Nearing Australia, I saw another sailing vessel and radioed to ask if they knew whether Customs ran 24hrs or not. The radio crackled, “Customs? Where are you coming from, over?” … “Tonga” … “Tonga? Please repeat, over”, “Tonga, in the south Pacific” … “Oh.”

The message was relayed to the VMR station, and thankfully Customs awaited my arrival, as we flew into port at 7kts with a racing tide behind us. I radioed again to await direction, as you must be invited into harbour, you cannot simply sail in. I was given the all clear, and sailed in. Several people saw the yellow quarantine flag, and for those that knew, they realised I had come a long way. Some waves from other boats and many strange looks. I motored around and berthed, the Customs agents said “where is your welcome party?” and I said “You’re it, make some noise!” … And so after nearly two and a half years, Constellation was firmly tied up in Australian waters. There was no one I knew in Coffs Harbour, and so my arrival was like an arrival anywhere else… Somewhat lonely. In fact, it was much like my “official” departure from Holland, where I simply slipped the lines, said goodbye to the dockmaster, and began my 28,000km voyage to Australia in a small boat. Maybe it sounds a little sad to some, but actually, I think there is something mildly romantic about the idea of departing and arriving quietly, as if by secret from long voyages. It reminds me of Bill Tilman, undertaking enormous trips through Greenland, only to arrive as if nothing had happened a few months later and tying up at his berth in Lymington.

As Customs searched my boat, removed a lot of my food and a few trinkets, I watched on slightly nervously. Not because I had anything to hide, but because it’s strange having someone go through your home. Everything was wet or rusty, but eventually the paperwork and search was over, and my latest problem arose: The tax and import duty on Constellation. I hadn’t planned for such an expense – I thought I had 12months to go through the process, but apparently that wasn’t the case. So the very next day, I was on the phone, calling, emailing, and researching the problem. By 4pm I had a customs broker working on the case, and 4 days later Constellation was imported. I had no money for such a thing, but, through the graciousness of friends and their credit cards… Constellation officially became Australian (well, from a tax perspective!).

Jack the filmmaker arrived some days later to sail south with me and film, but after all the tax problems and stress of the whole ordeal, I had to get off the boat and go home… So, on a train we went, and rather quickly, we arrived in Sydney. It’s amazing how much faster you can get places, when you travel at speeds faster than 4kts…

So what’s next? I don’t know. Well, that’s not entirely true, but, in regards to Constellation I’m not sure. I sent out a Twitter update a week ago exclaiming she was for sale – And she is. Many people messaged and said ‘No, you can’t sell her!’ But unfortunately, that’s really how things must end. I can’t really justify the expense of putting her in a marina so she can be sailed around the bay on sunny weekends in summer… It’s sad, and I wish I could just build a museum for myself, and put her in it, but alas, unless the six figure book deal and equally profitable film distribution arrangement appear from nowhere, that’s it. The sale from Constellation is also what will fund part of my future ideas and projects… So for anyone interested, you can contact me, or just out of general interests sake you might be interested to see what’s onboard in her for sale listing. Presently she is on the east coast of Australia, tax paid and would be suitable for an Australian, New Zealand or European buyer because there is nothing else you need to hand over for governmental revenue collection…

Tomorrow I will fly sail at 600kts upwind, and be in Melbourne for a month while I sort myself, my finances, and everything else out…

nick.

Campaign Progress

of the required users
of the required placemarks

I’m still rallying people to help Bluemapia support my voyage across the Pacific – ! Click here to find out how to help Bluemapia support my Pacific crossing, and also learn how to win a brand new SPOT messenger. If you haven’t already, please read this post and help me get across the Pacific!

There is an awful lot going on. To summarise, Constellation is being trucked mid-next week! So it’s all go go go… ! Unfortunately my dreams of riding that enormous bike Lee Winters gave me, have fallen through. It’s a long story… But, it basically came down to bureaucracy and time, so we’re heading west as per the plan next week without further delay. Remember, I need to be ready to make for Hawaii by early May. The boat will need to be re-assembled on the west coast, which will be quite a big task alone, and I suspect there will invariably be some teething problems due to the modifications and added gear that’s now onboard.

