Blog

Posted on

History of the Cayos Holandes

The tropical paradise islands Cayos Holandeses are little, not even 1/10 of the Isle of Wight. We met Ivin and he pioneered here on one of the islands and built a restaurant.

The Cayos Holandes have a moving history and Ivin knows a lot of it. He tells about the ‘Beyond people’ who seem to have slaughtered themselves. About the settlement of pirates and the Guna people, living together and fighting side by side, about the diaspora and the Guna lobby and the United Nations, and Ivin tells about Ivin.

Ivin telling his about the history of the Guna

.

The “Indios Cueva”

In the sixteenth century the Spanish discoverers entered the San Blas Islands. The indigenous people living on the Northern part of the mainland of what is called Panama now, already heard stories about these intruders, and about the gold they wanted and the diseases they brought. So whenever some stranger came and asked if there was gold, they answered: “Cueva” and pointed to the South. In their language it meant “beyond” or “more far away”. Funny side effect: In Spanish this could also mean ‘cave’ , so up to them that made sense. Ever since these indigenous people are called the Indios Cueva.

The Spanish entering the coast of Central America to explore and colonize it.

Very a pity, but about hundred years later the islands were deserted. They only found bones. Could it because a disease brought by the Spanish? Ivin told that there must have been a big fight between clans or families, since they found broken and damaged bones.  Perhaps a combination? However, in the early 17th century the new settlers only found bones.

Edward Mansvelt entered, pirates settled

Early 17th century, Central America was occupied by the Spanish. The Spanish were dominant and by far too strong for any other country. But the English, French and Dutchmen tried to weaken them by sending private ships, the so called ‘privateers’, or corsairs or buccaneers. They got an official letter with a mission, mostly including to damage and rob any Spanish ship they met at sea. A part of the loot was for the country, the rest was for them. These buccaneers were just as pirates, raiding settlements and attacking and robbing the full loaded Spanish ships. It was dangerous work, but you could get very rich from it. Famous men were the Welsh man Henry Morgan, and the Dutchman Piet Hein, who once robbed a Spanish silver fleet and sailed back to Holland.

The heydays of this sort of piracy were in the 17th century, thanks to Edward Mansvelt.

Edward Mansvelt portraited when he was the admiral of 10-15 ships, see the background.

Around 1760, Mansvelt got a letter from the Dutch officials stating the mission to raid settlements on Cuba, as well as to make as much damage to Spanish ships in general and get as much goods from them. Which he did, for years. In contrary to earlier buccaneers, his raids were large scale projects. These led to great success. Once his fleet counted 15 ships. By the way, it is said that his right hand and protégé was the young Henry Morgan, who later invaded Panama successfully.

Now, every pirate needs a base, a safe place to retire with his ships, for maintenance et cetera.  Most preferable this base should be in a remote area where no armada could come and where you can see ships coming from far away. The Cayos Holandeses (Dutch Islands)  were perfect for that. It was a group of five islands, beautifully surrounded by sandbanks and coral reefs, and only small shallow gullies to enter.

The red arrow shows on which island we are in the Cayos Holandes

On the neighbouring islands the English, French and Portuguese made the same bases. On the islands was some water, there are coconuts, and plenty fish around. And the mainland was close to get many fruits and vegetables. You could survive a Spanish surrounding for a long time.

If you dig a 1 meter deep hole in the ground some hundred meters from the sea, the water is fresh. At least potable enough for the pirates.

Guna and pirates in perfect harmony

In the 17th century, Spanish conquered the current Colombia. Many Guna died, but a part managed to go North, to the current Panama and the San Blas islands. They also settled on the Caya Holandeses. Probably the first Guna settled before the pirates came, we don’t know. But sure is, that the combination was great: the buccaneers had the ships and the guns to defend the waters and keep most of the Spanish army on a distance. And the Guna were with many to repulse the final intruders.  The Guna and the pirates together were considered unbeatable and they lived in perfect harmony, enjoying their sovereignty.

The Guna saw the Dutch ships driven by the sails, so they took this over on their canoes. The long lateral plan prevents the leeway (drift) very well. (on a later blog we show a video).

Diaspora and international acknowledgment

Living healthy and in harmony for centuries, the Guna population grew. Many young Guna men left for the mainland and tried to find a job. With their roots, many became seamen. The Guna were spread all over the continent. Many were also in the USA, we will see later.

