The Part of Cruising No One Prepared Me For

Remote anchorages, white sand, turquoise water — that was the dream. What I didn’t expect was how much those same places would change the way I see my own waste habits.

The dream that got me out there

When I started living and traveling on my own sailboat back in 2013, I was dreaming of remote anchorages with wild, lush vegetation. Palm trees swaying in the wind. A hammock over white sand, turquoise water below. Colorful reefs with an abundance of marine life.

A slower pace. A simpler life. A closer connection to nature.

Maybe you can relate to that feeling — the one that pulls you out there in the first place.

And to be fair, that vision wasn’t wrong. Those places do exist. And they are just as beautiful as I imagined them to be.

There was just something else I hadn’t expected.

There’s something else in paradise

Very early on, I started noticing something that didn’t quite fit into that picture.

At first, it was just a few plastic pieces here and there. A bottle. A plastic bag. A flip-flop. But the further I traveled — especially in more remote regions — the more it became impossible to ignore.

Entire shorelines covered in plastic. Not just the occasional item, but layers of it. Sometimes even dense carpets of microplastics, stretching across the beach like grains of sand.

A turtle tangled in fishing rope that we managed to cut free. Two boa constrictors trapped in a net — for one, it was too late. Birds, fish, fragments of life caught in something that clearly didn’t belong there. These moments stayed with me.

I had read about plastic pollution before. Seen it on the news. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch always felt far away. Experiencing plastic pollution while sailing made the issue feel very real. And being out there on my own sailboat, in these remote places, made me realize something else:

I am part of this.

This realization led me to create a small 7-day experiment called the Trash Navigator Challenge, but more about that later.

“They just don’t have the awareness”

In conversations with other cruisers, I occasionally heard a simple explanation for what we were seeing: “People here just don’t have the awareness.” And I understand where that thought comes from. It’s an easy way to make sense of something that feels out of place. Over the years, though, through conversations with local NGOs, communities, and people working in waste management, I’ve come to see a much more complex picture.

In many places, it’s not (just) a lack of awareness — it’s a lack of options.

Infrastructure is limited or non-existent. Waste systems are underfunded. And even when people care deeply, there are simply no viable alternatives. Like most things in life, it’s more nuanced than it first appears.

So let me invite you into a small thought experiment.

A small thought experiment

Imagine you’re anchored somewhere truly remote. No marina. No village. No infrastructure. Just you, your boat, and the surrounding nature. You stay for a while. Your trash bag fills up. Then another one. You start storing them somewhere on board — maybe in the cockpit locker, maybe at the stern.

Days turn into weeks. At some point, it becomes too much. Too much space taken. Too much smell. Too much weight.

What would you do if your trash had nowhere to go?

Where does our plastic waste actually go?

Plastic and composite materials — like food packaging, multi-layer wrappers (for example snack wrappers or coffee packages made of several fused layers of plastic and aluminum), or everyday hygiene products — are made from mixed materials that are difficult or impossible to separate and recycle, and are designed to last.

Some of them take hundreds of years to break down. And even then, they don’t disappear, they fragment into smaller and smaller pieces: microplastics. The material stays. And so do the toxins.

When we are in places with waste management systems, it can feel like our trash disappears. We throw something into a bin, it gets collected, and it’s gone from our immediate reality. But that’s only because the system takes it somewhere else.

In many parts of the world, that “somewhere else” is:

• An unregulated landfill
• An open burn site
• Or directly into the surrounding environment

Even in countries with more developed systems, the story doesn’t end there. Plastic waste is often burned. Filters may capture some of the toxins, but they don’t eliminate them — they turn them into another form of hazardous waste that still needs to be dealt with. Recycling can extend the life of materials, but it doesn’t solve the core issue either. It often postpones the question of what to do with them.

So in the end, the idea that our plastic waste disappears is more of an illusion than a reality.

Seeing plastic trash patterns, and asking different questions

Seeing plastic waste along the beaches almost every day made me want to do something. Together with my friend Maria, I started collecting trash. And very quickly, we noticed something: We kept finding the same items over and over again. Toothbrushes. Plastic cups. Shampoo and detergent bottles. Margarine tubs. And an overwhelming number of plastic bottles.

It made me pause.

Because these weren’t random objects. They were everyday items. The kind all of us use.

The kind I use.

And that led to a different question. Not just: What are we going to do with all of this? But also: What am I contributing to this?

An invitation to look closer: What ends up in our own trash bin?

So I started looking at my own trash bag. What are the things that end up in there? And what would be a first, easy and achievable step to reduce some of that waste? Don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe we need to hold producers, governments, and retailers accountable to create better systems and more sustainable solutions.

At the same time, we are all part of this system. And while systemic change can take time, often slowed down by complex structures and strong lobbies, changing our own habits is something we can start with immediately. Even small shifts can feel surprisingly empowering.

That’s why we created the Trash Navigator Challenge.

Discover simple shifts for cleaner oceans in just 7 days

The Trash Navigator Challenge is a simple 7-day challenge where you track the plastic and composite materials that end up in your trash. No judgment. No pressure to change everything at once. Just awareness. Because once you understand what is actually there, it becomes much easier to decide where you might want to adjust something.

Maybe it’s switching from bottled water to refilling when possible. Maybe it’s avoiding a specific type of packaging. Maybe it’s always carrying a reusable bag. The goal isn’t to be perfect. The goal is to make one change at the end of the week that feels realistic, and to stick with it. And to acknowledge that that already makes a difference.

Let’s figure this out together – starting on ZERO WASTE DAY, 30 March 2026

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that these questions are much easier to navigate together. That’s why after the 7 days of tracking, we continue by sharing practical tips, ideas, and experiences — from sailors, from people working in zero-waste spaces, and from our own everyday life on board on the Instagram Account, Facebook Page and Website of In Mocean. You can also join our In Mocean Group on noforeignland to exchange ideas and tips.

We also share the parts that are still challenging. The things we haven’t figured out yet. The situations where alternatives are limited. The habits that are hard to change. Because this is not about having all the answers. It’s about exploring them together.

If you feel like joining in, sharing your own observations, or simply following along, we would love to have you onboard. Make sure you sign up now to get your Trash Diary, instructions on how to use it, and tips and tricks on how to reduce plastic waste whilst cruising. And make sure to share that you are joining on Socials using #trashnavigator2026 and tagging @inmoceanorg to inspire others and for us to cheer you on!

A different way of seeing things

Cruising has a way of shifting perspectives. It shows us places most people never get to see. And it also shows us realities that are easy to overlook from a distance.

For me, the plastic crisis has been one of them. It didn’t take anything away from this life — but it added another layer of awareness to it. And maybe the Trash Navigator Challenge can offer something similar. A slightly different way of seeing things. So we can protect what we all love so much:

Our playground. Our source of inspiration and adventure. Our home — the ocean.