind sometimes it’s hard to believe.

There are so many children and domestic animals who need a home, who are walking the streets or praying everyday to be adopted in an institution or a shelter. We only get one life we can be sure of. Make sure you use yours to do good, to be happy, to be generous, to make peace, love and compassion contagious and fun. There’s something very beautiful in adopting a baby instead of having your own. But of course that’s not an easy thing to do. It takes a very special loving person. But adopting a pet is really not that hard. Domestic animals only need a little food, a little water, a place to pee and poo and all the love you can give them. Even if you can’t walk them everyday, train them to go in a designated area of your house or boat, a litter box, or on some artificial grass (we have a patch on our back deck). They will give you the most precious unconditional love, they’ll light up your days and you will have given them the biggest gift they ever received: a home.

It’s the gentle creatures that need us the most. We must defend them against our own ecological atrocities. If we must destroy nature to build our cities and our factories let’s at least offer some kind of remedy. Let’s help out in any way we can to spread the word, teach by example, let’s be respectful, giving, caring, generous. If not for them, let’s do it for ourselves. When you focus on others you forget about your own petty discomforts. Let the light in. Let love rule. We all deserve a nice “dog’s life”, whole afternoons sleeping under a tree, swimming for fun, shaking our butts to funny upbeat music, we need to be silly, enjoy the sunshine, free time and family. We need to become true guardians of nature. We need to be unconditional lovers of everything and everyone.

There was another comment in which another reader felt uncomfortable with our dislike for the “matrix” and the monetary system. I thought it would be a good idea to try and explain, once more, what we mean when we talk about minimalism.

Alex’s blog title was “living on a micro income” as opposed to “living on no income” and we speak of “minimalism” (minimal consumption) as opposed to “no consumption”. We have never said we do not earn, use or enjoy a little bit of money to buy the things we need. We show our boats and equipment through pictures and words of love, you see that we wear regular clothes, travel to visit family, watch movies, we do not pretend to live on a hand-made raft, wear rags and navigate relying solely on celestial navigation. I really do not see where the anger or discomfort could be coming from; what we say apparently makes them see something they do not like in their own lives. Once again, that is why we are here, for all those people who need a change.

I feel that this is a great opportunity to talk about what we feel is important. We keep writing about these things, trying to encourage others to come join us, even though it actually goes against our own interests and comfort: the more people take to the sea, the more rules and obstacles our lifestyle will encounter. We only keep insisting on it out of the love we feel for humanity and the need to share this beautiful life of freedom we have found with others.

For those skeptical ones out there, let me explain once more that Alex’s (now our) website has been running for over ten years with free access for anyone who was interested in reading. Alex spends the time and energy to answer, literally, a couple thousand emails and comments a year, if you have ever written to him, you already know that you always receive a response in a matter of hours, every single time.

These two men mentioned the “contradiction” of speaking of minimalism, or being against the matrix, when we have sponsors on our website. And that a bartering system belonged to the “would it not be nice” crowd. I understand most people have not had the chance to travel somewhere away from their own communities but the bartering system is very much alive and exists in every country in the world. Bartering is not a childish concept out of a cartoon or a fantasy land. Bartering simply refers to the exchange of one thing for another without the use of currency, and it is a system we have all used numerous times throughout our lives and since the beginning of time.

Children always exchange food or toys they are bored with for different, new, more interesting food or toys other children bring to school. As you move away from the bigger, more crowded and organized urban centers toward the outskirts or more rural areas you will see that thousands of people prefer this type of exchange with neighbors to buying or selling things for money. If one farmer produces eggs, they will sell some of them but more often than not they will also bring some to other farmers or neighbors and exchange them for meat, dairy products, wool, firewood, clothes, crafts, etc.

When we talk about preferring the bartering system this is all we are saying. We constantly find opportunities in our environment to exchange construction materials, boat parts, or groceries for work, supplies, art, you name it. Nobody is talking about a fantasy land in which money or manufactured goods do not exist. If you have been reading our blog for long enough you know I row a Dyer Midget dinghy. We got it in exchange for an old Kubota engine we had lying around and $200 cash. We’ve invested many days’ work on it, fixed it up and now it is worth $1,500. Which doesn’t mean that if we do not need it anymore we would be salivating to see fifteen $100 bills.

I don’t want fifteen $100 dollar bills for my dinghy if I don’t need it anymore. I would much rather give it away to another sailor who really needs a dinghy and see their smile. Giving things away at the right time is the most wonderful feeling in the world. This is how we got our amazing 10 foot Trinka. Someone we did not know saw the opportunity and gave it to Alex and rocked our world. Now we both have a rowing dinghy and can row to different places at the same time.

