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Víctor Arturo Ricárdez García
Between Ensenada, B.C. and La Paz, B.C.S., along the long blue corridor of the Mexican Pacific, I experienced one of the most transformative moments of my life. I was part of the One Ocean Expedition, a global effort that seeks to bring ocean science closer to society and remind us that the survival of our species depends on the health of the ocean just as much as on the air we breathe.
Thanks to Fundación iAlumbra and the dedication of everyone who made this journey possible, we boarded the Statsraad Lehmkuhl, a century-old sailing vessel built in 1914 and an official ambassador of the UN Decade of Ocean Science. For eight days and seven nights, we learned to read the wind, to tension the lines in sync, and to listen to the polyphony of rhythms, knowledges, and worlds that coexist at sea.
Disconnected from email and social media, researchers, aquaculture producers, and leaders from diverse civil society organizations in this transboundary region were able to truly coexist, exchange ideas and emotions, hold workshops, and identify opportunities to strengthen our shared efforts for conservation and inclusive sustainable development. Very quickly, we understood that this voyage was not a destination but the beginning of a shared adventure toward a more just and livable future for all forms of life.
A Community in Motion
Captain Jens Joachim Hiorth and his crew welcomed us with firm and generous hospitality. On deck, they taught us that at sea, collaboration is not an abstract value but the only condition that allows everything to function properly. Standing watch, hoisting sails, cleaning the deck, and orienting ourselves under the star-filled sky all require coordination and commitment from everyone aboard. In that environment, interdependence becomes tactile. It is rope, knot, wind, body. It is shared responsibility.
Aboard the ship, we were also the sea. An ocean of mysteries and uncertainties, of expectations and dreams. Fragilities that, working together, transformed us into a pack, a tribe, a clan. Once I overcame the astonishment and exhaustion of the first watch -from midnight to 4:00 a.m.- I shared some of the happiest moments of my life, shoulder to shoulder with those who, while keeping the plotted course, watching the horizon, hoisting sails, and blistering our hands on the lines, danced and sang with me until dawn.
As Associate Director of the Next Generation of Researchers of the Sonoran Desert (N-Gen), I experienced this journey as a true laboratory of possible futures, inhabiting a multicultural space—almost a time machine—where artists, scientists, students, and decision-makers tested new ways of collaborating. With the support of photographers and illustrators, we also confirmed that science alone is not enough, and that—as Han Kang suggests in Greek Lessons—certain understandings can only emerge from aesthetics, sensitivity, and those silences — moments of pause and reflection — that logic cannot reach.
Sailing Through Wounded Times
As we advanced through deep waters, it was impossible to ignore the global context that surrounds us. We live in a civilizational crisis expressed through wars, forced displacement, militarized borders, hate speech, expanding authoritarianism, and environmental degradation that threatens the foundations of our existence.
In Latin America, this crisis becomes especially stark: Indigenous territories devastated by megaprojects, armed violence intertwined with extractivism, and entire communities disappearing into statistics incapable of naming the pain. The daily life of millions unfolds amid precarity, fear, and loss.
In this landscape, the voyage became a silent yet resolute declaration. In a world where democracy erodes and life grows fragile, the ship reminded us that it is still possible to build relationships rooted in mutual care, cooperation, and empathy. That even in the midst of the civilizational storm, there are spaces where listening becomes a political act and collaboration, a gesture of resistance – a practice of peace in motion.
The sea does not conceal the crisis—it reveals it, making it impossible to forget the global context even while living an extraordinary experience in the middle of the ocean. At the same time, it hints at fragile fractures of hope. Each wave suggests that we can still imagine a different way of inhabiting the planet, one that understands there is no human well-being without ecosystem well-being.
Polyphonies for Imagining Possible Futures
During the quietest hours, I carried with me The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna L. Tsing, a work that explores—through precise and luminous prose—the links between civilizational crisis, political imagination, and the small forms of resistance that still sustain what is yet to come.
Influenced by that reading, I soon noticed that every being on the ship—and around the ship—had its own rhythm. The shifts on watch, the footsteps on deck, the nighttime conversations, even the birds, dolphins, and whales that accompanied us at times, and the waves striking the hull like an ancient pulse.
Anna Tsing would call this multiplicity a polyphonic assemblage, a form of coordination that does not require uniformity, but rather coexistence among differences. Inspired by this idea, we experimented with different sonic watch-change rituals, small tributes to the planet's diversity and to the polyphony that the expedition itself embodied: a space where science conversed with art, where technique met intuition, and where diversity became possibility. A place where the sea taught us, patiently, that there is no future unless we learn to row—and to live—together.
In the Same Boat
Five days have passed since I returned home, to the space my partner, our dog, and I have built together. As I resume the tasks waiting on my desk, I keep trying to absorb what I lived. I have not ceased to be myself, but for some reason, I do not feel like the same person who boarded the ship twelve days ago.
As I write these lines, the Statsraad Lehmkuhl continues toward Panama. It is expected to arrive in Herradura, Costa Rica, on December 9. My heart sails with the crew. I know we will soon have concrete results from the measurements of temperature, salinity, microplastics, currents, marine biodiversity, and productivity being gathered throughout the expedition—data that will reveal patterns, processes, and signals we can only intuit today. My spirit longs to return to the sea.
I also know that, in retrospect, journeys always give us more than we expect. And while I continue reflecting, I would like to share two simple moments that helped me deeply understand what it means to live collectively.
The first took place before dawn. After finishing my watch at four in the morning, I showered and fell asleep. When I woke, I realized I had missed breakfast. I understood then that I could not eat whenever I wanted—that aboard the ship, time is not personal but communal. Respecting schedules is part of the mechanism that keeps the vessel running, and delaying a meal means delaying the activities of everyone else and unsettling the rhythm that allows everything to function.
The second moment had to do with laundry. One afternoon I tried to wash my clothes, but the washing machines and dryers were occupied, so I did not insist. I waited. The next day, after completing my early-morning watch, I took advantage of the quiet dawn to wash, dry, and fold my clothes. I stayed on deck, accompanying the next watch while finishing the task. I understood that I could not leave my laundry half-done nor occupy space someone else might need. That seemingly trivial gesture made me realize that even the simplest actions are interwoven with collective needs.
Both experiences—everyday and revealing—helped me grasp an essential truth: if we are all in the same boat, we must think and act collectively. And that boat, as we well know, is the only planet we have.
This is why the most obvious metaphor of the voyage is also its most powerful one. We are all in the same boat. A phrase repeated so often that it sometimes loses meaning, yet at sea it acquires a different weight. No life is sustained alone.
From that realization emerges an ethical imperative: to act for the collective good, for all species, for the ecosystems that allow life, and for the futures we can still build together.
We are fragile creatures, interdependent, profoundly connected to one another. And paradoxically, it is precisely that shared fragility that opens the door to collaboration, empathy, and hope.