In 1904 Panama formed its own nation. It was with help from the USA (read: to dig their Panama Canal). The government also had the ambition to make the Guna law abiding Panamanian citizens and started an assimilation program.

The Guna preferred to keep their own, long fought and cherished culture and laws. They resisted. A US anthropologist studying the Guna, Richard Marsh, supported them on communication and organization of the revolt, often called the ‘San Blas Revolt.’ The government answered by setting up an ‘police army’ that should invade all Guna territory, including the islands.

Meanwhile, Gunas living in the USA, created a lobby and got their message into the networks of American politicians. Their message was simple: we Guna people are free, for centuries we are sovereign. Now this new Panamanian government wants us to colonize.

This got the US citizens in the heart. No colonization anymore! (read: the USA wanted no distractions in digging the Panama Canal).

A political pressure developed. It was even brought into the United Nations. There was decided that Panama should leave the Guna alone. The Americans sent a frigate to the San Blas to make clear that they mean what they say. Panama, also under influence by the US owned Panama Canal, stepped back and started to talk with the Guna. A treaty was made. The Guna kept their sovereignty but was officially a part of Panama.

Ivin lives the history and the future

Now a century later. Ivin is a Guna who left the islands 30 years ago. He tells: “I started working in a kitchen of a restaurant in Panama City. The restaurant hired a great French chef and I learned a lot.“

He continued: “I was lucky. The kitchen won international prizes and the restaurant became famous, so I could get good jobs as a cook. Last years I ran the kitchen of a super yacht and I traveled the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean. I have seen much.”

That was his diaspora and now he is back. He started his restaurant here on Baledup, an island of the Cayos Holandeses. “I do everything my way here. Just like the Guna people doing it for centuries now”, he said. More and more sailors come here, enjoying the golden beaches, the nature, the fish.

“And now again the sailors come from the sea. Especially the Dutch, to buy my bread and to eat my meals,” he says.

He concludes rhetorically: “You see how history repeats itself?”

Check for more on the blogs of www.fossilfreearoundtheworld.org.

Posted on

Making a living on a deserted island

Some centuries ago, the pirate Eduard, originally Dutch, found some islands in the San Blas archipelago to stay,. It is ust North of Panama and they were called Cayos Holandeses Since one century it is a part of the Cuna tribe.
Now, Ibin started from scratch to make a living here on this deserted island. Does he manage it? Does he settle? Now, three years after his start, we take a look.
About hard work and optimism. Check this video interview on location.
Location paradise?


Posted on

Living on a paradise island

Banedup is paradise island. That is the first impression when we anchored here, just near the beach to the south. It is part of the Cayos Holandeces, in the San Blas archipelago just north of Panama.

It looks like someone’s living on this island, doesn’t it? And it’s true, they do!

How is it to live here?

Janet lives and works here on Paderup for half a year now. Together with friends she runs a little grocery for the sailors, and offers internet through a satellite connection. A great opportunity for the sailors passing by, because it is the only stable connection to the internet here.

In the beginning it was hard work. Making the area free from trees and plants and building a house was not easy. But as you see, it has been done now!

Especially for Janet the start was not what she expected. Her friends lured her: “Just come for some weeks or so.” And she did. But it was silent, with only very sometimes an incidental guest. Once a week the lancha with groceries came. But that was all.

The island Paderup lies in the Cayos Holandeses, a part of the San Blas Islands to the North of Panama. The Cuna people live there in a reasonable sovereignty, protected by the UN. They don’t recognize possession of land, so it makes the threshold to start a business lower. Also the taxes are much lower.

Lost in paradise

The weeks became months. Especially in the periods when their friends left to Panama to make some money, she was on her own. You can feel lost then.

Luckily on the other side of the island Ibin and his family already started a settlement, as the real first pioneers. (more later about how Ibin settled here). They did not have much time for a chat, since they were busy from dawn to dusk to get settled with a their project.

But there were good moments. Janet told: “Sometimes people from another island visited. That was nice and they became friends. But to be honest, it was lonesome in paradise. A real highlight was when their friends sent her a present for her birthday, brought by a charter yacht that could pass by on her very birthday. All guests from that ship sung a great Happy Birthday To You.”

