SEASTEADERS - CITIZENS OF THE WORLD

Whether we want to admit it or not, we are in the age of globalization, and we are citizens of the world.

Our passport may identify us as British, French, German, or Australian - but that does not change the fact that we now have a global destiny shared unequally by all.

We are living in a world with porous borders. Most borders are only sieves that sort people by race, religion, and nationality, but the borders remain extremely porous - even in countries like Saudi Arabia.

Millions of people travel to Mecca each year to attend Hajj, and a large number of those pilgrims never leave Arabia. Those who speak Arabic blend in with the population, and they never leave. Those who don’t speak Arabic, begin a shadowy existence of intermittent employment and migration around the Kingdom. The roads of Arabia are littered with checkpoints whose main purpose is to catch and deport the illegals who came for hajj and never left.

I have never been in a country with more strict immigration laws than Saudi Arabia, and still their borders are porous.

The only guaranteed way of creating an impermeable border is to have a regime in power that is so oppressive that nobody wants to go there. The number of people sneaking across the border into North Korea is infinitesimally small.

Increasingly, we are living in a world without borders.

Real Ocean Cruisers have been living without borders for years.

It’s not that borders don’t exist. They just don’t let borders limit their way of life.

Many years ago, Jim Brown - creator and designer of Searunner Trimarans - coined a term called seasteading. He recognized that a new breed of sailors was emerging who believed that less is more, and they embraced cruising as a permanent and full time endeavor. Their offshore voyages were not a sabbatical - they were a way of life.

Without realizing it, these Ocean Cruisers were ahead of their time, they were the original seasteaders, and they flourished in a pre-globalization world. The sea was their home, and they were the first citizens of the world.

Most seasteaders are cultural chameleons, and they are experts at blending in. Culture shock is something that happens to other people, but not to them.

Instead of dragging their own culture across the planet, they embrace the culture they are in. They put their arms around the world, and their lives are richer because of it.

Every culture has something to offer, and seasteaders are experts at finding it, enjoying it, and even cultivating it. American culture is a Johnny come lately, and there is much to appreciate in cultures that have endured for thousands of years.

Most seasteaders have modest vessels on which they make magnificent voyages. Their lifestyle is not a fashion statement, and whether anyone else knows about it is unimportant.

Social media is the oxygen that many short term sailors need to survive. Without an internet connection, short termers feel like their life is slipping into insignificance. Once they reconnect with social media, they feel like they are born again.

Most seasteaders eschew social media. They don’t want to prostitute their way of life by advertising it to the world.

Seasteaders prefer anonimity. They are doing it for themselves and no one else.

Seasteaders don’t want their way of life to become popular. If seasteading ever becomes popular, the governments of the world will regulate and tax the lifestyle out of existence.

That’s exactly what happened in the USA. Cruising in Florida is a nightmare of regulations, restrictions, and anchoring laws. Most marinas don’t want liveaboards, but they are willing to tolerate transients. Just don’t hang around too long.

Most seasteaders don’t stay in marinas or spend much time in places like Florida. Why should they complicate their lives with rules, regulations, and restrictions when there is an entire world to explore.

It required eleven years for Exit Only to sail around the world and for that short time we were Real Ocean Cruisers. The world was our home, and we were citizens of the world.

In every country we visited, we were treated with kindness and respect, and those eleven years were some of the best years of our life.

I don’t know whether I would consider myself as a seasteader, but I came close.

If my parents had not gotten old and become infirm, I would have kept sailing. But I did the right thing - I honored my father and mother, and I stood by them in the most challenging years of their lives, and I am glad that I did.

I confess that when I returned to America, I never stopped cruising in my mind, and I never rejoined mainstream life.

To me America was only one more stop on a never ending adventure. I did my seasteading in Phoenix as a flying doctor for the Indian Health Service - serving more than 23 Native American tribes in the Phoenix Service Unit. Instead of sailing to windward at six knots, I flew out to the Indian Reservations at 230 knots.

I am not sad about the years I spent working in other cultures on the Hopi, Navajo, Apache, and Supai Reservations. Although my anchor was temporarily down in Phoenix, I was still having an unforgettable adventure with people who lived in an entirely different world, and that was enough to keep me going.

Now that I am retired, I am back on board Exit Only, and after sailing 5000 new miles, I have earned my stripes as a Real Ocean Cruiser once again.

I don’t know if I am a seasteader yet, but I might be getting close.

Life is good.

Dr. Dave

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