Ocean Nomads skipper: Blair | World sailor, surfer, marine biologist and ambassador of the big blue

In this blog series, we shine a light on the skippers who are going to be your captain in Greece. It was so tough choosing between all the amazing applications we received. We are proud to have these driven and beautiful eco adventure people in the network ready to take the lead. After some tough decision making with an overwhelming amount of skipper applications, it’s decided. We selected a diverse captain team to support, share and sprinkle ocean magic into your life in Greece.

They shine and stand out because of their commitment to Ocean Nomads, ocean conservation, embodying the Ocean Nomads values and won’t settle for anything less than bringing you the best sailing experience ever.

A brief summary of his Ocean Nomads life so far

Blair started sailing at seven years old on dinghies and eventually, as an adult, moved on to fixed keel yachts. Blair has sailed many corners of the globe from the Caribbean to Indonesia to the Southern Oceans.

My motivation for sailing are many: the horizon and being at sea for days on end enables one to commune with nature and develop a true blue mind.

Blair

With many years of ocean racing experience and cruising (last big trip was five months in Indonesia in 2021), he now lives as a delivery skipper and trainer. He has run many environmental campaigns in microplastic research and forever chemicals, as well as worked in disaster relief and medical delivery. He spent many years as an officer with Sea Shepherd on their beautiful 96ft ketch, the Martin Sheen, as well as with other organizations such as YWAM in PNG. He also trained scuba divers and ran a scuba boat in the Bass Strait for several years.

“With a strong attachment to the sailing community and the ocean and particularly to the ocean as an ecosystem we need to desperately protect,” he shone his superpowers on our flotilla.

Let’s get to know Blair! We asked him a few ocean questions.

Your ocean achievements and milestones you are proud of?

I can’t really think of just one. I am really proud though of the decision I made about 15 years ago to bail out of land based work and concentrate solely on working in the marine environment.

Until then I had always sailed since I was a kid and done many deliveries, but to be immersed totally in the ocean world is something else!

Since then I have mastered ships and yachts, run micro plastic research projects, skippered scuba diving expeditions in some wild waters, worked on the ground (or on the water really) in disaster relief, delivered yachts that I would otherwise never afford to be able to sail (LOL), sailed up vast rivers in Papua, looked for hidden surf breaks and just sailed, sailed, sailed.

What excites you about joining the Ocean Nomads fleet in Greece?

I love the idea of this sailing nomad community and am super excited to meet new people and embrace life together. I love skippering as it gives me an opportunity to impart a bit of knowledge that I have accumulated over time. As well as inevitably add to that knowledge by the experience of sailing together. This particular sailing trip in Greece looks amazing, the small coves and towns are picturesque and of course going through the Corinth Canal and being able to check out this engineering feat will be memorable.

What are you excited about teaching and sharing?

I really enjoy imparting love and respect for the marine world. It’s amazing and so important for us that we embrace it. As we know every second breath comes from oxygen created by the oceans. What more reason do we need to love it? Than it is literally our life giver. So, I have a bit of academic base in marine biology and a lot of learned experience. I’ll be keen to learn a lot about the marine environment in Greece as it is not one I have any experience with.

I’ve got a good skill set across many different aspects of sailing and boat handling from the mundane to the challenging, from cruising to remote expedition to ocean racing and am happy to share.

And share stories of things like the six months I ran an old 100ft schooner operated as a sustainable performance platform by a techno opera group out of Java, touring in remote Indonesian islands.

At the moment I have started doing a lot of double handed racing in the Southern Oceans of Australia. It’s pretty full on, so I will enjoy a small break to be sure. I’ve really enjoyed however, how it has got me finessing a lot of my deck skills that I would usually just glaze over. So I’m looking forward to cruising practice.

Most epic ocean adventure so far

Drifting down the Canadian West coast for two days in a pod of Blue Whales. That was epic!

Tell us about your passion for sailing and the Ocean Nomads lifestyle

I’m incredibly fortunate; from a really early age, I grew up on the water. As a child, my house was 100m away from a beach with our thrashed up old wooden 12ft ‘Mirror’ pulled up on the sand ready for adventures to explore the coves and nudist beaches of our coastline. Otherwise, it was being used by us to fish and snorkel for dinner off the small reef; or when the summer northerlies blew, pulling up the centreboard and riding what seemed to us as children-like, impressive breaking waves on the sandbars. So, the ocean had its grip on me when I was young. Our parents would just say “come home for dinner” and we’d cast off for the day in endless summers for years. Eventually, we all got bigger, and well, so did the yachts.

Sailing is my Zen. Ocean actually is my Zen really. For me it’s a sanctuary if you like. But at the same time a sanctuary that I know can turn wild at any moment. I am so happy when I am on, in or near the water and sailing really creates an environment for me that allows me to enjoy life at sea, travel, have adventures and share it all with other like minded humans.

If not, there is always the fish and dolphins and seals.

Being nomadic feels right to me. I have travelled since very young, a lot, like a real lot, and given our bodies and spirits were designed to be in motion, keeping in motion keeps me feeling alive and young in my heart. I could rave about slow travelling and sustainability etc but in the end it all comes down to our spirit telling us this is “correct”, this is “right”.

What does the ocean mean to you?

It’s our life force.

What’s your wildest ocean related dream that you’d love to experience in a lifetime?

The wildest one? I shan’t share that 🙂

What keeps you curious and inspired?

I’m not sure I am sometimes. Like so many after the years of lockdowns I was seriously lacking inspiration. I mean I am a naturally curious person so that helps for sure. Nature still showing its resilience after all the damage our species has done to it. That I find inspiring; unfortunately I see it less and less often and impactful.

Inspiration comes from many sources: conflict, resolution, friends, lovers, family, strangers. I’m inspired by old thinkers and those who have stepped before us. As someone who has been either a musician or a DJ my whole life, or both together at certain points, music and its practitioners and their stories have always been a huge source of inspiration for me in human and social context. That’s not to say the sailing world is not without its own rock star legends.

Where Blair is now

Blair skippered one of the four boats on our Greece flotilla in 2024. These days he is at anchor in the Whitsundays on a fully refurbished old steel yawl, heading south to spend the southern summer in Tasmania and sail the South Coast, and he welcomes crew along the way. His crew call and his profile are inside the Ocean Nomads network.

Come sail with us. 💙