Paradise regained

They opened a shop with the groceries and vegetables from the weekly lancha. More and more yachts came, attracted by this new ‘supermarket on a deserted island’.

The first charter yachts chose this island to anchor and to let the people visit paradise, making fun with the hammock and played volley with the volleyball net just in the water of the beach.

Slowly the regular coming and going of guest started. Janet started getting used to the life here.

Janet, not without pride, before the grocery shop and next to the solar panel that is directly feeding the satellite antenna. That antenna is to the very right of the picture. No sun, no internet, is the simple rule on this paradise island.

Next to the groceries, they also invested in a satellite connection and that becomes a powerful attraction since there is no other stable internet connection here. It gives us the opportunity to send you this blog from the sun covered bench with a view on the beach and the palmtrees and the sea. We stay connected to you, just as Janet stays connected to her friends.

Also in paradise, we are really happy when connected to each other.

  • Next week: Three years ago Ibin and his family started a settlement on the other side of this island. The real pioneers! You will see, they made a good start. But what are the plans for the future?
Posted on

Genaro at Ya

As many adventurers, I dream of a great sailing voyage. The longer and further, the better. With everywhere an adventure.

Learning all tricks on board till the very detail

But how is this dream when it comes true? How is life, adventure, on board a small house of 10 meters long that floats in the sea? This is my first two-week experience on board the ship “Ya”.

New adventure

When you arrive at a new place or in this case a new ship, you are not sure what to expect, of course you have some ideas, some expectations, but you really don’t know what it will be like, you don’t know the people who are there, you don’t know their dynamics, you don’t know the space, you don’t know where to find what you’re looking for. But not knowing is the adventure. When I got to “Ya” I was a little nervous, I’m going to have to live with this person that I don’t know, every day,  every 24 hours, for who knows how many months. But I was also very excited to start this new adventure, with a lot of energy and desire to sail again, I was so excited that I didn’t really think about all the other worries I might have.

The first few days were very difficult, the language barrier was higher than I thought, the technical words to refer to parts of the boat and navigation actions in English, I did not know them all, I knew them in Spanish but not in English it was a new dictionary to learn. Understanding the “Ya” configurations of sails, ropes, halyards, sheets, etc. and everything necessary to sail was another challenge. At the same time I had to adapt to the organization of the boat, where to find everything, how to perform each basic task, cooking, washing the dishes, going to the bathroom. A ship is someone’s house, only with more drawers and unexpected compartments than a normal house, it has its order and rhythm personalized by those who live in it. When you first arrive you have to understand this rhythm to be able to integrate.

I can take my time for things

The first day we went sailing in the Bocas del Toro area I felt the magic of the wind moving us, all the fatigue and overaccumulation of information I had from those days of adaptation to the boat left, at that moment I knew I was on the right track and that it was worth all the effort I was making to be there.

Integrated and… the open sea

After a week of being in Bocas del Toro, already more integrated and with better communication between me and Peter and also between me and “Ya”, we went out to the open sea to sail towards San Blas. I was a little afraid of this new dynamic of sailing in the open sea but also very excited. At a certain point the rhythm of the watch shifts became tiring, since there were so few days of navigation that I was not able to get my body used to sleeping during the day, and at night I had my watch so I didn’t sleep either. 

On the night watch I enjoyed the calm and beauty of the night ocean, there was a full moon, I could see everything, the sea and the clouds almost as in the day. You couldn’t see the land, only the horizon of the sea, I could watch the moon set and the sunrise.

These first two weeks on the boat were a combination of a lot of effort, some frustration, also loneliness, but many beautiful things. Leaving our Circle of Comfort and making an effort helps us find and appreciate more the beauty.

 Every day communication and integration in the “Ya” improves, always learning something new. Now looking forward to starting sailing in the Pacific. Aware that to travel on a boat and especially on a fossil free one, what you have to have is patience.

Patience, something we lack in our accelerated way of seeing the world. We go for it!

Genaro

You see that I can have patience here 😉
Posted on

The San Blas islands, sustainable and drowning

When we entered San Blas and anchored under the island Porvenir we couldnot get a better welcome from the Cuna living here: a fresh Pago Rojo, freshly scraped and cleaned!
The San Blas archipelago lies along the north coast of Panama. Only the Guna tribe lives here and that makes it very special.

