Flotilla (water striders)

A flotilla of water striders

bask in a pool

of autumn sun. 

Haiku and Photography graciously shared by Melinda  Schwakhofer ©

Steve Roberts has for years had a vision of waterbourne seafaring intentional communities. He calls them "Flotilla's", and has taken a step toward actualizing his vision. He's gathering a group of folks  with similar yearnings for a discussion with an eye to fleshing out the possibilities and bringing them to fruition, at least on an experimental level.  In Steve's words..."Actually, this goes back many years.  Over the gestation of the Microship, and well into my more recent Nomadness project, I have had the fantasy of forming an "intentional community" of sorts... but on water.  For a time, we had an active list geared toward relatively local adventures on small boatlets in the Pacific Northwest, but a few things have happened to bring this notion to a new level.

First, I'm now traveling on a boat of ocean-voyaging scale (see 

http://www.nomadness.com for more, especially the blog at 

http://www.nomadness.com/blog 

which is updated every few days).  The scattered community of open-ended voyagers is beginning to fascinate me, and it is not at all difficult to imagine a loose tribe with a critical mass of essential skills and tools, traveling in the same general direction and making the occasional rendezvous (all while steadily connected by the "Flotilla Area Network").

Second, I have a partner named Sky who has her own vision of nomadic community geared to ad-hoc theatrical productions that are initially a spin-off of the nautical life.  This sounds like a fun way to involve musicians and other colorful artistic folk in what might otherwise be a band of crusty techno-geeks, and I'm all for it; we even coined the term "Dramanauts" to hang a label on the meme.  Sky now has a blog by that name:  http://dramanauts.blogspot.com

Third, it has become increasingly apparent that I'm not the only one with ideas like this... not only are there long-established sea-gypsy communities worldwide, but the unnerving geopolitical and economic shifts of late are creating a sort of zeitgeist in the form of redefining one's sense of security around agility, self-sufficiency, and reduced location-dependency.  It's time.

I am not yet sure what exact form this will take, but it is clear that there are enough interesting folks with similar fantasies of aquatic adventure to yield at least an experiment or two in 

technomadic community."

If you would like to join the discussion hit my title and subscribe. 

The photo and haiku I found while searching for images of flotilla. Very intriguing blog written by Artist, Poet, Photographer Melinda Schwakhofer. Inspiraculum. Please visit her as well.