Incredible Self-Reliant Living on a Remote Island (full tour)

This is the island of Namooka. It's a rugged, raw, and deliciously pristine little island hidden away deep in the South Pacific. It's home to around 300 people and the only way here is by sea. That's me. This is my husband Jason and this is our floating home about the world, Curiosity. We've just sailed over along with our friend Cyril who knows one of the local families. Meet the Sheen. Dave, Tris, and Dior. They hail from Australia but have sailed all over, raised their children on the sea, and set up this base camp on Namooka six years ago. Typically they run liveaboard adventures but with the borders closed this will be their second season with no guests, which means no income. But like many remote islanders, they built their home off the grid and are well versed in living off the land. Can you throw me one? Oh yeah! Good toss. Well, what do you want to see? The systems? So first of all you built this whole thing yourself, right? I mean not yourself but like all of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all pretty much put it together and this is what we call the barn and everyone gathers here to play table tennis and hang out on the couch and we eat dinner here and when we've got guests here we're pretty much all using this area so it's a nice communal area. We have a third of this building here as operations room so we've got all our solar gear and electronics and things in there and the rest of it's the kitchen room, barbecue out the back and that's all we need. Everything's run off of solar, batteries and rain capture? Yep, yep. We're completely off grid. We've got no access to any village's facilities. Let that sink in like no connectivity to anything like on the grid or water. You're totally on your own. It was quite sort of daunting in the first place to actually disconnect from the yacht and come ashore and go okay well I think at the time we actually only had one 5,000 litre tank. We did actually run out of water at one point and we were carting desalinated water from the yacht into shore but we've since beefed up our water storage so we've got 47,000 litres of mine. 47,000 litres! Yeah, it sounds like a lot. It's not much when you've got 15 people here but it's absolutely truckload when there's only three of us here. Build a house you can climb around on. I like that. Each panel is 250 watt 30 volts and we've got two connected to Dior's valet and three connected to here. It's enough power to keep you going. It is enough power. I'm having problems with the storage with lead acid batteries so definitely going to change over to lithium. It's going to change your life. I hope so. For the price. And then you keep everything pretty simple with the foot pumps for water. I think we've saved about 50% of our water we would normally use either in a shower or in a sink situation. You're working for it. Well if you think about it you know you go to turn the tap on and then you grab the soap and then you wash your hands and then you put the soap over there then you turn the water off whereas if you're on a foot pump your hands free and you grab the soap then you get the water going you know going in if your foot stops the water stops. Yeah but it's not only that it saves water and it saves electricity. Being long-time liveaboard sailors the Sheens have learned a lot about managing resources and have an impressive setup including composting toilets. Is it respectful? Airflow is the real key that I found to this system. You actually can sit on that toilet sometimes and the air's rushing rushing down into there and that's perfect you know not only does it get rid of the odors but it evaporates all the moisture so it stays relatively dry. You sleep over here in a would you call it falet? Yeah they're basically six meter by six meter falets each with an ensuite. You know Trish likes to have a studio area and I like to have a little bit of space to play the guitar and and of course there's my toys up here and yeah it's got plenty of room for all of that. But what I find uniquely curious is the decor. Canvas and paint brushes aside this is clearly a dwelling of artists and nature lovers. You can really close this up in a storm but most of the time it's just really open and stand in shower and look at the sea. Yeah that's cool. It's an impressive gallery of upcycling from reclaimed materials to the endless supply of rubbish that washes up on their beach. I think they're all ex-fishing floats so this one's obviously a high density one so it's meant to be pulled down to big depths. So this is your house? This is my little shack. This is my house it's actually doubled as the cycling bunker all the glass bottles went into the aggregate for the concrete footings. It's a lot stronger, it's got the tin roof, it's like a structure and we have had to bunker down in quite a few storms in it. It's built to last. Hopefully. It's also kind of a little bit of a storage. Oh yeah complete with mosquito net. And very messy sheets. It's okay. It makes the bed down here. It's like tangled myself up in the night. I've just done a whole repaint, painted the walls white because I was like I need some light in here. And then yes it's all self-sustained so it's got solar panels and composting toilet. Hot shower. And that's your view. That is my shower. While showering and brushing your teeth. Voila! Thank you. Not a bad view either like the only thing is if you're trying to like study something in here you're sitting out and you can just see the surf and you're like oh do I need to study? It's a nice day. Yeah. Good thing I don't do school anymore because that was torture. Must be that new fade. Must be all this coconut. Good lady. Now those are free-range hens. We're in between things at the moment. So this is the off-season really right? So you don't really get a whole lot. So what can you grow right now? Right now Pele. So this one here that's a local slippery spinach which is in the hibiscus family. Grows all year. It's amazing. I can't really say we garden it because it's so easy. You make sure you've got it. The tumeric is coming along really well now. So this is all tumeric. Yeah. And can you eat the leaves as well or just the root? Quick google it. Oh a tumeric flower. Yeah. So pretty. Does it smell good? I actually don't know. Let's try. Oh yeah. Does it smell good? Kind of smells like tumeric. I know right. Snake beans were really good this summer actually. So we had masses of snake beans. But I haven't propagated too many just yet. So there's a ginger plant and we've got quite a lot of ginger. Which ginger and tumeric as you probably know is the spaceship