Ocean Nomad, Transatlantic Environmentalist, and Outdoor Lover meet Kiana Weltzien

Kiana Weltzien, ocean-crossing nomad, environmentalist, and living proof that sometimes, life’s biggest leaps begin with a moment of quiet clarity -  like watching  NYE fireworks alone from a high-rise in Miami and deciding: This isn’t it.

“Not everything is personal. Especially at sea. Nature doesn’t care about you. Rain isn’t about you. Wind isn’t about you"

You spent your childhood in both Brazil and the U.S. What was that like?
I was born in the U.S. but spent my early years in Brazil, on a quiet organic aloe vera farm. I was homeschooled, so I had total freedom. It was a wild, isolated childhood, just me and nature. Later we moved back to the U.S., to South Georgia, smack in the middle of the Bible Belt. I went to public school for the first time. It was a massive culture shock. Eventually, I moved to North Florida, and then to Miami, but only for a couple of years before heading back out into the world.

 
And in Miami you worked in real estate?
Yeah, I was a terrible real estate agent. I’m just not a salesperson. But I loved the energy of Miami, especially the strong Latin culture. It felt like its own world. I ended up doing office and property management, which I enjoyed, plus some bartending. But it was expensive, and I realized if I didn’t leave soon, I’d get too comfortable. So, I decided to travel instead. Ironically, now that I’m working on Women of the Wind, I’ve realized my strength is still in admin. I genuinely like spreadsheets!

 
That’s quite a pivot, from real estate to sailing across oceans. Was there a moment that sparked it?
Absolutely. One New Year’s Eve, I was alone in my apartment watching fireworks over Miami. I felt totally fine, content even, but suddenly this clarity hit. I need to experience something else before I get too settled. I had this overwhelming sense that nothing is guaranteed. Six months later, I was gone. I got a job teaching English to a French family who lived on their sailboat. We did a video call from the boat, but it didn’t even register that they lived on it. I had no idea people did that.

 
Were you nervous about moving onto a boat with strangers?
I didn’t overthink it, so I wasn’t scared. We sailed around the Caribbean for two months, and I fell in love with the idea of traveling with your home. That’s what really drew me in, not sailing itself at first, but the idea that you can cross oceans with your house, turn the engines off, and just let the wind take you. It’s such a powerful kind of freedom. But boats are expensive, especially catamarans. I couldn’t afford one, so I knew I’d have to work and save.

And that’s when you met Hans?
Yes. While in Panama, I met this guy Hans, who had a 75-foot handmade mahogany catamaran. He told me I could stay with him. I thought, okay, I’m going to live with a pirate now. But I had this strong feeling, it smelled like home. It felt right. I ended up staying on Hans’s boat for a year and a half. We didn’t sail much, but I learned how to live simply aboard and understood the difference between acquiring this life through money versus knowledge. Hans had lived at sea for 50 years. His boat was a work of art, built for a fraction of what most boats cost.

 
Tell us about Mara Noka, the boat you’ve now sailed across the Atlantic three times.
Hans told me stories about James Wharram-designed boats. Then one day we sailed into a bay and there she was, a black wooden catamaran with a For Sale sign. It was a 1971 Narai Mk1, and I just knew it was mine. But I had no money. A mutual friend bought it, and later, when he put it back up for sale, I called him and said, “You can’t sell that boat. That’s my boat.” And he let me pay it off over time. It was an incredible act of generosity and alignment. A week later, I was living aboard Mara Noka.

 
Wharram boats have a unique design, right?
They do. James Wharram pioneered modern catamarans. His first boat, Tangaroa, was something like 24 feet long and he crossed the Atlantic with two women in the 1950s. He
started selling home-build plans, which were super popular in the ’60s and ’70s. His boats are lashed together Polynesian style, so they flex. Modern catamarans are stiff, heavy, and tend to crack under pressure. That’s why they charter them for a few years, then retire them. They just don’t last. But Wharram boats? They’re soulful. They move with the sea.

