Born in the Netherlands, sailing from childhood. At her mid twenties: boat building of a 9 m wooden seaworthy sailingboat with her partner and father (in law). After 13 years in marketing and management of authors rights organizations in the Netherlands, she followed her dream and started as skipper/flotillaleader in Greece, followed by 7 years living, sailing, travelling and chartering with her partner on their 44 ft sailing boat in the Med, Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea/Central/South America. These 7 years as live-aboards still have impact on her nowadays attitude to life and nature. The beach cleanings in remote areas are still a kind of habit by removing plastic waste wherever she goes, water or land. The conscious use of restricted energy sources like water and electricity is always in her mind. In 2007 she and her partner started to run a 27 m sailingyacht. This was the introduction to the superyacht industry. In 2017 after being captain of a 32 m Swan that got sold, Marja decided to take a break in the nautical career because she wanted to do something against the enormous quantities of plastic bottled water on superyachts that bothered her already for a long time. She conducted a survey about the numbers and reasons of drinking plastic bottled water, the available water filtration techniques on board and the willingness to change the habit. After studying available filtration/purification techniques and information about waterqualities, she made a website Www.waterwithoutwaste.org with information, solutions and exposure of yachts that made a change to encourage and assist yacht captains to do the transition from plastic bottled water to water without waste to make the industry more sustainable and environmental friendly.
