Category Archive: english

The backward passage

For those who prefer reading in Spanish, there is an extensive article in Metello’s blog about the leg from Panama to Açores via Bermuda and another one reporting the last passage, from Açores to Lisbon. Here we will just resume the log… In March 2019 we meet in Almirante, near Bocas del Toro (Panama) to …

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Sail 4 Justice

Sail 4 Justice is an 8 boat flotilla aiming to sail 3.300nm from Melbourne to the Manus Island (Papua New Guinea), where since 2001 was one of the most controversial offshore Australian immigration detention facilities. Even if the Manus Regional Processing Center has been officially closed in 2017, hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers are …

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Panama: the sphincter of the Atlantic

We cleared in Panama at the end of April, in Linton Bay, a very well protected anchorage behind Isla Linton, where we can also squat the facilities of the marina. We headed there because some friend of us (and a bunch of members of La Cofradía de Navegantes Anarquistas) are stucked in this nice spot …

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ABC Islands

March the 20 we splashed L’Alliance, and with a crew of just two we spent 3 fantastic weeks sailing around Curaçao. We have been scuba diving in wonderful spots along the west coast, doing yoga on the magical beach of Klein Curaçao, and close hauled till Bonaire. Then we had a crew turnover, and with …

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after the Atlantic crossing, dry docked in Curaçao

  Still excited from the Atlantic crossing, our stopover in the expensive Martinique has been quick: after 6 days anchored in Le Marin and biking through the southern part of the island, we sat sail again heading to Curaçao. As we wanted to avoid a night landfall, we hoved to during 6 hours in between …

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our first Atlantic crossing

    After a 10 days long passage (3 of which drifting in no wind) from the Canary islands to Cap Vert, we have been at anchor in Mindelo for a while, visiting Sao Vicente and San Antonio, and preparing L’Alliance for her jump across the Atlantic. We really enjoyed a lot our stay in …

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cruising Canaries

In the beginning of July we sat sail from Sines, Portugal, to Madeira. After a few days stopover at Funchal, we headed to Canary Islands. La Graciosa, Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canarias y Tenerife have been the islands we visited until now. We met a lot of nice people and a bounch of interesting projects, like …

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Leaving the Med

L’Alliance left Barcelona on April the second 2017. After a quick stopover in Ibiza to see some friends, we set sails straight out of the Med, in a pleasant 4 days passage with fair and constant winds. Entering the Atlantic, though, we bumped into our first storm. Despite the weather forecasts showing winds up to …

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Henry Wakelam passed away

We are sad to relay that Henry Wakelam left this world on April 14th 2017. His health had gone downhill within the last year, since his wife Yannik passed away, pacefully, in their garden, on November 29th 2015. We have always been inspired by the early adventures of this famous sailor, a genius in re-floating …

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WE HAVE BEEN HACKED!

On January 2017 someone broke in to our wordpress webpage and destroyed our last post. Why would someone want to hack our page? It really makes no sense to us. As soon as we noticed this absurd intrusion, thanks to a follower who warned us, we called our buddy Kevin, who immediately restored our last …

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Chasing Bubbles

In September 2016 was finally released “Chasing Bubbles”, the documentary made out of the amazing footage Alex Rust made during his circumnavigation aboard Bubbles (February 2010/ July 2012). The documentary, fully available on youtube to stream or free download, it’s technically very well done, and as fast and astonishing as Alex is. It has been …

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LOuNaPo

Last week, thanks to the recla-mar network, we met a bunch of french sailors who are participating in a very interesting project… Two years ago, a collective of 10 activists/sailors purchased the Albatros II, a 40ft sloop built in the sixties out of plywood and polyester resin. The boat has been used to support many …

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(Art)activists place the first rescue platform in the Med

The group of art activists Zentrum für Politische Schönheit (Center for Political Beauty) placed this October 3 their first rescue platform, dubbed Aylan 1. This platform is moored in one of the escape routes used by refugees. Aylan 1 is equipped with position light, a solar panel, food, radio and moorings. As they explain on …

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JUNE 8 – WORLD OCEAN DAY

Tara Expedition Press release Paris, June 8, 2015 Today, on World Oceans Day, the Ocean & Climate Platform is launching an international petition inviting people all over the world to protect the Ocean, the blue lung of our planet. Co-founded by Tara Expeditions, the Ocean and Climate Platform was born from an alliance of non-governmental …