chilies. Aliens do exist. And they're very spicy. Um okra has grown really well all year. Oh yeah I've noticed that you guys are using okra in the salads and stuff. So that's all yours. It's part of the hibiscus family as well as you can say. This is lemon basil right? Yeah. Or basil. Basil. If you're Australian like me. Basil. Basil. Definitely basil. No we only have basil and tomatoes. There's no basil and tomatoes. This is a pumpkin. Or going to be a pumpkin. And a guava tree. And of course plenty of bananas everywhere. Last okra of the season. Here it is. I can't even see it. You're just covering it with your hand. That's what she said. One of my favorites. Yeah those are the spicy peppers. Coconuts. Mangoes. Oh my gosh. It's hot. It's my kryptonite. Is it taro? Yeah. Jen figured out we're riding horses. That's the next step on our journey here. But not just your average ride. I'm not gonna spoil. So they move their horses all over the island which is incredible. They're always in different spots because there's so much food obviously all around for them to eat. So they're just constantly putting them in different places and then taking them into the paddock in the afternoon. But before they take them to the paddock they do... well you're about to see. You gotta go deep in the bush for your horses around here. See that tree moving. He must be in the tree. Wild foraging horses. A Nicky for Nicky. Grace is her middle name. And that's exactly how they did it back in the day. Okay I'm gonna lose the football. Hi Nicky. This is Chico and Taffy. Taffy. So this is actually mother and son. Oh cool. She's big mama. And who's this here? This is Smokey and this is mother and son. Oh cool. These are the flip-flops that they let Nicky borrow and these are super funny. Here look at this. Notice they don't match. And they told me that they found them both at different times. That's how it goes here. They try to reuse as much as possible. It's just such a different way of life. I mean flip-flops wash up on the shore and now they're your shoes. And I love that. I love it. I could definitely live here. These are wild mushrooms. They're called wood ear. Well they're sort of shriveled up now, but when it rains they come out really big they said. They're supposed to be super tasty and obviously mushrooms so they're super healthy. So much food growing on this island. It's like they can have pretty much anything. They even have an orange tree. I'll show you that later. And papaya. It just keeps going. Okay, I got to catch up with the horse. Wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. Yeah! It's pretty crazy, right? Yeah. Oh, they love it. They love it. It's just, yeah, it's like spa day. Isn't this just paradise, right? Beautiful sandy beach, perfect water. They have like four different breaks for surfing all around here. Beautiful reef right behind me. Just heaven. Just heaven. And normally in non-COVID times they'll have wildlife, their catamaran, anchored out right here as well. And they do whale tours, whale watching tours, and they sail so you can live aboard and sail and go swim with the whales. Like, ah, just paradise. I love it. Now, uh-oh, going after the nanners. So yummy. What does yours say? Everybody likes coconut. Look at that line of happy horses and chickens. It's got a bit of fabric on it. So good. So good. Now I lose because I let you win? Bullshit. He's out. He's a ninja. This guy's gifted, I swear. Yeah, he was like college pro, three-time college pro. I went to China three times. Yeah. He's practically Forrest Gump. He's out. Next. Next. Line them up. Oh, it's Dave's table. Tom, who are you and why are you here? Long story short, uh, I've known these guys for six, seven years now. I think it was about like six years ago he washed up on the beach. I basically washed up on the beach from another boat. Yeah. Which is kind of funny. You guys saved me. I came in on a boat that was looking for shipwrecks. We didn't find any shipwrecks. I hung out with these guys for four or five months. And when I, I ended up buying a boat in Tahiti, sailed it back to come and hang out with these guys again. And kind of been back and forth ever since, I guess. So now the question is, has it been by invitation or is he just barged right in? No, I was invited. He just keeps coming back and we send him away. It's like, it's like a lost dog. I think they kind of like me in here. This is the risk of rescuing the pigs. I didn't realize you're going to be picking that much paleo. Holy smokes. Well, I did that because it needs trimming at the top and then I'll just pull all the loads off and then put it back in the ground and I've got more plants. It's my type of gardening. Yeah, so I did that anyway. It's pretty. Some for dinner and some for replanting. Yeah, it's a nice rainy day job actually, putting these. So you just go and um, basically you just shove these back in the ground again. That's it? Seriously? Yeah, seriously. And they'll just sprout roots and take off? Yep. That's my type of gardening too. Is that what you had in mind? Yeah. Okay. Chips. They're so thick. Well, because they're not crisps. They're not crisps. We've had this discussion. Yes. I forgot. Crisp chips come in a packet. Crisps, crisps come in a packet, right? Yes, like a potato chip. Yeah. This is more like French fries? Yeah. No. Yeah. But wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. But in the UK, crisps, chips. No. No, in New Zealand, it's chips and chips. Chips and potato chips in a bag. I would say this is more fries versus chips. Well, Americans just would call them chips and French fries. They're either like fries, wedges or chips. The great chip debate. Yeah. It's, it's fried. What's your vote? Yeah. From tree to table within hours. That's right. Rice. It's not cup of noodle. It's like rainbow. So you wanted all the cheese. You lose a point, you're out of here. So you rotate and it allows everyone to play. And then you can really tell who's the best. Watch this. Like you're a good cook, but like, you know, I can make my own eggs. You make better eggs. Is there anything you want to show us? Anything you're really proud of, or that you just simply want to show off? Well, I know it's a funny topic, but the, the composting toilets. Yeah. I can show you if you want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We are totally into composting toilets. Yeah. Well, we have a composting toilet on our boat too. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Okay. We can give you a tour of ours too one day. I'd love to see that. I'll show you mine and then you can show me yours when I come out there. Which toilet is the most respectable?