My name is Emma. I joined Karaka in 2014, when I was 33 years old. As I entered my thirties, I felt that the routine of a conventional lifestyle was becoming too heavy for me. So I decided to start over and flew to the Pacific. That’s when I met Tom and Karaka. Since then, we have been working together as a couple to keep this adventure going.

We work as a team on the boat’s maintenance and repairs. Together, we completed two major refits on Karaka (10 months in 2017 and 9 months in 2024).

When we are not working on a refit, we continue maintaining and repairing the boat, but we can sail again and welcome travelers (crew members) on board. Sometimes we sail just the two of us, but it’s definitely more fun with a crew.

When we’re sailing, Tom is the captain. I handle the maneuvers on deck and teach new crew members how everything works. You don’t need any sailing experience to come aboard Karaka. If you join us, you’ll learn step by step. More experienced crew members also help the newcomers, so everyone keeps learning together.

Karaka is a very simple boat. We don’t have an electric windlass or electric winches.

In everyday life, I also take care of the practical side of things: welcoming new crew members, making sure a few onboard rules are respected, managing groceries and shared expenses, and much more.

I’ve always loved cooking in an intuitive and creative way. On Karaka we don’t have a fridge, and we no longer have an oven either and it works perfectly well like that. We are constantly moving from one country and one continent to another, so my cooking has naturally adapted to this way of life. It’s a travel-inspired cuisine that keeps changing depending on local ingredients, inspiration, and the cooking and preserving methods available on board. I’ve learned many ways to cook with very simple equipment, and I really enjoy the challenge. Fermentation, food drying, homemade cheese, bread cooked in a wok…

When the weather and the location allow it, we go spearfishing. Since 2020, I’ve also been practicing gyotaku by making prints of the fish we eat.

On board, next to our cabin, I turned an old toilet room into my little workshop, where I can draw, paint, build, print and carve (linocut, block print, gel plate, cyanotype…). I’m multidisciplinary and my creative activities change with the seasons. I usually need time, peace and a bit of solitude to create, and my workshop has become my own little hidden refuge.

When it comes to music, I love improvised jam sessions, but I had to train my ear a lot over the past few years before I could really hear rhythms and instruments. I’ve made good progress, and nowadays I sometimes sing while playing the guitar. Just like everything else, I go through different phases… It comes and goes.