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Life on a 28 Footer

These days, on L’Alliance, we are spending a considerable amount of time rebuilding the fridges, re-installing the hot/cold water circuits for the galley and the shower, the sea-water sink, the drinking water tanks and filters… and by night, before sleeping, we talk about D.I.Y. watermakers, and how to integrate a diesel generator on the fuel …

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Trapani refugees and “Migrant Files”

16 July 2014 After two weeks of intensive work at L’Alliance in Barcelona,  Svenja and Rocky left us to go back to Sicily for their job on a superyacht.  They arrived in Trapani just in time to be witnesses of an impressive human drama: about 1200 migrants where prisoners on the deck of a huge …

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sail boat meetup august 2014

here is the flyer for a sailboat meetup set to take place august 8-12 on Warren Island, Maine. there will be skill-sharing workshops, discussions, daysails, camping, communal meals, social events, and more. To answer questions or provide more information if anyone is interested in attending, and for anyone interested in helping organize, there is a …

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Rainforest Connection

Rainforest Connection (RFCx) transforms recycled cell-phones into autonomous, solar-powered listening devices that can monitor and pinpoint chainsaw activity at great distance. This changes the game by providing the world’s first real-time logging detection system, pinpointing deforestation activity as it occurs, and providing the data openly, freely, and immediately to anyone around the world. For the …

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Alternative World Sailing Community

Nine hippies living on a 35 footer could be the nightmare of almost any boat owner… but this is just the beginning: those young sailor-hippies are about to set up an entire fleet: the Alternative World Sailing Community!! The fleet already count two vessels, the Starkeeper and the Toango, and they are sailing the South …

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Musafir, finally launched

Musafir (the Arabic, Persian, Hindi and Urdu word for a traveller) is more than a boat: it’s a project, a vision, a dream which came truth, to demonstrate that the only limitations are those you impose on yourself. Musafir is a group of people who share the vision of the journey as a life path. …

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DIY Sailboat Summit 2014

After a first meetup in 2012, next February there will be the second DIY Sailboat Summit! Anarcho-sailors from the Caribbean area will head once again to Rio Dulce (Guatemala), to repeat the experience: a convergence of gypseas, blue anarchists, and punk sailors with the aim to share skills, tell stories, make boats, exchange ideas, plans, …

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Moulin Mer: the anarcho-sailors headquarters

Brittany is well known for being the French region with the strongest sailing culture. It’s special topography, rich in natural harbours and small islands, generated a long tradition of sailing and fishing. Furthermore, its dangerous waters (frequent stormy weather, strong tidal currents, shallow rocky passages…) have been the playground for many worldwide acclaimed skippers. That’s …

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A webpage lost at sea

Last year we assisted to a sad phenomena: the vanishing of a very interesting web page. I’m talking about the new born “Radical Sailors Network”, a sort of €uropean Anarchist Yacht Clubb, a page who have been online, as far as I know, just between 2011 and 2012. The aim of the Network was to …

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Yes, we did it! But…

Yes, we managed to get splashed before the end of September.  It has been hard, but we did it.  We even took the time to crash a (cheap) Champagne bottle on the bow, and we had a small inauguration party with the dockyard friends.  L’Alliance is still empty, and she floats almost one foot above …

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Japan nuclear agency upgrades Fukushima alert level

21 August 2013   Japan’s nuclear agency has upgraded the severity level of a radioactive water leak at the Fukushima plant from one to three on an international scale. Highly radioactive water was found to be leaking from a storage tank into the ground at the plant on Monday. It was first classified as a …

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Earth wind map

http://earth.nullschool.net/ is a wonderful 3D visualization of global weather conditions, forecast by supercomputers, updated every three hours. You can interact with it like on google earth, and see intensity and directions of the winds, worldwide, almost real time. Enjoy!