Jack the filmmaker arrives tomorrow from Germany, to keep the (figurative) celluloid rolling, and Monday week I fly out to Denver, Colorado… After which we will drive the rest of the way to San Francisco to meet Constellation on the other side. I had such grand and wild plans for this overland voyage. Remember, I was going to ride a bicycle… Do work for charity… There was a big list of things I had planned. But reality caught up with me, and those things fell through. It’s disappointing on the one hand, but on the other, it just means I’ll have to come back at some stage, and stay true to my word.

Constellation is coming along beautifully. I’m getting so much help with everything, it really still amazes me… I will write a proper parting letter detailing what wonderful things have been going on before I leave, but in short, John the engine mechanic (who has since been given the name ‘the engine whisperer’) managed to get ‘August the mighty Yanmar’ running again. There still seems to be some starting issues, however John, being a true engine whisperer, believes it is fixable. Personally I’m getting close to the point of throwing it in the trash, and buying a sculling oar, however, I will give the whisperer the benefit of the doubt, and let him whisper… Poor ‘August’, the tiny one cylinder diesel… He just wasn’t built to go around the world… Thank you John, I hope the next time we meet in earnest, all engines will be perpetual motion machines with only one moving part. Until then, keep whispering.

Mari, a true gentlemen and endless supporter of fine boating electrics, my antics, and this entire project, continues to help out on anything and everything. I’d be lost without Mari, but he requires an entire post (soon to come) to even scratch the surface of his extraordinary spirit and assistance.

Instead of writing to you from the cold port bunk of Constellation, I’m actually living in luxury. I came back to Long Island in winter, and Walt the Salt has put me up in a little house just minutes from the marina. I have a big warm room all to myself, in a nautically themed cottage. Not only that, but more often than not, Walt cooks a big dinner to keep the fat on me, for the upcoming period of month-long ocean passages, powered by cheap pasta. Everyday I come home and ask him questions, or get advice on the best way to do things. Imagine having a boating magic eight ball in your back pocket… That’s Walt…

I turned 28 last week, and today marks 550th official day this voyage has been underway. That doesn’t include the year I spent paying for, and working on the boat in England… Jack wrote me a funny email the other day, and said I’d told him on camera that I expected the voyage to take between ’six and nine months’ … I nearly fell off my chair in laughter! But here I am, on the greatest adventure I will probably ever have, propelled by the nicest people I’ll probably ever meet… And what crazy hard fun this all continues to be…

I recently had an opportunity to talk with Peter Mello as part of his podcast. It was a fun interview, and I really appreciate him taking time out to talk to me. You can listen to the interview here. Peter also gave me time to discuss the Bluemapia sponsorship proposal, as well as an opportunity to talk about Bluemapia as a whole, which was very nice.

So, as always, thank you to everyone, and I’ll try to write again before we keep heading west.

Always west.

nick.

Campaign Progress (read below to see what these numbers mean):

of the required users
of the required placemarks

As avid readers will already know, I went back to Australia for a couple of months to see family, and also to work in order to pay for all this madness. I managed to get quite a lot of work done, and was able to put together enough money to truck my boat across America, as per the plan. However, past that… The budget doesn’t allow for much else. That all being said, there is a way out of this, thanks to the founders of Bluemapia.com – The same company I’ve been working with, for the past several months. They’ve put together a sponsorship package which will provide me with the much needed funding to cross the Pacific this year – However, in return I need to achieve certain goals on the Bluemapia.com website. To briefly explain, Bluemapia.com is an online web application which allows users to freely sign up, and contribute sailing related media and information. The concept hinges around user-generated content, termed ‘placemarks’. A placemark is a piece of information (photo, text, video etc) directly related to a specific point on the earth (a waypoint). My goals are to get 300 new users on Bluemapia.com, and 600 new placemarks. That might seem like a lot, but it’s not – There are thousands of monthly viewers reading this website, and a large majority of them are sailors – You already have the knowledge, and I’m kindly asking you to consider putting it on Bluemapia.com to help me out, and also to help build up a phenomenal sailing resource. It costs nothing to signup, and everything you submit is Creative Commons licensed – That means it’s yours forever.

