After a week hitchsailing, I didn’t want to get off the boat

Among these wanderers was Spanish tattoo artist Joel Uve, a former hitchsailor who had recently purchased a 32-foot monohull boat named Yemanjá, after the Cuban sea goddess. A few weeks after we met, he called from the Caribbean, inviting me to join him and his crewmate, Carlos Perez, as they continued their journey to Mexico.

It was the last days of the Covid pandemic and after months of lockdown, I was torn – longing to reconnect with the wild yet, after so much time cosseted at home, more afraid of it than ever. I was also aware that these people were near-strangers, there’s no phone signal on the open ocean and that I’d be the only woman on board. But if the pandemic taught me anything, it’s how little control we truly have. I said yes.

Unequal opportunities

Of course, not everyone can afford to spend seven days on a journey that takes 90 minutes by plane, nor is it always easy to secure a ride. Franziska Burger, a Swiss-German student who hitchsailed from Portugal to Brazil via the Canary Islands and Cape Verde, believes that her appearance helped her secure passage. “I am sure I experienced ‘positive’ racism — captains very easily making judgments that I was trustworthy because of my skin color and nationality.”

This was thrown into sharp relief during a violent storm that turned her ship into a bucking bronco as they neared the Canary Islands. The radio crackled with reports of a vessel overloaded with migrants struggling in the same waters. Between bouts of seasickness, she pleaded with her captain to help but he insisted they stay their course. “I felt very afraid because of the storm and also utterly powerless,” she says. “It can be really challenging to understand the norms, rules and hierarchies that are present in a boat.”

At the mercy of the wind

As a travel writer I am painfully aware of my carbon footprint and keen to explore any mode of transport that is less dependent on fossil fuels. However, on the fourth morning of our voyage, we’re utterly becalmed. Dangling my feet off Yemanjá’s stern I find myself thinking of a line from Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner: Day after day, day after day, / We stuck, nor breath nor motion; / As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean.

The hours melt into one another. We listen to cumbia music and smoke Cuban cigars as thick as a baby’s forearm. Perez sketches and recounts their journey from the Canary Islands to Cuba, a voyage of 5,500 nautical miles conducted on just a quarter gallon of gas. As darkness gathers and we drift majorly off course, Uve switches the engine on. Silken backs break the surface one after another as a pod of dolphins, drawn to the bubbles, escort us into the darkness.

Although boats would seem a no-brainer alternative to high-carbon flying, the reality is more nuanced. A yacht with a tiny crew taking weeks to complete a journey that a plane carrying hundreds could finish in mere hours may actually produce higher per-person emissions if the engine is used for long periods of time.

Going deeper

A leading voice in hitchsailing is Suzanne Van Der Veeken, author of Ocean Nomad – The Complete Atlantic Sailing Crew Guide: How to Catch a Ride to Contribute to a Healthier Ocean. She advocates that education is key to reducing sailing’s environmental impact. Through her online network, Ocean Nomads, she offers courses – both online and in person – for novices as well as helping impact-driven hitchsailors connect with captains seeking crew.

“Our goal is to help sailors become confident enough to avoid using the motor unless absolutely necessary, with a strong focus on eco-friendly vessel maintenance,” she explains. The platform also connects members with conservation projects, hosts think tanks, and encourages hitchsailors to support ocean research by collecting water samples at regular intervals throughout their journeys.

For Van der Veeken, the true potential for inspiring change lies in the sense of stewardship that comes from being immersed in nature. “I’m haunted by an Atlantic crossing where we hoped to live off fresh fish but ended up catching only plastic bags instead,” she recalls. “Unless you experience something like that first-hand, it doesn’t really get into your heart.”

It’s a sentiment strongly echoed by Moritz Schloßer, a German translator who has hitchsailed from Europe to the Caribbean twice, once via Cape Verde and once via Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “When I sail, I feel reverence for the Earth in a way I’ve never been able to access before,” he says. “Sometimes I just look out into the distance, see the whole world moving up and down and start singing my thanks to the ocean for being our primal home.”

Other worlds

Back on the Yemanjá, yesterday’s bath-calm waters seem a distant memory. Uve and Perez skin their hands forcing the spinnaker down as the wind suddenly cracks its cheeks. As the boat miraculously darts between towering walls of water, our fishing line tautens again and again. It’s too rough to cook, so we slice our catch and eat it raw, seasoned with lime and the salt that has clung to our lips since we left the harbor.

By the time the sun rises the storm has passed, and we slump in the spun gold light. An enormous bird with wings like a dragon appears on the horizon. During my time in Mexico, I’ll get used to watching frigate birds steal food from others’ beaks, a habit that has earned them the name ‘pirate of the skies’. Now, in our exhausted state, it seems like a messenger from another world.

Exploring that world means stepping off the boat, and I don’t feel ready for that yet. This trip has allowed me to discover both my place within the majestic ocean, as well as to rediscover the flow of the ocean in me. Suddenly the fact that both the Earth and our bodies contain around 70% water no longer feels like a coincidence.