A small update...

Well! How long it's been. I get a little sad sometimes, thinking about this blog... It was a little bit of a lifeline while I was out sailing - A little place to put all my thoughts that built up after miles of sailing. Unfortunately now, I've hit land, and while the thoughts still pile up, they're not necessarily anything to do with sailing! So what have I be doing anyway? Oh yes! I did get some sailing in a couple of months ago, quite unexpectedly... I flew to Palau, returned to Melbourne, and then flew back to Palau, to help deliver a boat to Darwin. It was a mighty long, and mighty hard trip. We sailed (or rather, motored, burning close to 600 litres of diesel), against the winds and currents for two weeks. Several engine failures later, a few hair-raising moments and a couple of pirate scares off of Indonesia, we arrived in Darwin, Australia. This was my second entry into Australian waters by boat, and also my second time across the equator:

The sailing was pretty extraordinary... It was also the longest distance I've ever sailed with others aboard, which was a very different experience to being alone. I dare say, harder... We sailed close to shore for a few days, right amongst the Indonesian fishermen. At one stage we even sailed through a small straight, just 1nm wide, at the top of Papua New Guinea. To the left and right of us were small subsistance living communities, as enormous tankers took advantage of the water way:

Some nights we were surrounded so tightly by small fishing vessels, it was virtually impossible to sleep. The curious ones would come close by, and scare the daylights out of us... Flare guns at the ready, minds churning with self-defence tactics... Thankfully curious was all they were, and through the waters we sailed with little outside trouble.

So other than that brief month of sailing, there is little other news to report on the personal voyaging front. For avid followers, you will already know I moved to the countryside, and am working away at my own business... We (re)launched two projects in the last two weeks -Neverstop Pedalling, an online bike store, and our web hosting company Serversaurus...

SV Harmony still lies at rest in California... Awaiting her owner (me)... How and when I will ever scrounge the money together to get there, I'll never know (perhaps buy a bike, or change your hosting provider! Plug plug!) ... However, I guess when the time is right, it will all come together.

A massive congratulations to Adam who recently completed his first solo transpac - I finally have someone to commiserate with about sailing small vessels alone, across that stretch of from SF to HI... We both concurred: Yes, it's possible, but...

:)

Jack continues to work on the documentary about my voyage, however, from my understanding, the creation of the documentary is just as financially crippling and difficult as the voyage itself... ! We hope it will screen in European film festivals this year, but as to if and when it will be available to buy as a DVD or stream online - I have no idea. This is Jack's film, so it will be up to him as to how it's distributed...

I will be archiving this site as we know it soon, and replacing it with a new site which will allow me to just generally blog about sailing - At the moment, the layout and construction of this website is for a voyage which is now complete: It will still be at Bigoceans.com, however I'll move the current incarnation of the site and start afresh... What do you guys think?

Cheers! Nick