 
And Mara Noka needed serious work, right?
Oh yeah. I didn’t renovate it at all at first. I crossed the Atlantic two and a half times with
it basically rotting. By the third crossing, things were loose. My floorboards were floating because water was coming in every three hours. I didn’t even have a bilge pump, just a bucket. I thought that was normal. I had no reference point. The only other boat I knew was Hans’s, and at least he had bilge pumps!

What inspired you to cross the Atlantic in the first place?
Hans said, “I’m crossing. You can follow or not.” And I just knew I had to go. We didn’t reach the northern Caribbean in time, so we waited out hurricane season in the Dominican Republic. By 2019, I had already done a lot of sailing and felt confident. I needed to renew my German passport, and I thought, why not sail there? I had family in Europe. So that’s what I did, sailed across the Atlantic to renew my passport.

 
What kind of navigation gear did you have for all that?
My phone. I use Navionics, it’s like a chart plotter. I also have a handheld Garmin GPS as backup, and paper charts. I log my position, the wind, the sea, how I’m feeling, twice or three times a day. If I lose everything, I can dead reckon my way.

 
Why the Atlantic?
Because there’s always land on either side. If you lose everything, you’ll still eventually hit
something, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean. The Pacific? You’re just out there, maybe for years. It’s a different beast.

When did you first realize how serious the ocean plastic crisis really is?
I saw it in the Caribbean, trash on the beaches. But I could rationalize it: tourists, locals, etc. Then I crossed the Atlantic in 2019 and saw trash every single day. Multiple pieces. That’s when I started researching. The North Atlantic doesn’t have a floating garbage patch like the Pacific. The currents act like a blender, shredding plastic into microplastics, which spread from surface to seafloor. It’s horrifying and invisible unless you’re out there.

“Hey, the ocean’s fucked, and I want you all to see it through my eyes.” 

That’s the story behind your film Women of the Wind, right? Exactly. Laerke from Clean Ocean Project, one of Utu’s partners, and I started developing the idea. We realized we could say, the ocean’s fucked, and here’s what that looks like. The North Atlantic is brutal, wild, raw, it’s the perfect setting. We knew it would be powerful.

 
How did the crew come together?
After the pandemic, I was back in the U.S. planning to haul the boat out for a simple bottom paint job. I told Laerke we’d be sailing by June. Then we discovered the boat was a
disaster, just bare wood. But Laerke sold her car, her surfboard, rented her house, and came anyway. She stuck it out for 14 months and helped rebuild everything. We nearly gave up so many times. Then, just six weeks before departure, I asked Alice to come film. Her energy brought the spark back. We all said, let’s just sail across. Fuck it.

 
And the film is stunning. Congratulations.
Thank you. Alice had never sailed before, which made her lens even more powerful. She wasn’t capturing the ocean for sailors; she was capturing it for everyone. The waves were massive, the light was otherworldly. She made the intangible tangible.

 
How was the crossing for the three of you, no motor, no satellite nav?
I usually sail solo. After two years fixing the boat, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel not being alone. But it was beautiful. There was this gentle, feminine energy on board. They
understood me. They got along, which let me retreat when I needed to. I always say, “I don’t sail, I lie in bed for four weeks.” It’s kind of true. You need to be rested because something always goes wrong. I’d lie in bed, read, and they’d be out there dancing and laughing. Solitude and community coexisting. The best part? Shared meals. That ritual grounded us.

 
Are you still mostly offline at sea?
Always. I refuse Starlink as long as I can. I carry a tiny emergency device that can send a few texts a year, and even that feels like too much. If I can use it, I will. But if it’s not an option, I stay present. I stay attuned to the sea. That’s why I’ve deleted Instagram for six months, or two years. That’s where #WheresKiana came from. Friends in Miami couldn’t tag me, so they started the hashtag. I wish I could go offline now, but with the film and foundation work, it’s harder. I get it now when people say, “I’d love to, but…”

Learn more about Women and the Wind documentary and foundation here.