Our second Wooden Boatopia Council meeting brought two new members into the fold — Belinda Joslin and Elizaveta Kaluzhskaia — joining Hanneke Boon, Obi and Otto from Blue Tree Boat Builders, and Angie, and the conversation immediately widened in useful ways.

A big chunk of the discussion focused on Life Cycle Analyses (LCAs) and the ongoing challenge of applying them meaningfully to wooden boats and why we're dedicated to contributing to submitting data to help improve LCAs.

Each council session reinforces that we’re not working in isolation. There is plenty of space for wooden boat builders to come together, share knowledge, and still make their mark in the industry.

Welcome back to the Fire Pit Talks Podcast, a celebration of long-form conversations taking place around the digital fire pit.

In my most recent recorded conversation, we meet Maya — musician, filmmaker, sailor, and boat builder, perhaps known to some of you as one half of the phenomenal YouTube channel Sailing Magic Carpet.

I have followed Maya and Aladino’s salty stories for several years, so it was an absolute pleasure to finally speak across oceans — me in Brighton, she on the west coast of Canada. I think Maya’s journey has become one of the most honest chronicles of a creative life at sea, from the $1 boat that first ignited her curiosity at 18-years-old, to the more recent five-year gruel of rebuilding a Cape George Cutter (and, at one point, having two refits on the go at once, uff!).

Our talk meanders through Maya’s journey from home schooling throughout her childhood, going to university and getting her first boat, setting out to sea on a tall ship inspired by her parents, meeting her husband-to-be Aladino on a beach, then shortly after falling in love and launching their YouTube channel that would become a full-time job rich with creativity and equal volumes of adversity.

Note: If you’re thinking of doing a refit, watch their videos first; I admit that Remy and I leapt at the chance to build a new Wharram after watching their most recent refit, ha, we were totally put off despite being deeply awed by Aladino’s exceptional work ethic and craftsmanship!

Maya is full of life and conversing with her was like catching up with an old friend, but what I find most inspiring is her love of the craft of storytelling and how she was able to carry her art through the tough times that knocked her to the ground during their refit. It takes absolute discipline to keep creating when the dream turns to drudgery, and I am moved by Maya’s humility to share that truth with others.

Maya’s storytelling has evolved into something extraordinary over the years — high-art filmmaking churned out week on week. As a producer, I appreciate just how hard that is to achieve. Bow to this woman, she is an absolute bad ass.

Yet what struck me most in our conversation was her honesty about the moments when she almost gave it all up: when the refit broke her spirit, when she stopped playing her beloved violin (which, by the way, she is VERY good at), when the only way forward was through.

We talk about the idea of “living the dream,” about how perfectionism can both protect and potentially poison the creative process, and about how transparency in the work — the willingness to show the hard parts — might be the most radical act of all.

Maya speaks of the tenderness required to film one’s own life, the discipline of editing at sea, and the slow evolution from performer to filmmaker. She even hints at the beginnings of a book, one that will carry the voices of the people she meets, the kind of stories that don’t make it in to the YouTube episodes out of respect to not shove a camera in the faces of every person they meet. If she does find time to fit in publishing one, I will be the first to pre-order.

There’s a moment in our talk that still lingers with me, about how finishing the boat reconnected Maya to joy. Beauty and endurance can be, in this sense, inseparable. Sometimes art is simply the act of not quitting.

At one point during my conversation with the phenomenal lens-woman Alizé Jireh, it struck me—she’s part of a generation (25 years young) that has never known life without the Internet. It’s what enabled her to complete high school online and graduate years ahead of her peers, creating space for artistic exploration and a creative coming-of-age during puberty. But it also means she’s never experienced the disconnection that once defined travel: running through unfamiliar cities in search of an internet café, waiting to send or receive news from home. She’s lived her life consistently connected.

So imagine the moment signal drops off completely as Women & the Wind voyage kicks off across the North Atlantic. No more pings, no more messages, no more land-bound productivity. Just vast ocean, silence, waiting—and the deep, disorienting beauty of real disconnection. Immersion becomes more than theory. With camera in hand, Alizé captures the crossing with a sensitivity and gaze rarely seen in sailing or adventure films—all while battling relentless seasickness that lasted weeks. (Turns out, for some, it really doesn’t pass after a few days.)

I’ve been working with Alizé for the past 18 months as a Producer on the film she co-directed with Kiana Weltzien and Lærke Heilmann—both of whom you’ve heard from in earlier episodes of our Fire Pit Talks audio-visual series. I knew this conversation would be rich, circling an idea at the heart of my Master’s Capstone: that creativity is inseparable from life. What I didn’t expect was the remarkable self-awareness Alizé brings—evident from a young age, as she navigated the shift from a vibrant community life in the Dominican Republic, where she spent her first 12 years, to the small-town isolation of rural America.

