More Than a Boat Trip: The Day-Trip Format We Developed in Ibiza
Be More Pirate × Piratas do Amor aboard Arabian Nights
More than a year before we ever sailed together, Alex Barker and I were already talking about the pirates of the past: small crews that challenged much bigger systems, organised themselves differently and somehow turned strong, very different characters into a crew.
I had read Be More Pirate years earlier, and it became one of the sparks behind the Pirate Code we later developed at Piratas do Amor. Alex had spent years exploring what those old pirate stories might still teach us today. We had spent years at sea, seeing what happens when people depend on one another and cannot simply leave when things become uncomfortable.
So when Alex finally joined us aboard Arabian Nights in Ibiza, there was already a lot connecting our two worlds.
Arabian Nights was not a random charter boat. She belongs to New Beginnings, an Ibiza-born project giving traditional sailing vessels new purpose. Our connection began earlier through Cala Millor and gradually grew into a partnership around the culture and experiences these vessels could carry.
We told the beginning of that story in A Ship Resurfacing from the Salty Ashes. Later, we helped shape the New Beginnings story and designed the website that now brings its fleet together.
By the time this voyage happened, Arabian Nights felt less like a boat we had hired for the day and more like a shared home for what we wanted to create at sea.
Throughout the summer, we had been working on a question that grew naturally out of our longer voyages:
How much of what makes several days or weeks at sea so powerful can we bring into a single day?
On a longer voyage, becoming a crew happens largely by itself. The weather changes your plans, jobs have to be done, everybody contributes and you depend on one another in very practical ways. You see people tired, excited, afraid, generous, funny and far outside their usual roles.
A day trip does not create those conditions automatically, and we were not interested in pretending that one day at sea was the same as an expedition. Instead, we began developing a format around a simpler question:
What needs to happen for people to step aboard as a group and leave feeling like a crew?
The Pirate Code
Our starting point is our Pirate Code:
Choose Love over Fear
Show Up!
Break the Pattern
Believe in Miracles
Stay Humble
We do not spend long explaining it. We build the day so that people can experience it.
Even the introductions matter. Instead of asking everyone who they are and what they do, we ask them to share something about themselves that nobody aboard should possibly know.
Then our Wizard, Michał Korzonek from WildCards, brings out the Cup of Expectations. Rather than spending half an hour discussing what everyone hopes to receive from the day, he invites them to ceremonially puke those expectations into the cup.
It gets a laugh, but it also changes the atmosphere almost immediately. People stop trying quite so hard to present a polished version of themselves and begin showing a little more of who they actually are. We get past hours of careful positioning and small talk before the boat has even properly left the harbour.
“I found myself baring my soul to a group of relative strangers. And I didn’t end up thrown overboard!” - Andrea
From fear to contribution
Fear can remain very theoretical in a workshop room. At sea, it becomes physical rather quickly.
At some point, we stop the boat and float together in deep blue water. Some people relax immediately. Others look down, see no bottom and feel their body react before their mind has found the words for it.
That gives us something real to work with. We are no longer discussing fear from a safe distance. We are noticing how it feels and what happens when we meet it together.
“The water ritual helped me see my fears, make peace with them and let them go. Hour by hour, I felt the walls around my heart begin to melt. The music, the rituals and the ocean turned the voyage into a ceremony.” - Dag
From there come the quests. Everyone creates a small challenge that scares them just a little while also contributing something positive to the group. It could be starting an improvised choir, giving an inspirational speech, initiating a cuddle puddle, dancing or sharing something personal.
That second part matters. The purpose is not simply to prove that you can overcome a fear. Your step outside your comfort zone should add something to the experience for everyone else.
The open water gives Choose Love over Fear a body. The quest asks you to Show Up. Then we shuffle the quests and spin the Wheel of Fortune, so nobody knows which challenge will come back to them. That is where Break the Pattern stops being a sentence on a piece of cardboard and becomes something we actually do.
This is often when the day begins to open up. Someone sings who would never normally volunteer. Someone starts something ridiculous and half the boat joins in. A conversation suddenly goes somewhere deeper, and people begin encouraging one another instead of waiting for the next part of the programme.
One person’s courage becomes something the whole crew receives.
