Last month, a strange video on TikTok drew the internet’s attention to a man who appears to be paddleboarding, alone, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. His username is “Sailing Songbird.” Who is he, what is he doing, and where did he come from?
Captivating the Internet from a Paddleboard in the Pacific
It’s a peaceful, idyllic scene: the golden hues of sunset reflect off the water’s surface, calm and serene. Cotton candy clouds hover low on the horizon. A lonely sailboat hovers in the distance.
“It is incredibly disorienting to be out on a paddleboard with absolutely nothing on the horizon except like a super cool sunset,” a stranger says into the camera. He’s dressed in boardshorts, unshaven, with long hair tied in a knot under a tightly wrapped maroon bandana. “I am well over a thousand miles away from any piece of land. And it’s so quiet. This definitely feels like one of the more incredible things I’m privileged enough to experience.”
You might be jealous for a moment. Doesn’t an escape from all the pressures and demands of the world sound kind of perfect? And then he reveals his location on Google Maps.
“It is month one, day 31 of sailing across the Pacific Ocean alone,” he says. “I’m stuck here in the doldrums. There is no wind. For reference, I’m…about as far away from land as you can be on this planet.”
A Solo Sailor in the Age of TikTok
Luke, who goes by @sailing_songbird on TikTok and Instagram, started his journey in Seattle, Washington, in October 2023. A deeper look into his social media reveals a long, adventurous, ongoing story. Luke was a middle school teacher when he decided to quit his job, sell his possessions, and buy a 27-foot sailboat. He fixed up the boat and set out to pursue his dream: circumnavigating the earth.
Luke is not the first person to undertake this quest. Magellan’s expedition did it first, hundreds of years ago. More recently, solo sailors have successfully accomplished the feat: Jesse Martin in 1999, Laura Dekker in 2012. What makes Luke’s journey different?
On his sailboat, which he calls Songbird, Luke travels with solar panels, a satellite phone, and a Starlink dish to stay charged, connected, and – most importantly – very much online.
The Sailing Songbird’s Journey Begins
The first Instagram post documenting the Sailing Songbird’s journey is a carousel of photos: docks, sailboats, a drawbridge. Blue skies full of hope and possibility. Luke, leaning on his boat, a smile on his face, the dwindling shore in the distance. The beginning of a journey.
“Yesterday, I embarked on what I expect will be the adventure of a lifetime,” he wrote in the caption. “Join me for updates as I circumnavigate our beautiful earth on my 1976 Vancouver 27.”
Throughout the next few months, Luke’s posts take us from Washington to California to Mexico. A pod of dolphins welcomes him to San Francisco at golden hour as a rainbow arcs over the sky and plunges into the sea. After landing in Cabo, Mexico, Luke begins preparations for his greatest challenge yet: a 3,000-mile, 40-day Pacific Ocean crossing to French Polynesia.
“I don’t take this challenge lightly,” he wrote in an April 19 update. “I have spent countless hours over the past few years formulating this dream, and prepping little Songbird for this passage. Thanks to everyone following along and all of the support along the way. It keeps the life of a solo sailor not all that lonely.”
Preparations for the Sailing Songbird’s Pacific Passage
Preparations for the 40-day passage included stocking up on food.
“I have to be really intentional on what kind of food I bring because of storage. I’m looking for most calories per cubic inch,” he says in an April 5 TikTok video.
He packs pasta, canned fruits and vegetables, and vitamin C packs. In another video, Luke prepares cartons of over 200 eggs. He lathers each individual egg in Vaseline to help keep them fresh.
In the video’s voiceover, Luke recognizes the importance of maintaining a routine during the lonely voyage.
“I’m gonna have to stay really disciplined about keeping a journal and exercising and just doing activities that keep my mind engaged so that I don’t totally lose my head,” he says. “Typically I’m a super extroverted person and I’ve never really spent this much time alone. But that being said, I’m really excited to learn whatever the ocean has to teach me and to have you guys along for the ride.”
The Highs and Lows of the Pacific Passage
Luke’s on-camera journey across the Pacific is riveting. He strums on his uke and sings a prayer for safe passage to Father Neptune. He traverses a storm, surrounded by what he believes to be porpoises. Dressed in a bright, flowered sports coat, he conducts a ceremony for crossing the equator as he reads from a notebook and tosses libations (rum) into the sea. He unpacks his ditch kit – “a bag that I will grab in case I ever have to abandon ship,” he clarifies. The kit includes a personal locator beacon, flares, a flare gun, a signal horn, a desalinator, and granola bars – not your everyday “what’s in my bag?” video.
But his journey is also ordinary and relatable. He fishes and cooks and cleans. He struggles to sleep comfortably while his boat tosses and turns. At one point, his Starlink dish submerges. Without access to Wi-Fi, he’s forced to rely on his satellite phone to communicate with his audience through his sister.
And the doldrums, made famous by his viral paddleboarding video, delayed his trip by several days.
The Internet’s Reaction to the Sailing Songbird’s Quest
TikTok users have flooded Luke’s comments with everything from curiosity and excitement to skepticism and concern:
“Bro if you could make like another 890 TikTok’s per day that would be great.” “Bro is certified insane.” “Imagine you drop your phone.” “You just keep saying words that make me panic.” “I’m genuinely curious + concerned: Do you have a plan for pirates?” “This is on one of my lists, along with cave diving. That list is titled: Absolutely Not.”
In April, Luke hit 200k followers on Instagram. By June, that number had doubled. Today, he has over 800k followers. On TikTok, his views went from about 190k to over 35m.
The internet, it seems, is on the edge of its seat. A high-stakes “get ready with me” video meets Survivor-esque reality TV delivered straight to our phones every day. How could we possibly look away?
Extremely Online in the Middle of the Ocean
From “Eat Pray Love” to “Into the Wild,” our pop cultural imagination contains a canon of stories about solo trips of self-discovery. But the stakes have changed. The anonymity is gone. What does it really mean to go on a “solo” journey in the age of TikTok with millions of people watching? And where is the line between cultivating community and providing entertainment?
You can’t help but wonder if, even alone in the middle of the ocean, Luke feels the temptation to show only the “glamorous” and exciting. To reveal only the content worthy of clicks, likes, and shares.
Luke has made it, safe and sound, to French Polynesia. A recent video shows him hiking on a Pacific island after 49 days in isolation. But the circumnavigation is not yet complete. And the internet has not yet moved on.
Most of us will likely never cross the Pacific Ocean alone on a sailboat. But we all have our Pacific Oceans to cross, our own challenges to face. Maybe watching someone else navigate their ocean is a welcome distraction from our own. Perhaps this is what makes Luke’s circumnavigation such a compelling watch: it may be easier, after all, to see beauty in someone else’s doldrums.