For all your help, and if these goals are met… I’ve organised some cool stuff to give away: Through my own volition and unrelated to the Bluemapia.com sponsorship arrangement, I’ll be giving away a prize each to the top three placemark contributors. They’re all solo sailing related, and will be shipped to wherever you are in the world (including the three great capes!):

	First prize – A SPOT Messenger – Update your position via the push of a button, to notify your friends and family, while also publishing it live to the web.
	Second prize – Four sailing books every solo sailor (or, for that matter, every sailor!) should own: Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum, Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi, The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier, Alone through the Roaring Forties by Vito Dumas.
	Third prize – Sailing the world alone – A DVD documentary on the 1994 singlehanded BOC Challenge.

To take part, assist in my passage across the Pacific, and contribute your sailing knowledge to Bluemapia.com – Sign up and start adding placemarks. A counter will be added showing how progress is going in the coming days.

Thank you Bluemapia, and to everyone who continues to read this site, write comments, emails, and just show an interest!

Nick.

I felt like I’d been home for awhile… But, after returning to New York, time has once again sped up, and less than a week later, home feels blurry, and distant. Memories are so subjective, so false, so fleeting. Yet I have been listening to music which was on repeat throughout my trip over the past few days… Thoughts of living in England in the rain appear vivid; being tied up next to a bridge in Holland, the barges steaming by and consequently pushing Constellation against century old canal walls. The panic of collecting diesel in Brest to cross the Bay of Biscay, taking mid-night taxis with trunks full of jerry cans, fuel spilling on deck. It’s these memories which are explicit in retrospect, but impossible to convey after a recent bout of questioning… Just before leaving Australia, I went on local radio, was interviewed for two small newspapers (read one of them here), and said goodbye to friends who all ask ‘why?’ … There is no simple answer. All I can rebuttal with is a confused look of ‘why not?’ It is of course far more complex than that, but there are no more questions, only actions, and this is what has been going on for 514 days. But it’s more like 954 days since the inception of this voyage. That’s two years, seven months, and eight days… But what extraordinary days they were! And what extraordinary days are in store for 2009.

I’ve been lax on posts since I went home. I had little sailing news, and was concentrating on working, seeing friends, and riding my bicycle. Through great fortune, my good friend and fellow sailor Paul, connected me with Stephen and Magda, who generously provided me with a room to stay for my time in Australia. They run a great little warehouse with student accommodation in Melbourne, and donated one of their rooms to me, and ultimately to this project. Without their assistance in providing a roof over my head, I would have been stuck paying rent, and would not have been able to save what I’ve managed to over the past several months, to make this year happen. My sincere thanks goes out to them for such generosity – My mother says I have good merit, which I am absolutely conscious of; I’m writing here, and about this, because of other people. I planted a seed; and people everywhere watered it.

So through my living in Australia, I worked on my projects, survived the heat, and roughly planned 2009. Remember, I wanted to ride a bike across America? It was supposed to be a pedal powered one. However, Lee Winters, that lovely man who recently crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the beginning of his circumnavigation, in the name of helping children find a home, gave me this:

It’s not exactly a bicycle, but it does have two wheels… This monster lies down in Texas, waiting for me to figure out how to integrate it into a kind of sailing / Easy Rider type adventure. Don’t forget there is a film being made about this whole trip, and I can already picture a wide open ocean; pan to desert scene across Arizona… It makes me laugh just thinking about it. This trip has mostly epitomised the nature of going with the flow – It wasn’t until I reached the Canaries and had too much time to think about things, that I decided to sail to New York and go overland… And it wasn’t until I was driving down the Long Island Express that I decided it would be more fun to ride across America and see the country. And now, through Lee’s generosity, I just might be doing it while sitting above 1100CC’s of engine. Thank you Lee, you’re a gentlemen, and I urge everyone to spend more time following his adventures than mine – His intentions have greater purity; the type that are infectious, and heart warming. We could all do more for the world while following our passions, and he’s doing it, now.

