At first glance, the photographs show a little floating world: plants, a house and a shoreline assembled on the water. The surprise is below the surface, where plastic bottles helped provide buoyancy for Richart “Rishi” Sowa’s island experiments in Mexico.

The idea captured attention because it joined two familiar things in an unfamiliar way. Discarded containers became part of a place to live. The story is fascinating, but it includes several versions of the project and does not end with a floating attraction you can simply visit today.

Richart Sowa pictured with one of his historical floating island projects
Richart Sowa pictured with one of his historical floating island projects.

Spiral Island and Joyxee were different projects

Atlas Obscura’s account of Joyxee traces Sowa’s earlier Spiral Island near Puerto Aventuras to 1998 and its destruction during Hurricane Emily in 2005. A later project, Joyxee, was developed near Isla Mujeres.

Plants and domestic structures on a floating island associated with Richart Sowa
Plants and domestic structures on a floating island associated with Richart Sowa.

The names and bottle totals are often mixed together in retellings. Figures associated with one version should not be attached to every photograph of Sowa’s work. The archive images also do not document the same stage of construction in a way that allows each frame to be precisely dated.

Is Joyxee still a visitor attraction?

The Atlas Obscura listing marks Joyxee as permanently closed. Its January 2019 update reports storm damage and a requirement from the authorities to remove the island.

That makes the project a historical design story, rather than an attraction to add to a present-day Isla Mujeres itinerary. Old descriptions of tours, facilities or overnight life on the island should be understood in that earlier context.

What the bottles contributed

A sealed container can hold air while displacing water. Many such containers can therefore contribute buoyancy within a floating structure. But buoyancy alone is not a complete description of a safe or durable home.

The arrangement holding the containers together, the weight above them, the mooring and the response to weather all matter. A finished photograph cannot show every connection or maintenance requirement beneath the visible surface.

Sowa’s project is best appreciated as a distinctive personal experiment. These images are not plans for building a floating residence.

Reuse is the start of an environmental question

It is appealing to see an unwanted material put to another use. To understand the wider environmental result, though, you would also want to know how long the material lasts, how damaged parts are recovered and what happens when the structure is dismantled.

Those are questions to investigate, not conclusions established by counting bottles. A large reused quantity does not by itself prove that a design has a low overall impact.

Our Ocean Cleanup feature explores a different response to plastic in waterways. The purpose and evidence should remain clear in each case.

Why the photographs still hold attention

The most engaging detail may be the combination of ordinary domestic life and an unusual foundation. Plants and a house make the scene feel familiar, while the water beneath it changes your understanding of the whole arrangement.

For another floating-home story, explore Freedom Cove in British Columbia. To compare a different design approach, see the WaterNest concept. Each offers its own questions about how a home relates to its setting—and how much of that relationship a photograph can reveal.