So we gathered a group of hardy explorers, packed kit, beer and muesli, rented a truck and headed into the great wilderness of South Africa for a little do-it-yourself safari adventure! Not much text to accompany this blog entry - this one is all about the eye candy! (definitely not a reference to our beer bellies) Enjoy the photos! A note about photo credits, each photo has initials within brackets: (A.A.) = Alex "Preposterous" Armistice (click HERE to buy his photos - sorry, he makes me say that) (C.R.) = Cody "Tiger Lilly" R [View Full Entry]

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A short greeting from Ile de la Reunion, a small volcanic island in the Indian Ocean. Never heard of it? Me neither until recently. She lies 1 day downwind from Mauritius and is a French possession. In the south, there is an active volcano which occaisonally has a major eruption (but sputters and tosses just a little lava every day). A long time ago, there would have been total seismic chaos. Now, in the center of the island lie 3 ancient, extinct cirques - collapsed volcanic craters - which provide the ultimate hiking experience. Never mind the drone of expedition helicopters [View Full Entry]

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We are in the middle of the Indian Ocean, it's the middle of the night, and it is very, very dark and stormy. The tricky thing about sailing in a storm in the dead of night is learning how to not suffer from vertigo. When the stars are blacked out, you can only steer by the compass, and as you fly through the water at 12 knots, no matter how hard you try to stay on course, inevitably you will feel the sensation that the boat is veering off course. Dizziness often starts to set in and the struggle to steer [View Full Entry]

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I would like to thank everyone who e-mailed me their support after reading my last blog entry. I came across a quote that pretty much sums it all up, and as a bonus, it's far more eloquent than I could ever write: When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of [View Full Entry]

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Hello Everyone.. and Happy Thanksgiving by the way! Sorry for such a long period without e-mail or blog updates. I don't feel all that talkative lately anyway, as this middle section of the adventure has been emotionally challenging, tiring and the effects of being "in transit" for so long are starting to wear me down. Anyway, let me sum up August. I realized soon after making landfall in Cairns (Queensland, Australia) that I hadn't slept on land for 5 months, and that I rarely get to hang out with my cousin Liz, so I flew down to Sydney to visit her [View Full Entry]

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NOTE: Please let me know if the two videos above worked well. If so, I will capture more. "Mayday, Mayday! We're struck a reef! We're taking on water quickly..." - Somewhere near the Wallis Archipelago The last 1000 miles of the Pacific, the home stretch in the little adventure that has become known as the Pacifico Project, is complete. I am happy to announce that I arrived to Cairns, Australia. It has been a voyage of over 9,000 km that has lasted over 7 months and has brought me more than 1/3 around the planet. I have sailed across the world's [View Full Entry]

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Photos by Cody Reed Except spider and volcano photos (taken by yours truly) My Only Travel Tip: Forget every travel tip you've ever been given, including this one. I keep trying to sit down and describe this final stop in the Pacific Ocean before sailing to Australia, but the moment I try to write about it, I erase it all and try to start again. So I'll start again. Up until 5 months ago, I had never even heard of the country of Vanuatu. I hadn't heard of the tiny island of Tanna in its southern waters either until we set [View Full Entry]

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They used to say that the world was flat, and if you sailed to the end, you'd plummet over the edge into an abyss.. COOL! I'm now in the Eastern Hemisphere, having crossed the International Date Line and 180-degree mark. Not much else to report, but I can safely say Fijans have been the friendliest people in my South Pacific experience. There are some small culture shocks, such as how people ask for gifts. The customs official came aboard, poked through our stuff, went through our wallets, and then asked if we had any iPods or DVDs or clothes that we [View Full Entry]

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(Note: Suwarrow is the tiny dot in the centre, marked by the middle yellow pin) In Bora Bora they have tamed Manta Rays that will eat out of the palm of your hand. Hundreds of technicoloured reef fish loiter under your hut's glass floor (lured by the nutritious raw sewage of your toilet which flushes directly into the lagoon). You can buy black pearls at a boutique in town and there's high speed Internet any time you want it. It's paradise! So why did I feel the need to escape? My escape route took me 1300 kilometres downwind from the hustle [View Full Entry]

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"And the lone seaman all the night Sails astonished among stars." - Emerson The Tuamotu Atolls of French Polynesia The Dangerous Archipelago The green glow from the radar casts sinister shadows on our faces. The atoll comes into view on the screen; a thin ring flashing on the console is our only warning of the danger that lies ahead. Ten miles away in the pitch black, razor sharp reefs lurk just under the surface while waves crash and pound on the coral just as they have for the past million years. This is the Tuamotu, historically known as the Dangero [View Full Entry]

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