Journeys and Star Gazing

Written two decades after the Flotillas of Hope voyage — a small act on a wide sea that still echoes today.

The Bucket and the Sea

They call it a bucket list now — a catalogue of things to consume before death. Mountains to be conquered, rivers to be cruised, skydives to prove we were here. It sounds brave until you see the queues — climbers waiting their turn to summit Everest like shoppers at a checkout. Even the gods must turn away.

My own list was never written. It unfolded quietly, without permission. One day it became a voyage — a small flotilla bound for Nauru, its sails stitched from conscience rather than canvas. I had never sailed before, but joined those who had — experienced skippers who trusted purpose as much as compass. We went not for glory, but to bear witness — to shame our own government into releasing those who had been forgotten.

We never reached the island. Navy boats met us on the horizon, their warnings slicing through wind and salt. We turned back, our message carried instead by waves and news wires. And somehow, impossibly, it worked: seventy-seven refugees were released. Not because we were powerful, but because the sea has a way of amplifying truth.

There were no medals at the end, no television crews waiting on shore. Just salt on our lips and a strange, enduring silence — the kind that follows when the world briefly tilts toward justice.

So when I see others chasing their “bucket lust,” when they pay for their Everest or their Rhine cruise, I remember how it felt to sail into the unknown with nothing to sell and everything to lose. That was the real summit — a crossing not upward, but outward, beyond the self and into something vast, unforgiving, and sacred.

Some journeys are not about ascent. They are about surrender — and the rare, salt-stung moments when the wind itself seems to whisper: You’ve already arrived.

Flotillas of Hope was a 2004 Australian humanitarian voyage protesting the offshore detention of asylum seekers on Nauru. Although the boats were turned back by naval patrols, the action drew international attention — and soon after, of the hundreds detained, seventy-seven refugees were released.