Autonomous

Historically the San Blas islands  belonged to Colombia, but generally the Guna lived their own life. In the early 20th century Colombia agreed that the San Blas islands would belong to Panama, and Panamese police established on the islands. The Panamese policy was to surpress the culture and language of the Guna. The Guna tribes started a rebellion and that led to deaths on both sides. Then, the  League of Nations (predecessor of the United Nations) agreed to prevent a war, or at least a massacre. The Panamese government sent the army to invade the San Blas Islands, but when facing the threat of an American warship before the San Blas, they decided to start to negociate with the Cuna first. It led to a treaty, resulting in a great autonomy for the Guna tribes.

This is the classic Guna dress. (source Wiki)

Life on San Blas

The Guna have their own language, culture and economy.  Already for centuries they live from fish and from the mulas (clothes, patchwork) they sell. They don’t have properties like the Western do; the land is for everybody. Only the coconut trees and their coconuts are distributed and belong to someone or a family. So never take a coconut from the ground, because you get an argument!

The Guna have their own administration and justice. There is a central ‘Congreso’, but most of the power is on the lower levels, per island or even family. One rule is that a Guna has to marry someone from the Guna tribe, or will get excommunicated. There is no strong monogamy, like in the Jewish-Christian tradition. All this together, leads to more inbreeding, that results in albino children. In their belief the albinos are God sent, to protect the moon from disappearing during an eclipse.

If a judge or the Congreso gives a penalty, it is often a job that helps the community. It can be to bring an amount of sand from a sandbank to the island, to keep the island’s level high enough. (more about this later).

It is a matriarchal society. The groom comes into the house of his family-in-law and lives there. He takes the name of his wife’s family.

For centuries the Guna have a special style of patchwork and embroiding and it is famous all over the world.

With their diet and lifestyle, the death rate of the Guna on hart deseases and cancer is very low.

The Guna fisherman’s boats sometimes have a sail. Here the paddle is there to make speed, but it also helps to prevent drift and is used on lee side to steer.

Sustainable living, but a drowning future

The Guna people live sober. Many catch their fish in their cano, with a paddle and a sail. Only for tourism (time is money) there are some  boats with fossil propulsion. There is no calculation of the Cuna’s carbon footprint, but it is definitely very low.

On this chart the Ya’s position is on the very very left, presente by a red little boat. If you look to the right, you see yellow areas and one assumes that it is all land. Most of the times it is not, because it is just below sea level. On the next foto you see what there is.
This is all the actual land that you see to your right. The rest of the land is just under water.
There are many palm trees planted on this island. The sea level has risen some centimeters and that is enough to kill the first row, of which you see the last remains.

In 2016 it was expected that the San Blas islands will have been disappeared before the year 2100. But in the current pace of climate change that will be much quicker, more like in some decades.

Let us keep the Cuna’s live here on San Blas. With their great sustainable lifestyle, they don’t contribute to the excessive use of oil and gas. What about saying to yourself today to stop using and buying so much? Yes, every minute you get incentives through channels and social (?) media, but finally the decision is in yourself that as of today you only use what you need

Posted on

Ready to go East

Genaro and me decided to leave. We are ready to go East, so we will go. Along the Panama coast. We haven’t decided where to go to, wether it will be the San Blas archipelago, some 250 milies, or to Colon, the Panama Canal, some 150 miles. Since it is still the rain season now, we should get some Western wind. But… there is no rain at all!. Climate change? Who knows. However, there is hardly any wind, and if some, it comes from the East.

On the very West is Bocas del Toro, the archipelago we leave. Follow our course line to the very east and that is San Blas., a 250 mile trip. Colon is on 2/3. (picture: courtesy Predictwind).

Some 20-30 miles from the coast, there runs a strong Easterly current. It is about 1.5 to 2.5 miles per hour. So we can get somewhere.

The current (green area) brlngs us for sure to Colon, but we hope to get wind to make San Blas. (picture: courtesy Predictwind)

With 40 kWh energy on board, we never ever can do the trip on the electric engine. But no worries, we have plenty to bring us out of the current to Colon, or to a San Blas island.

We will just go East

If our progress is still 30-40 miles a day, we can make the San Blas Islands.  If it stays slow, we go to Colon. We will see what happens.