This is also where Alex’s world and ours meet naturally. She brings her deep knowledge of pirate history, but not as a history lesson. She has a wonderful ability to help people recognise the pirate within themselves: the part willing to question a default, take responsibility and dare to act differently.
At sea, those ideas stop being abstract very quickly.
The culture of the boat
The facilitated moments are only part of the experience. The drinks, music, atmosphere and people aboard shape the day just as much.
Jamie arrived with herbs, resins and ingredients from around the world and turned the bar into an alchemist’s corner of non-alcoholic elixirs. That creates a very different atmosphere from simply defaulting to the usual boat bar.
Unai did not arrive with a playlist designed in advance. He watched what was happening aboard, felt the energy of the group and played into the moment. The music became part of what was unfolding rather than something added on top of it.
Everyone else brought something too: a story, an idea, humour, curiosity, courage, food, art or simply their willingness to take part.
The day worked because nobody remained a passive guest for very long.
“I appreciated the humble, authentic facilitation and the organic flow between learning and exploration. The whole day felt wholesome and deeply valuable. I’m already looking forward to being at sea with them again.” - Adrian
Arabian Nights herself shaped what was possible. Her deck could hold a circle, a bar, music, swimming, laughter and a quiet conversation, all within a few metres of one another and with the sea always present.
That is why our partnership with New Beginnings matters. We are working with people who also believe that a vessel can be much more than transport, scenery or a beautiful place to spend the day.
Bringing something back to land
Towards the end of the voyage, I pick up the VHF and call the captain.
It is a small piece of theatre, but also a very practical demonstration: my voice is turned into invisible radio waves, carried across the air and received somewhere else. Frequency can carry information.
From there, we turn that physical fact into a metaphor for the ritual that follows. The ocean around us is also in constant movement, full of waves. We do not claim that the VHF proves our wishes can travel through the sea, but it gives us a tangible image for what we are about to do.
Each person forms a clear intention and connects it to an elevated emotion. When thought and feeling point in the same direction, the intention becomes more coherent. In the language of the ritual, we imagine ourselves as the positive pole of a battery and the salty ocean as the receiving, negative pole. We charge the wish and offer it to the water.
Michal then takes over and hosts the harvesting moment. He helps us look back at what happened during the day, what shifted in us, what we learned and what we want to carry back to land.
As those reflections come together, Raissa begins singing “Messenger of Love.” One by one, the whole crew joins in, and the many individual wishes become one collective song.
We finish with a round of gratitude, recognising what each person brought to the voyage. After a day of taking small risks, supporting one another and creating something greater together, the group sounds very different when it sings than it did when it first stepped aboard.
“I could feel how much thought had gone into this special day. The setting was perfect, the energy was powerful, and considering how many of us had only just met, we became a great bunch of misfits.” - Masumi
A different kind of day at sea
For years, Piratas do Amor has explored how voyages can bring people closer to themselves, to one another and to nature. We have done that through longer journeys, expeditions and gatherings.
In Ibiza, our partnership with New Beginnings and Arabian Nights allowed us to develop a day-trip format that brings the same spirit into a single day at sea.
The boat is not simply a venue, and the sea is not a backdrop. Both become active parts of the experience. They give us beauty, uncertainty, movement, closeness, fear, freedom and a reason to pay attention to one another.
Bringing Be More Pirate into that process felt natural. Alex brought years of exploring pirate history and what those stories can still offer the modern world. Michał brought play, ritual and the participatory tools of WildCards. New Beginnings and Arabian Nights gave the experience a home at sea. Jamie and Unai brought their craft. Everyone aboard brought something of themselves.
We brought the Pirate Code and everything years of sailing and creating voyages had taught us.
None of us could have created the same day alone.
The point is not for people to spend a few hours pretending to be pirates. It is for them to return to land a little more willing to show up, contribute something of themselves, break a familiar pattern and choose love when fear would be easier.
Crew, not passengers.
That is what Piratas do Amor stands for, and it is the foundation of the day-trip format we developed in Ibiza.
This first voyage felt like the beginning of a long pirate love story between Be More Pirate, New Beginnings and Piratas do Amor.
W'll be back next year!
Photo credits:
Daniel Sun: @daniel.sun___
Beryl Jacobson: @mozaik
Comments