Sara and Steffano are a couple who, after years of small navigations and dreams, decided to sell all their belongings to sail the seas aboard a sailboat, together with their children and their dog. Inside the boat, they carry an environmental and scientific laboratory, in which they collect data on energy consumption, light pollution and plastic in the ocean. Now, after a forced stop in Formentera, they have just arrived on the eighth island to later spend "a few months" in Lanzarote.
They are currently in the port of Caleta de Sebo, in La Graciosa, after sailing from the peninsula to the eighth island. What was initially a small stop to see the Graciosa landscape, has been affected by a failure in the sailboat's engine, so they will have to remain docked until it is resolved. However, the family's main idea is to dock in the port of Marina Lanzarote, in Arrecife, to stay here for a few months working on the family project.
The project started on October 13, 2020, when the couple made the decision to sell their house and car in Genoa, Italy, to finance the trip of their lives. They are accompanied by their children Iago, Nina and Timo, aged 12, 9 and 4 respectively, as well as their dog 'Pepper', with whom they add up the adventures they tell on their website and social networks. The name of the boat, Shibumi, comes from the Japanese language, in which it means "refined beauty".
Steffano Barberis is a nuclear physicist member of the Institute of Physics of Italy, and through this project he sends data on light pollution, energy consumption of the boat and the plastic that exists in the Ocean. He does it through a series of devices that he has in the laboratory of the boat, which monitor energy consumption and the main objective of the project is to transfer all that data on cosmic rays to the Roque de los Muchachos Astrophysical Observatory, in La Palma.
The itinerary is not over, far from it, since after spending a few months in the Canary Islands the family's objective is to go to Cape Verde, to later cross the Atlantic Ocean to reach the Caribbean.
Seven months trapped in Formentera
The first port in which the Barberis family docked was in Formentera, in the Balearic Islands, in the autumn of 2020. However, the situation of the pandemic in Europe in the middle of the second wave of the coronavirus changed all the plans of the family, who were forced to stay on the island for 7 months.
Far from ending the trip, the family decided to adapt and take the positive side to their stay on the Balearic island. In fact, they decided to enroll the girls in their "forced confinement", something that the mother, Sara, considers to be "a great experience" for her daughters, who in addition to socializing with the people of Formentera, "learned a new language."
The idea of the Barberis in Lanzarote is similar, since the mother assures that once they dock on the island they will enroll their daughters in school, thus repeating the strategy carried out in Formentera.
In those seven months, the family had the opportunity to speak with a marine biologist about the situation of pollution in the Mediterranean Sea, and the intention of the Barberis is that he also moves to Lanzarote so that he can analyze the situation of the Atlantic Ocean.
A school on board
When they are not on land, and therefore their daughters cannot go to an educational center, it is the parents who carry out the task of educating their children, something they consider "of utmost priority".
In addition, the family maintains that they "offer their experience in educational matters to schools in Italy", offering talks and workshops telling how and in what way they have followed the educational program of their children aboard a sailboat. The Barberis family assures that their methods have reached the University of Milan, where they "found their intervention in the social planning laboratory interesting."
So much so, that the family maintains that their children "have participated in a television series in Italy, in which they talk about physics and the environment for children of their same age".