Today Is World Maritime Day!

World Maritime Day A wonderful excuse not only to crack open a bottle of rum :), but also to give some thought to the sea itself... And here is what comes to mind: Each in our own way, we all strive for a better life. To buy a newer car, furnish our homes with more expensive things. Fill the fridge to bursting, upgrade the gadget because it is obsolete... Parents’ perfectly natural desire to give their children the very, very best turns into updating their wardrobe according to the latest fashions, buying them a new smartphone (almost everyone in the class has one, after all), a different bicycle and computer... We think that more and more expensive means better. And we fail to notice how the race to consume has swallowed us whole. Meanwhile, scientists say that when our children grow up, they will no longer be able to live the way we do. They will not have as much water or natural food; there will be no birdsong or murmuring rivers. And there will be many other things they will no longer have. But we think that is still—oh, so far away—and carry on consuming relentlessly, producing ever more waste. We have almost reached the point of no return. Soon the planet’s resources will run out. But it seems to us that these are just environmentalist “scare stories.” And we do not see the connection between buying things we do not need and poisoning the planet, between food left uneaten in a restaurant and the depletion of the world’s fish stocks... Consumption must not stop What does any of this have to do with life on a yacht ? A direct connection. We like everything aboard, especially on a large charter vessel, to gleam. So we clean the sanitary fittings with Domestos, wash the dishes with Fairy... (you can continue the list yourselves). All this “cleanliness” pours straight into the sea. Often together with bags of rubbish that have become a bloody nuisance on board during an ocean passage. Diesel spills into the sea too, if something is wrong with the tanks or the engine. And even when everything is fine. We think that protecting nature is not our responsibility. Someone at the top should sort it out. And us... what can we do? And off we go to consume again. We take new plastic bags at the shop, leave the lights blazing throughout the house non-stop, leave the kitchen tap running, and belch exhaust fumes where we could have managed without. We feed ourselves the illusion of a certain “standard of living”—why economise when we can afford to live large?! We enjoy feeling well-off, denying ourselves nothing... For now. Let’s start changing things. We can! P.S. Actually, this wasn’t what I originally went to the WWF website for... But I couldn’t pass this by: The world’s marine animal population has halved http://www.wwf.ru/resources/news/article/13672