The Crisis of Civilization

The Crisis of Civilization is a remix documentary feature film investigating how global crises like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system. A dark comedy remix mash-up bonanza about the end of industrial civilization. featuring clowns, car crashes, explosions, super heroes, and …

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Pacific voyagers

Pacific Voyagers is a big foundation, made by a group of people who deeply care about the ocean, recognizing the sea as our heritage, our mother, and the foundation for life. They also recognize the widespread threats facing our planet – Our Blue Canoe. In their search for a new sail plan towards a sustainable …

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Low impact life onboard

  Low impact life on board is an expression from UK waterways boaters who care about the environment.  It’s not an association nor an institution, it’s just a banner behind which different local boaters communities can identify themselves and make their voices heard (just like ALF, or Earth First…). In their webpage, there is an …

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HENRY WAKELAM: A WORLD OF HIS OWN

It was our last weekend in New Zealand and we still hadn’t done it. We had the incredible chance of meeting in person a living legend, one of the most inspiring sailors of all times, and we kept putting off the task, as if something was holding us back…I wasn’t quite sure what that was, …

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Underwater Tastes of French Polynesia

As mentioned in an earlier post, Rocky and myself weren’t able to make it to Gruissan last summer as we were based on the other side of the world. During our time there, we did some ‘exploring’ or shall we call it ‘connaissance work’ in French Polynesia. One of the many amazing things we did …

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To shoot an elephant

Gaza Strip has been under siege since June 2007, when Israel declared it an “enemy entity”. A group of international activists organized a siege-breaking movement, the Free Gaza movement. Thanks to their efforts, and despite the Israeli ban on foreign correspondents and humanitarian aid workers to cover and witness operation “Cast Lead” on the ground, …

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We Feed The World

Every day in Vienna the amount of unsold bread sent back to be disposed of is enough to supply Austria’s second-largest city, Graz. Around 350,000 hectares of agricultural land, above all in Latin America, are dedicated to the cultivation of soybeans to feed Austria’s livestock while one quarter of the local population starves. Every European …

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Wanderers of the World

Mates from the Anarchist Yacht Clubb are preparing a publication called The current’s against us: as they are asking for writings and submissions, I was excited to contribute with an article on my favourite subject…    You can either read it here or download a printable pdf version: To feel libertarian and think as an anarchist …

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Boats4People

Boats 4 People is an international coalition of organizations from the Mediterranean, Africa and Europe, established in 2012 to end deaths at maritime borders and to defend migrants’ rights at sea. They advocate freedom of movement for all. Today, the Mediterranean acts as a route into Europe for migrants seeking survival and a chance of …

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5 broken cameras

An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, 5 Broken Cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil’in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, …

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Sail Boat Project

Sail Boat Project is a workers co-operative, registered as a Community Interest Company, based in Brighton. They have got a Hobie Cat on Brighton beach, a load of inflatable kayaks, a 40′ Jeanneau sloop and a Westerly Renown yacht in Chichester marina that they use for sail training. They aim to:  offer people access to …

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Floating Neutrinos

David Pearlman (1933/2011) was an itinerant philosopher, adventurer and environmentalist widely known as Poppa Neutrino, who founded his own church, crossed the Atlantic on a raft made from scrap and invented a theoretically unstoppable football strategy.  Mr. Pearlman, whose improbable life was chronicled by the New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson in “The Happiest Man in …

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the 2012 dock season has begun

Here we are, once again, at work… This year Rocky and Svenja could not come, because of their work and the enormous distance (half the world) which separates them from Gruissan right now. Even if they are having a short holiday, it was not worth travelling such a distance to come here. They are actually …

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The Shaping Experiment (or D.I.Y. Surfboard)

Due to many different reasons (work, winter temperatures, keeping up foreign visas etc etc), we had to leave ‘L’Alliance’ in France during this winter and all head off to different corners of the world- from Spain and England to Canada and to the South Pacific and Australia. As I noticed last summer how difficult and …

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36 years to the oceans death

This impressive video warn you in less than 5 minutes about the disastrous consequences of overfishing. For further informations let’s watch the documentary “the end of the line”

The End of the Line

Very well done documentary based on scientific evidences that show how industrial fishing is bringing to the end of most fish species by 2048. The End of the Line chronicles how demand for cod off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1990s led to the decimation of the most abundant cod population in the …

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Collapse

Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, independent reporter Michael Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead. He draws upon the same news reports and data available to any Internet user, but he applies a unique interpretation. He is especially passionate about the issue …

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Inside Job

Charles Ferguson’s film – Inside Job – won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2011. It is the definitive film about the economic crisis of 2008 and the role of Wall Street in modern society. It is a substantive and entertaining film that narrates the conflicts of interest between the finance industry, politicians, academics and …

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The Yes Men

The Yes Men are Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, a culture jamming activist-duo raising awareness around social problems caused by corporations. Operating under the mission statement of telling the truth and exposing lies, they practice a concept they call “identity correction”, in which they impersonate entities that they dislike — some would call it social …

