We are aware that the world is changing and we cannot anymore allow ourselves to exploit nature. We must put our own limits and rules on how to treat nature in a respectful way. Heimir and myself already have a background working on developing practices and guidelines for companies and individuals to become more sustainable based on education.
Now , having our own boat gives total freedom to choose where and how far we want to go on the path towards sustainability, to teach what we already know and learn new ways.
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come” – Victor Hugo
For this year we wanted to start easy, and we choose to focus on responsible ways for food provisioning onboard. For that purpose, we team up with our friends Raissa and Christof – from Piratas do Amor and the main crew of Tilvera to develop a “Sustainable Provisioning Project” for Tilvera (read more here). This included receiving and storing all the products we bought in bulk, stowing away the organic vegetables we ordered from a local farm, installing the sprouting station I have built and packaging the biodegradable, organic soaps and shampoos, which Raissa and Christof made together with their Spanish friend Gita prior to embarking on this adventure. We were all very excited and inspired to put in practice some ideas that we always dreamt of.
Basically, we are trying to implement concrete, practical and easily replicable solutions that can improve the ships ecological footprint, adding to the wellbeing of crew and guests and sharing an inspiring message to the world.
- Together, we want to find answers and solutions to the following questions:
- How can we reduce trash?
- How can we source organic food while staying within the ship’s financial budget?
- How can we add more nutritional value to the ship’s daily meals?
- How can we communicate Tilvera´s commitment to sustainability to their guests and beyond?
As a first step, we are working on the following ideas:
- Optimize shopping list to purchase in bulk;
- Optimize Tilvera´s storage space for long term provisioning;
- Purchase fresh foods from organic farms or from food-waste-initiatives;
- Introduce sprouting as a daily source of fresh nutrients;
- Create a Tilvera soap & shampoo as a personalized gift for the ship´s guests.
Each one of these items have a whole description and process to be able to be implemented. All the details you can find it here:
One day before departure – 3th of April- the sprouting system was ready. We chose moon beans for sprouting. We learned from Raissa and Christoph that these Indian beans are the second highest in protein content after soya beans, they are very tasty and very easy to keep alive onboard. The perfect recipe!
The local farmers came the same day in the afternoon to the pier in Den Helder (Netherlands) to deliver the organic products we order one week before. We were amazed to see so many colorful vegetables, carrots and potatoes still with the rich soil from the ground and big quantities of fresh herbs and organic eggs. All in boxes, no plastic and extremely healthy products. We stored most of the things on the bilge, a spacious place where they can live in relative cold conditions and last for long.
The road to sustainability is long and it is important to mention that in no way do we intend to be radical nor complete, but rather offer a starting point for discussion and most important: learn and have fun together.
By sharing stories, exploring our gifts and our potential to dream together, we begin to reimagine what is possible, starting with the resources we already have.
We can’t wait to tell you what we will learn after trying out our cooking with the sprouts, tasting the organic food and telling the story of our beautiful home- made soaps to our guests.
We took some inspiration for this project from the links below. I highly recommend you to check them out, if you any interested in sailing, sustainable practices at sea and healthy food:
- The amazing book “Sailing the Farm” https://we.riseup.net/assets/268677/sailfarm.pdf
- The mega inspiring sailors 100 Rabbits( https://100r.co/site/cooking.html#growing_food) and their project Grim Grains https://grimgrains.com/site/sprouting.html#jarscloth
- The unique methodology and re-thinking work from French sailor Corentin de Chatelperron and his Low-Tech Laboratory onboard. https://lowtechlab.org/en/the-low-tech-lab/our-actions/nomade-des-mers
Keep inspired!