By Todd Duff
I’m a former marine surveyor and a long-time cruiser who recently returned to the workforce as a yacht broker in the Caribbean and something quite interesting has come to my attention of late; World events and in particular recent developments in U.S. politics has brought about a fairly urgent response from many people who feel the need to ‘get away’. I’ve seen all sorts of Facebook posts about U.S. citizens threatening to move to Canada, or Peru, or wherever, if ‘So and So’ gets elected. From where I sit, safe and happy aboard my sailboat in the British Virgin Islands, it seems to me that there’s a lot of really discontented and unhappy, maybe even scared people out there who want to get away from the madness.
And then there are the sailors. These people know how to get away and most have a pretty good idea of where to go and how to go about doing it. For the lucky few who already own an ocean going sailboat they could escape on if and when the local environment gets just a little to unfriendly, I would not be surprised over the coming years to see a much higher number of people heading out to go cruising if for no better reason than to distance themselves from the heated and deliberately misleading rhetoric of politics.
These lucky people own sailboats that could best be described as “escape pods’. Like the science fiction books and movies, where large spaceships had escape pods to allow people to get away when danger was threatening the integrity of their mothership, world cruising sailboats can offer the same safety net for sailors who realize that until things settle down again at home, or if things get just too uncomfortable, that their escape pods can carry them far away to the safety of distant shores.
There a really is a wonderful world out there. If you avoid the major sailing centers and big, well known ports and instead go to the smaller places; like the northern Cook Islands or the more remote islands of Tonga or Fiji, you’ll find people living in the most natural environments. The same holds true for almost any small country or remote outpost of civilization. More often than not, you’ll find rational ideals, goodwill and caring for one another as the cornerstones of their societies.
What better time in the history of the world to go ocean cruising than right now? With the current state of world affairs, I expect that we will be seeing a huge surge of ‘sailing refugees’ in their own escape pod sailboats setting out upon the world’s oceans and fanning out to the four winds to find a new beginning in places not yet stricken by 21st century greed and corruption.
Many of our good friends live their lives on the sea by staying more or less in constant motion. They arrive at one island group and spend several months, then sail on to the next, and then on again and eventually, a year or so later, they return to the first. I know people who have been doing this for years and are quite happy, with friends in many different countries who they see on a yearly or semi-annual basis.
If you are fed up with the way the society is headed and are lucky enough, or smart enough, to have the ability to sail, or are at least willing to learn, then maybe you should consider taking on the vagabond lifestyle of the cruising sailor. We are not total dropouts. We pay our taxes on income earned, we keep in contact with family and friends via email and calls, and we even occasionally fly home to visit loved ones. But what we don’t do is sit in our urban or suburban homes in debt, taxed, charged or everything from water to electricity (which we get free from the sky, the sun and wind) and with our every move regulated and constricted. We are free to go whenever we wish, and in many areas of the world we are free to stay as long as we desire. We are not prisoners of society. We are free spirits.
I can think of no loftier goal in this world that to become emissaries of good will and positive influences on the people we meet on our world travels. Fed up with your life at home and want a change? Go find yourself an escape pod and jettison the trappings of modern society that hold you prisoner. Escape to the freedom of the open ocean and see where the four winds will take you.
Todd Duff and Gayle Suhich are currently living aboard their Amel Super Maramu in the Caribbean. Todd, a former Accredited Marine Surveyor, has returned to yacht sales in the BVI to assist people in finding their own escape pods.