You find yourself outside of the intercontinental human communications and information network when you are at anchor for a few days without internet.

But life goes on, and how! A short impression of a disconnected time aboard in vicinity of Barbados: (not allowed to touch the land )
Wake up at 0530, heave anchor, receive a little fishing boat to tow us into the harbor, make fast at 0630, hoist barrels on land for refilling by Foursquare Distillery in Barbados. Breakfast while a truck picks up barrels, then little siesta until lunch, just fine. Barrels arrive back at 1400, loading them into the hold. Receive a wind change at 1600, stop loading process and fix rest of barrels on deck. Prepare lines to pull ship of lee shore and set sails. Pull hard and sail off… great! Then tack back before a stunning sunset to the anchorage to wait for new orders. Night comes and no internet yet but some good company from our anchor-neighbors Laura & Sander plus the kids from Guppy, some guitar and violin music and more excellent food and talks.

Next morning the machete opens the daily coconut at sunrise and with it, the day’s activity at anchor. Clean up mess, pump bilges, wash deck, prepare jobs, start music and start working in fine companionship to keep our all admired, magic ship in shape and beauty. No internet yet. So after lunch a rope swing is installed from the yardarm and everyone needs to show her/his abilities on that one. Tired of smashing in the water we continue work until a rum-infused watermelon appears on the mid deck… all right then, lay down weapons and enjoy this before the imminent Caribbean sunset.

Next morning, shortly after the coconut, the internet is back! I do not tell the crew so they can start their daily life unconcerned and with clean energy. After email, which contained highly overrated local invoices, the wind and then the news. Wow. I knew that corona was still going on but now it was going crazy with new versions and more horror stories, and the first message is that someone brought it around with a plane again. What a coincidence! Or does the spreading have nothing to do with fast global traveling? Fly to hell fast! might be the slogan of the virus I’ll be with you!

Next article on climate change: China starts worldwide biggest emission trade! I find it reasonable that they (Austrian news) file it under economy, because it obviously has nothing to do with the environment.
And on it goes with about 95% of negative news from all over the world. This must be a kind of brainwashing which is able to suck out energy from any reader, or consumer, as we are called nowadays, but where does it go, all this energy?

I’m stopping now because the positive energy and the noises all around onboard pull me out of my room and disconnect me from the trouble on all these far away continents. Just outside we see people walking on the beach. Not allowed to touch the land they stay just as far away as the ones at home, as well as their trouble.
Somehow this internet is just a huge shift of peoples energy between them, while some obscure companies with obscure manners try to control some of it.
I hope air, earth, water, plants and animals can stay out of that net for a while more, so some of us have a chance to reconnect and enjoy basic life. I also hope these people will form a critical mass someday.

Let’s open another coconut … all the best from far,

Andreas
P.S.: Imagine it’s the bottle which brings you this message!