We simply filled the water tanks and bought food for a week.

Our fruit for this week is -in the order we will probably eat it- a big papaya, bananas, a pineapple,  small unripe oranges, and some limonchi to put in our drinks. We also bought passion fruit, not visible, already eaten ;-).

So actually the whole fossilfree sailing is not that complicated. Simply choose for a good weather and current prediction program, and take your time. Let go the speed factor, the norm to make many miles a day on an engine. Just enjoy the sea and the weather, the silence, the nature, the fruit and food we got on board.

The time you read it, we are already somewhere. Where? Perhaps you can see that on  https://fossilfreearoundtheworld.org/map-where-we-are-now-position-of-the-ya/

Posted on

Hola Amigos of Fossil Free Around the World!

I am Genaro and I am going to crew ‘Ya’.

I am originally from Mexico City. Already from my early age it was my dream to design things. I studied for industrial designer and then started working in this field. But, I do not want to live all my life doing the same, so I quit my job, left the city and I started traveling.

Since then i have been traveling for the last 5 years. I like adventures and I like to know more of our world. 

I started with just a good backpack. Most of the time I worked and then I traveled on, alone or with friends I met, sometimes I traveled on a bicycle. When COVID started, I bought a Volkswagen van to continue traveling.

What did I do and where? To give you a glimpse:

·       I was caretaker of a traditional farmers house in Japan.

·       Worked in permaculture farming in Lao, China. Here you see a rice field.

·       Volunteered for a while in the Shaolin Monastery near Fujan, China

·       Renovated a yacht into a hostel in Malaysia

·       One month just wandering through the jungle of Borneo, Indonesia

·       Picking cherries in New Zealand

·       And picking cherries in Canada

Liason officer and translator between tourists and the Yagua in the Amazon jungle, Colombia.

I spent a short time in Brazil, till COVID started, so I went to Mexico. Then I refitted an old Volkswagen van and decorated it to a simple home.

I could make a beautiful slow trip in my van along the Yucatan peninsula and later along the Californian coast.

First work I could do to thicken my purse was farming on a  plantation of … marihuana! In California it is just as legal as corn or wheat!

Then  I became bartender in Baccalar, Mexican Caribbean. There, I stepped on a small sailing boat and I discovered the magic of sailing, of moving with the wind.

My world changed from that moment. I soon became deckhand for a charter company. Later I was day skipper on the smallest boat, without even a good compass. But I did not care, I could sail!

I need to learn a lot. Last year I am orienting on everything that has to do with sailing. My last job was renovating a yacht, just because I would have a chance to become crew again and I can learn about sailing. 

But then “Ya” came along. Now I arrived at “Ya” with great enthusiasm for having another adventure, to know another way of living and being able to float on the immense Pacific ocean hunting  for the wind. 

It is even more than this, as Ya is fossil free.  I am aware that our search for comfort, at some point we forget this goal and get into excesses and overcunsumotion, taking us to our own destruction.

The Ya is a reminder that we can live in reasonable comfort without destroying ourselves.

 I hope I can continue to tell more of our adventures here on “Ya”

Buenos vientos!

Genaro

Posted on

Upcycle, yes you can

We make about 2 billion tonnes of waste every year. That is too much for Mother Earth.

“We” are mainly the consumers, the Western society. Including China, being our workshop.

A small part of  the waste, we take care for ourselves, to recycling, incinerators or landfill. The big chunk ends up in the poor countries, like Bangla Desh, parts of India. It comes there with big ships and even the ships themselves are disassembled overthere. Check here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYb3wa7V5Bk to a ship beaching to its graveyard or here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRrbYRE4JSA for the background.

What they do is some reuse and recycling. They burn the rest. But not in high temperature incinerators. It is just a fire, so that creates toxic emissions, like dioxines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The pollution comes in the air, water and soil and it creates cancer, lung deseases and other slow ways of dying.

The mantra

What can we do against it. First the mantra:

  • Rethink if you need it,
  • Refuse if you doubt still.
  • Reduce if you need less,
  • Reuse if you can see life in it,

Recycling is the option when you don’t see life in it. But please realize that in general recycling is environmentally and economically a losers game. Because it takes a lot of work, energy and costs and it has environmental impact. Think of glass bottles, or steel. It is often downcycling; you can only make less quality products out of it.

