Original publish: June 11, 2020 (Team ON). Refresh 2026.
We created Ocean Nomads to bring you together with equally passionate salty souls living and ready for ocean adventure and impact action.
To create memorable days, not never-ending to-do lists. They never end. Life does. What we are and act now we pass on to our children. So we better be good and do good while playing in the great outdoors, enjoying what this beautiful world has to offer. We can combine our energy, network, and resources to sail the seas in the most meaningful way, but with no day without play.
This is what we believe we’re supposed to be doing: exploring, learning, lending a hand where we can. Living with minimum negative impact and doing what we can to make a positive one on the world around us.
Instead of trying to tackle the never-ever-ending inbox and to-do list, scrolling, and worrying about how we’re going to pay the next bills. It’s not easy. We get stuck a lot too. The world lives around a money-based system and we’re all so busy keeping up the balls. It’s not making us feel alive. It’s not life. And it’s not sustainable.
But we can start to change that. Together. Back in the days, they were doing fine with trading, growing their own foods, and using natural materials. We can revive some of that. Combine it with the technology that exists today and we can make a massive impact for the good. A kid these days thinks cucumbers come from the supermarket. If you have the means to read this, you’re equipped with skills that make dreams happen. And not only yours. All together we are responsible for trashing this planet. Together we can turn the tide. With knowing what we know now, we can’t just keep taking things as they come. We have to shape them as they go. We have to invest the energy the ocean gives us into solutions for a healthier ocean.
And to get the ocean truly into people’s hearts, one needs to experience its magic. Ocean activities like sailing, diving, surfing, freediving: they are all means to do that. By connecting to the ocean first hand, you don’t only see its beauty but also the challenges it’s facing. That triggers action. Many drops will create a ripple effect of positive change.
We’re all on similar journeys. Dreaming and doing about ocean adventures and how to make a positive impact around us. We have brilliant ideas, projects, dreams, actions, and desires for experiences, learning, connection, and conscious living. We’re looking to connect with others honouring simple and sustainable lifestyles, driven to do good. But alone we can only do so much.
The online stuff is just a means to accelerate our journeys in the wild. What we aim to achieve is real-life connection and action in, on, and near the ocean. You can spend less time online researching and connecting, because here you have the place to find your answers and your people.
A huge part of our nomadic excitement is in the act of setting out for exploration, to let the magic happen and to see what we encounter. But few people enjoy doing it alone. It’s nourishing to meet like-minded souls with shared interests, values, and mission to share the journey. To find answers to questions Google doesn’t answer. To find a project where we can lend our hand.
There are sailing forums, ocean conservation projects, general crew websites, tons of Facebook groups, and yacht clubs. There are beautiful places to meet, and to give and ask information both offline and online. But most of these places are generic and single-purpose. Ocean Nomads, like you and me, might belong to half a dozen such groups and still feel unfulfilled. We don’t have one place where we can easily find one another.
That’s the gap we set out to close.
We’ve been on all sides of this story
We’ve been the aspiring crew member with no idea and no connections, asking the dock how to get on a boat. We’ve set up ocean projects looking for hands on deck and struggling to find the right fit. We’ve been so broke that the last money went to a coconut.
Five years and tens of thousands of nautical miles later, we’re also captains, boat owners, project leaders, and a network of crew that has sailed together across oceans. “What I hoped to gain from this community was the option of finding crew. Instead what I think I found is this collection of people who get what I do.” That’s Michiel, one of our members. He named what most of us came looking for and didn’t have a word for.
The reasons we created Ocean Nomads in 2020 didn’t go away. They got more concrete. We arrive in new places. We mix with locals, yachties, retired sailors, holidaymakers, the “normal” citizens, the sabbatical backpacker, the holiday surfer. But rarely do we find those souls and tribes living similar lifestyles where we just fit in and can relate. Relationships are everything, and if we can’t find our tribe, we create it.
Five years of proof
Since launching in 2020, we’ve sailed Ocean Nomads boats around the Atlantic on a 210-day, 15,000-nautical-mile expedition with 100 nomads aboard SV Twister. We’ve run Mission Atlantis along the coast of Portugal for ocean regeneration. We’ve crossed the Canary Islands to Cape Verde and gone on to Cabo Verde with members from every walk of life. We’ve surveyed 131 Atlantic sailors over a decade and turned their answers into the Atlantic Crew Report. We’ve built Zero to Ocean Nomad, a course for the people who don’t know where to start. And the book, Ocean Nomad, keeps doing what books do: arriving at the right person at the right moment.
None of that was the goal. The goal was the connection, to the ocean and to each other. The rest is what happened because people found each other.
What you can expect from Ocean Nomads
We’re aiming to make your experience here memorable. Five things we want you to get from being part of this:
ADVENTURE. Access to real ocean adventures, conservation projects, and crew opportunities that aren’t on Crewbay. We focus on sailing and include the other non-motorized ways to meet the sea: surfing, freediving, diving.
COMMUNITY. Connect with people around the world, online and beyond the screen. Captains, crew, and project leaders who share your interests, mission, and direction of travel. The point of the platform is to get you off it and onto boats, beaches, and meet-ups with people who get you.
LEARNING. Make better, more well-informed decisions about the next step in your ocean nomads journey. The next destination, the next project, the next crew opportunity. Content, conversations, and answers you can’t find anywhere else, written by people who have actually done the thing.
IMPACT. Practical ideas on simplification and sustainable living, ocean-friendly habits, thought-provoking conversations, and expert perspectives every day. We swap stories, experiences, and ideas (not necessarily advice) around our shared mission.
FREEDOM DESIGN. The whole point of doing all of this is so you have more meaningful ocean adventures and a life that feels like yours. We want all of you to thrive. Because when we do, we have the energy to take care of and realize our potential to do our part for a healthier planet. We’ll create meet-ups, yearly events, and curate the epic opportunities from our network.
Welcome on board
There are other humans in this world living your way. They are reading this too. Some of them are already inside, waiting to meet you.