Now, having delved deeper into her story, I see how profoundly her surroundings—family, place, community—have shaped her way of being in the world. As she grew into herself and her body, she learned to translate experience into meaning through creative expression. From singing and theatre to photography and film, Alizé has become a figurative artist most at home now behind the lens. Her work—all of it but particularly her most recent contribution with the Women & the Wind film—is a gift for anyone ready to set sail as a humble passenger.

When I started this podcast, my goal was to create a space that felt like gathering around a fire pit on the deck of a Polynesian voyaging canoe—open, uncurated, grounded in the art of the yarn. My conversation with Alizé did just that. It transported me into the warmth of shared imagination and left me with a quiet sense of joy—a reminder, in these overwhelming times, that awe and wonder still live in the smallest details. Sometimes, all it takes is adjusting your lens.

-Angie

Women & the Wind premieres globally on April 19th, in Wilmington NC (USA), where the voyage began. All screenings are now sold out.

The EU premiere will be held in Paris at Le Grand Rex Cinema on April 26th (sold out) and April 27th (selling fast), before the film and the women journey to meet us here in Brittany for back-to-back shows. A full French cinema tour follows with Around The Waves.

A final official World Tour event will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, whilst adjacently, community screenings will take place all over the world. Applications remain open for folks wanting to host their own screening. Get tickets or apply to host via the . Women & the Wind website.

The Floating Stories Lab is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

There is a moment in Women & the Wind where Laerke Heilmann reflects on growing up with childhood stories about a Danish sailing family’s voyages at sea. These stories left a mark on her imagination, but they were not isolated tales—her own family had their own open-ocean adventures. She was merely a baby when she first set sail, beginning a lifelong relationship with the sea before she could walk or talk.

From an early age, Laerke felt at home in fluidity—whether in the motion of the ocean, the rhythm of dance, or the expressive world of art. Her upbringing in a communal house, coupled with her time at a Waldorf school, encouraged a creative and independent way of thinking. She carried this curiosity into adulthood, following an unconventional path that led her across continents. A spontaneous move to Brazil to study dance immersed her in Afro-Brazilian culture, while a trip to the Canary Islands brought her into deeper contact with the ocean, this time through surfing. Laerke would later return to lay roots in the Canaries, where she joins me in this rare, recorded conversation, sharing tales of her life’s twists and turns along the way.

Laerke’s skills are as multidimensional as her journey. Fluent in four languages, a talented graphic designer, and a passionate ocean advocate, she now combines creativity with action. She spearheaded the Women & the Wind project, selling everything to fly across the world to meet Kiana in the boatyard to refit Mara Noka, a timeline of two weeks becoming one whole year before they set sail.

In the year and a half I’ve been working on the movie, Laerke has come across as the quieter of the three women, but in life she is unafraid to take a leap into the unknown. It was an absolute pleasure to hear her story in more depth and revisit the beginnings of Women & the Wind from her lens. Laerke will be on tour with Women & the Wind from the end of April through to the European summer. We’ll be catching up in person, FINALLY, here in Bretagne, in May. Discover the movie tour dates and community screenings HERE.

It’s 7am and the sun is already warming the bay off the coast of Paraty, Brazil, where Kiana Weltzien lives anchored aboard her 50-year-old Wharram wooden catamaran, ‘Mara Noka’. For years now, Kiana has voyaged - almost exclusively solo - aboard her weathered wooden friend, the two learning to live together in a form of symbiosis grounded in hard knocks, deep trust, and mutual respect.

We’d pushed this interview back for months now, the preparations for touring Kiana’s upcoming documentary movie, Women & the Wind (which I’ve been producing with the WW team: Kiana, Alize, and Laerke) completely overwhelming both our schedules. In fact, we correspond daily and have been working together for well over a year now. But as digital working relationships often go, it’s been hard to find an excuse to just sit down and have a good ole chat, reminiscent of the kind of non-curated, intimate talks we might have around a campfire.

With Kiana now about to pack up the boat and head off on the movie tour for three months, we got our shit together this morning to finally sat down and commune in this long-form, digital chit chat. For almost two hours we covered a lot - you would think we exhausted all subjects but, alas!, we had to wrap it up (Sahara was returning from creche) with the promise to follow on with a Part Two down the track (recording live in France soon, perhaps?!).

In this raw and unfiltered conversation, I sit down with solo sailor Kiana Weltzien to talk about life at sea and living simply aboard her 50-year-old Wharram Designs wooden catamaran 'Mara Noka.' Kiana - speaking from the deck of the boat anchored off the coast of Brazil - shares her experiences crossing the Atlantic Ocean several times (including losing her mast on her first solo crossing!), sailing as creative practice, forming deep bonds with 'Mara Noka', creating the 'Women & the Wind' movie and non-profit Foundation, and where you can catch her IN PERSON at the film's World Premiere Tour (kicking off in April, 2025).Learn more about Women & the Wind: https://www.womenandthewind.com/