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The Shock Doctrine

Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors. Exposing these global profiteers, Naomi Klein discovered information and connections about how comprehensively the …

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The Cove

Oscar award winner as the best feature documentary in 2010, the Cove is a thrilling story about the annual slaughter of more than 20,000 dolphins still being carried out in the Japanese town of Taiji… Official web page: http://www.thecovemovie.com/ Download torrent file: Subtitolos en castellano: Trailer:    

One Big Torrent

OneBigTorrent.org is a golden mine of interesting documentaries and books, a place for sharing material that deals with or is relevant to issues of social justice, progressive and radical politics, independent media, ecology… They run a local bittorrent tracker (which they encourage uploaders to use), and they also host torrents from other trackers, as well …

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Anarchist Yacht Clubb

Simply brilliant.  This web page is absolutely interesting, and we are proud to be on their  mailing list (so we can keep in touch with the other 90 anarchist-sailors around the world!). But the best is the home-made (boat-made) documentary “hold fast”, that you can download from their page: www.blueanarchy.org or watch online…     …

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Oceans

It’s amazing what a documentary you can make with a 50 millions € budget! Along with “Earth”, this is one of the few War Disney good production since 1923! Best to watch it in HD, and the extra footage about the cutting-edge technology used for the movie is as much interesting as the movie itself. …

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The Coconut Revolution

This is the modern-day story of a native peoples remarkable victory over Western Colonial power. A Pacific island rose up in arms against giant mining corporation Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) – and won despite a military occupation and blockade. When RTZ decided to step up production at the Panguna Mine on the island of Bougainville, …

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eCat News

To many, inventor Andrea Rossi’s eCat is the coming saviour of the planet – an energy device that could spawn a trillion dollar industry, reshape geopolitics and clean up the environment – all in a few short years. To others, it is not – they don’t believe it. Born from the bastard child of science …

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International Rivers

Seeking to protect the world’s rivers from destructive dams and amplify the voices of dam-affected communities, a small group of volunteers formed International Rivers Network in 1985. Their vision was simple and yet remarkably ambitious: to develop a worldwide network of people working to protect rivers and promote just and sustainable water and energy development. …

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Amazon Watch

Rainforests sustain us. They help regulate the global climate and are vital to maintaining the earth’s fragile balance. The Amazon rainforest is the world’s largest and most biodiverse tropical rainforest, covering an area larger than the continental United States. It houses one-third of the Earth’s plant and animal species and produces one-fifth of all its …

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Shark Savers

Garbage Warrior

  The epic story of radical Earthship eco architect Michael Reynolds, and his fight to build off-the-grid self-sufficient communities. (an Oliver Hodge film, about 1:30h)download the torrent file: descarga los subtitulos en castellano: Si estás interesado en las técnicas de arquitectura ecológica de Michael Reynolds, puedes ir en su comunidad a aprender! Nuestro amigo Felipe …

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DOUBLE BRUYN

Incredible sailor, diver, surfer, fisherman, beer-drinker, life-lover and just the nicest guy one could ever imagine to meet, Jon has amazed me from the very first moment i met him. It’s not “just” things like sailing with very limited resources, without an engine, single-handed across the atlantic in his twenties, or choosing to abandon the …

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ÚLTIMA NOCHE

When Daniel saw the empty hull of L’Alliance exclaimed: “You guys are really ambitious!  Sailing around the world will be the easiest part of your project!” Fisherman in Alaska, experienced sailor and voyager, our friend Dan has an excellent blog (http://theworldbysea.blogspot.com/)  Nowadays his sloop Última Noche is for sale in Barcelona.

Gruissan

Finally a post about where we are. We are not yet anchored off a beautiful, tropical island that one dreams of when buying a sail boat. We are on dry land, in a shipyard. Since we will be staying in this town for quite some time, it clearly deserves a little space on our website. …

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Chronos vs Kairos

“Time flies when you’re having rum” they repeat in the Caribbean, on the false line of the famous English saying. Despite wine being our favorite beverage here in the South of France, we have to admit that time is slipping by at a pace we’re not used to.  We have no idea whether this magic …

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Rust in Piece

The beginning…

L’Alliance is the long term project of an enthusiastic group of people with a common dream:  to sail the world, forgetting borders and restrictions and leaving behind some of the most behated dynamics of life on land. We come from different corners of the world and make a point of considering ourselves international, ever-migrating humans. …

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