Now, say that instead of giving it away at the time I really wanted something material, like for example now we would love to learn how to kite surf. We’ve been interested in it for a couple of years but still haven’t had money to buy the gear. This is a good example. Say a neighbor from another boat had some kiting gear they do not use anymore and they really loved our Dyer Midget. It’d be a great opportunity to do a swap. Everyone’s happy, nobody spent a dime. It is that simple. This is the bartering system.

And for me, personally, that kite gear would be much more valuable if that sailor had made it him or herself, shaped the board with their own hands, decorated it, sewn the kite, etc, than if they had walked into some store and paid for it. This is what we mean as well. I don’t prefer O’Neill or Billabong to home-made if both are of similar quality. I prefer home-made because it has the love and magic of a human individual shaping their dreams with their time, effort, creativity and love. We are not driven by money or how much things cost. We don’t order the West Marine catalog and dream of spending thousands of dollars on new shit, we love finding opportunities with like-minded people in which the things we need come to us in magical ways, like Eleanor, or the Trinka.

A couple of months ago, a neighbor gave us his Lectrasan we would need if we went to Europe or the US and Alex and I agreed to paint his decks in exchange. Alex also fixed his rotten deck for an old 2-horse power outboard engine. Alex is going home in a few days and I’m staying for two more weeks because an old friend of his has a roller furling in storage, exactly the one we need for Eleanor and they need some canvaswork done (two sailcovers and a dinghy cover). We all agreed that it was a fair trade, all parties are happy, and nobody has had to go to work in the system to make pieces of smelly green paper, pay taxes that are used for things we don’t agree with, etc. The beauty of living minimally is that I do not have a job, bills, timetables. I can stay and do it.

Now, talking about our “evil sponsors” we also have a bartering arrangement with them. Whenever we really need some product or boat part, Alex contacts the company he feels he trusts the most. If you take the time to look at the companies there, some of them are family companies, not multinationals or mega enterprises. Some of them is just one guy. We choose companies run by one guy over the big ones whenever we can. Every single time Alex chooses a sponsor, he offers to advertise for them in exchange for that which he needs and nothing else. Sometimes it is something that costs $30 or $100. We like the idea of getting their product in exchange for some exposure so that their good products can reach other people who need it too. We have never received a dime from them, feel free to contact any of our sponsors through their links. But, on top of that, Alex always tells them that he will only recommend them if he feels the product or part is useful. If you’ve been reading for some time you’ll know that he has also criticized those same companies when something went wrong (like when our depth sounder stopped working and the company would not tell us their color code for us to fix it ourselves). We only exchange product for advertising, there is no money changing hands. This is bartering too.

Our main source of income for a long time were Alex’s movies. When he relaunched the website he had thought about charging for downloads but soon he thought it was time to share them for free and so he did.

Of course we need some cash every month to buy certain products at the supermarket, for painting supplies or to buy a couple gallons of gasoline to power our sander. Alex wants everyone to have access to his website and that is why there is a button for donations, sometimes we get $40 in a month, sometimes someone sends $100 and it’s like Christmas, you know, and sometimes we have the Google ads somewhere and that gets us another $50 or so dollars a month, which for our lifestyle it is a lot of money. Sometimes we charter, which is a beautiful way to get to know new amazing people and show them first hand what we do, and that also brings us money we need to fly to Argentina to see my family or to buy Sunbrella or something else which is out of our reach. We sometimes feel we should make longer instructional videos and charge a little so that we can start having a regular income to start saving for our old age or in case we have a medical emergency (we do not have boat or medical insurance).

But really, I don’t know why these guys got so offended. We do wear hoodies, rubber flip flops, eat gouda cheese, navigate with the aid of an autopilot so that we can read and enjoy the view, and watch movies. But most months we literally only have $200-400 in the bank and spend it on groceries and paint supplies and that is it. We have no car, properties, savings or credit cards. We always choose to eat the meat we catch, support local farmers and bartering with neighbors and friends when possible (you’d be surprised to see how often that happens, it’s really most of the time).

Do not feel attacked, we know some people dream of having piles of money it is just not our case and we speak up for all those people who are unhappy, in broken homes, and find they never have time to do the things they love to do and to see the people they love. Getting a boat, learning to do most of the maintenance yourself and dropping consumption to a minimum gives you the freedom to choose what you want to do when you wake up, to go where you wish, to choose when to work and when to rest. That is all we are saying. Nobody is talking about Gotham City or Little House on the Prairy. This is real. It’s out there for anyone to take it. That is why we go on and on about it. We have found it simpler than we thought and want to help every single person out there who needs guidance or support.

For anyone who is still skeptical, you’re welcome to keep asking if you need more information, and you are also welcome to come visit and see it for yourself: we do live on a “micro income” and consume as little as possible, which can be defined as “minimalism”, and we are healthy, inspired and as happy as the happiest clams.