If it is not even worth recycling, then the process of care starts. This waste treatment will be unhealthy or very unhealthy. Will have a big environmental impact or a very big one. See above.

Recycling is better than only the landfill, but it gives a serious footprint of work, gas, oil, money and environmental impact.

Reuse what you have

You have stuff and want to get rid of it? Reusing can be a beautiful thing.

Perhaps you can repair it. Call or email the vendor and simply ask where to repair it. Nowadays you can see a product repair as your right, or the inherent right of any product. So go for it. You can feel cheated if the vendor did not organize this care. Such care is called ‘product stewardship’ and it started already in the eighties of the last century as a normal element of any quality company..

You can sell it, even when it is broken, through second hand websites. If you take some time for pictures and you have some patience, most of the things will sell itself.

Its second life is often its last life. Mostly the reuse is a form of downcycling. An old TV casing ends up as a planter, old oil ends up in a combustion engine.

This old canoe ended up as a planter, and this old drain pipe will contain some sorts of salad soon. A beautiful last resort.

Creativity for some upcycling!

The challenge is to reuse an old product and give it a better life. A more valuable life. More value – yes, it feels like you are god. You have to be creative, think out-of-the-box. It has nothing to do with money, in contrary.
Here under a simple example from Bocas del Toro. The 10 dollar for a good dust can has already been given away, so what to do? From a simple plastic oil canister, you can make two of these dust cans.  This is real upcycling!

An old throw away can is upcycled to a broom dust can.

And ladies, here is a movie with a bunch of examples to upcycle your old dresses to fresh one-of-a-kind designs you can show off with.

Posted on

The Economy of Enough

Since the late 20th century the marketing of products shifted. First the demand was the leading question. But later, the question in the Marketing Departments was: can we create demand? Yes, they can.

Think of the cars for the middle class in the 1970, like the Volkswagen Golf. Now, the volume of this Golf, still car for the middle class,  is 1,5 times bigger.  Meanwhile, the average family has dropped with one person, so numerically we could do with even a smaller car. A Smart ForFour would actually be more appropriate to the actual demand. In that car the room in the back is small, but what does it matter? Since your children of 18 and over will take their own transport, there will only be small children in on the back seat.

The only thing that you need  the bigger car for, is to transport all the other redundant stuff you bought and has filled your attic to its ceiling and that needs to go to a second hand shop. Or a recycling center, or what the heck, to the waste site. As long as you get rid of it.

The current Volkswagen Golf is much bigger than its predecessor of 1970. But there are less people and stuff to be transported. Why bigger then? Because you are continuously told and shown that you need it and like it better.

How come?

All that stuff, it is your problem, but it is not your fault. Now, the marketing is that refined, that it influences your life without you even knowing it. The basics: In 2000 you looked for something on the internet and you got advertisements about it on your screen. But marketeers, engineers, statisticians, psychologists and ergonomists learned more. Now, if you are on platforms like Facebook, programmes analyse your data and the results go to advertisers. These results are that good that you just ‘discover’ that you can need these products.

Checking the checkbox to authorize Whatsapp to look into your address book, it will download the addresses of you and your friends and family members. Same with your pictures, film, anything. This way they chart out all your needs in a great network. The clicks you make are registered to influence you by ergonomic engineering.  Designers make screens containing subtle information that makes you buy more stuff, or a bigger car.

In stead of the old fashioned customer, you have changed into a target. These designers, engineers, the Zuckerbergs of this world, are simply too smart. You can’t beat these professionals. When you get aware of them, they have beaten you already.

How do we notice this?

You don’t notice it when you are in it.  But we sailors do notice it when for a long time at sea. There is no internet. You suddenly don’t get these incentives anymore. You are just happy. It makes you suddenly change. They don’t have the need -or urge- to drink their afternoon beer anymore, or to drink any alcohol at all. They get stronger, healthier, loose overweight, et cetera.

When you sail and see land from this distance -or you see no land at all- you are content just as it is.  There is a complete lack of incentives to need stuff and buy stuff.

How to stop it?

But once they step from board and get to their old life at home, back in the ‘machinery’, they return quickly in the process of consumerism. They sometimes tell sadly that they should not live such consuming life again and they want to go back but can’t find a way out because they say they have too many ties, like a mortgage, a car, et cetera.
That car is big, the mortgage is for a house with 4 bedrooms for just 2 persons.

You can stop the process by questioning:

  • Why buy stuff anyway?
  • Do you need it? Do you need it directly when you see it, or can it wait a while?
  • Where do you leave it after use?
  • Get it second hand? Or repair the old one?

To avoid the marketing, you:

  • Use duckduckgo https://duckduckgo.com/install instead of google as your search machine.
  • Cut with Metaverse products, like Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp. You will notice that they made it hard to cut these lines; the opposite of downloading and starting it.
  • Use Signal  https://signal.org/download/ instead of Whatsapp. This is also nicer to your friends and family, who never wanted to give up their privacy since you clicked the checkbox to give Metaverse access to their addresses.
  • Use Jit.si  https://jitsi.org/downloads/ instead of  Zoom or Teams.
  • Use Open Office https://www.openoffice.org/download/ instead of Microsoft or Apple products.
  • Go shopping with a shopping list, so buy what you really need.

Now, even the marketeers lose the ties, you will feel more freedom of choice  and you buy stuff – thingies, a car, a house, a boat,  that really suits you.

Side effect: you spend less money.

Posted on

Hi I am Kathryn

Hello readers! I am Kathryn. A new crew member on the Ya.

I arrived yesterday from the UK by air with the flights adding up to a carbon footprint of 2 tonnes of CO2. (Thanks to myclimate.org  for the use of the CO2 flight calculator.)

Trying to quantify that… it is the equivalent to the saving you make in a whole year by moving from a diesel car to an electric one. Source un.org.

I am here to participate in a project that is an advocate for sustainable sailing, work with Peter and Fossil Free Around the World project to promote a viable alternative to CO2 intensive air travel. It is through prototypes and exploration that we will discover them. 

How did I end up here in Panama?

Well I am 50 this year and only really started my sailing journey when I saw the truly inspiring documentary Maidentrip (2013) in which the 14 year-old Laura Dekker sets out on a voyage in pursuit of her dream to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. Whilst watching it on a New Years Day, full of the sort of promise making gusto that a new year brings, I registered on an RYA Day Skipper Course there after the film ended. It was 3 years before I actually got to sail a boat. 

2020 and just as the pandemic rules eased I managed to do two weeks training and earnt my Day Skipper Practical in Greece and a year later sailed with a crew for a week again in Greece. I loved it. The freedom to sail around the islands and see remote coves and places was fantastic. 

Now in 2023 I was looking for a new adventure and a friend suggested looking on social media. The majority of opportunities were not really my thing – hostess on a super yacht… not only did it all seem quite how can I put it… young hot females serving the food and males dealing with repairs it all seemed such a young gap year crew thing. 

Then I saw the Ya! I emailed and Peter followed up with a number of calls on Jitsi (similar to Zoom but it respects your privacy and it also is able to work on low data services. Just if you are interested in the details of such things.) After vetting a number of candidates Peter messaged me with the news that I was welcome to join the boat for this next stage in Panama and the East Pacific.

A chaotic few weeks followed for me involving finding cat sitters, calling on friends for help and a fundraising frenzy on eBay.  Not only that but a number of conversations with myself about my sanity and decision making capabilities. This culminated in my exit via Terminal 2 at Heathrow on the August Super Moon.  

It has been such a life affirming experience so far. Overcoming so many circumstances to make this happen. I am inspired by the many environmental projects going on around the islands here. It is a privilege to be part of the project.

I want to share some photos from a 24 hour period…  At one point I was emptying space in a garage I rent in Hackney to fit more things in as I got my life in order… 30 random gold letters reclaimed from the street some time ago and then some images as I woke two sleeps later for the beautiful marina here. 

I got left over letters, and put them next to my garage. The local artist in Hackney started reusing the letters in artwork words. Later children came and took the first letter of there name. 90% reused, everybody happy.

 Wherever you are in your life right now remember not to take it for granted, it is precious and circumstances are just that. Something to be overcome. 

As Winston Churchill said, ”Never, never, never… never give up”.

Hustle and bustle in London-Heathrow and Denver Airport with papers, security, tickets and all, and finally entering Bocas Airport with a local musician singing about making your dreams come true.