After landing in Los Angeles, my passport was inspected, and I was whisked off to the Admissibility Review room. It’s the special room made for people who tick the box on the entrance sheet saying ‘I have been arrested’, or ‘I have been denied entry to the USA’. I ticked no to all those boxes, and even arrived in the country with a real visa, unlike most people who just take advantage of the Visa Waiver Program. Basically, I did everything correctly, and then some. But no, it wasn’t enough. I waited for three hours, and was then interviewed and hassled about my intentions to enter America. No offence to Americans, but really, I have better things to do than try and enter your borders and stay illegally. I don’t fit your profiles, I have no record, I’ve only ever followed the book. As I sat in the room, I wondered about how much I would get for Constellation. I wondered if she was worth anything, to anybody. Forlorn, frozen, in pieces, I thought not much. But, I was later released, only to be ‘randomly chosen by the TSA computer for full screening.’ And so, I stood there, arms in the air, legs spread, patted down, bags bomb dusted, shoes off, laptop opened, 20 minutes before US Airlines flight 32 departed for New York. I made it, the flight was crowded, I was tired, I landed, and by the end of the week I’ll be back to my boat.

I have a long way to go this year. Over 7000nm of sailing to go… That’s 12,964km’s. But 2009 is more than likely the year I will also finish. I wonder if I can drag it out any more? What on earth will I do when I finish? Many things. Many things indeed!

-Nick, Brooklyn, New York City.

My return ticket to New York is now locked in for the 6th of February! It’s been a very productive and fun time in Australia, however soon it’s time to resume things and continue the trip. Thank you to Mari for the latest photo of Constellation – It was nearly 39C (about 103F) the other day here in Melbourne, and as can be seen, it’s considerably colder back on Long Island:

Right now, I’m getting quotes and trying to organise the somewhat complex overland trip that has to happen this year. I expect to be trucking Constellation sometime in April, and for myself to be over on the west coast for when she arrives – This is for a scheduled departure across the Pacific in May or early June… Right now I’ve been getting quotes from uShip.com, and the best one so far is around $3,500. If anyone is familiar with hotshot trucking, or has any contacts in the industry who might take a backhaul west, please let me know. I need to confirm a trucking solution very soon, to ensure everything goes to plan.

Much work remains to be done on Constellation, however I hope to get 90% of it done before going overland. With the generous support of Mike Acebo who runs runs the Greenport Brewer Yacht Yard, Constellation has been under his care ever since I first docked way back in June/July of 2008. Mike and everyone at the marina has been exceptionally generous, and we’re also hoping to re-do Constellation’s rig, and install a furler on the foresail before leaving New York. Without the support of Mike and the Brewer yard, there is definitely, and absolutely no way I’d be moving on this year across the Pacific. So, if you’re ever on a boat in Long Island, be sure to visit Brewer Yacht Yard in Greenport and say hello!

In other news, Lee Winters has successfully made it across the Gulf of Mexico. I watched his position closely over the last week, and this evening he managed to jump behind an island in Mexico before the wind picked up too much. Lee’s expression of ‘crying for the first time in his adult life’ and the elation you can detect in his latest blog post, brings back tremendous memories of my own sailing last year… Simon has also just made it across the Atlantic ocean alone, from the Cape Verde islands – He hasn’t updated his map yet, however I know he’s quite happily anchored in St Lucia, the Caribbean!

The feeling of achievement, relief, sadness, and pure joy after a long distance passage alone, is nearly incomprehensible to someone who hasn’t done it, yet I can assure you that both Lee & Simon deserve a really big pat on the back. Congrats!

Nick.

Happy New Year!

I’ve had a comment and quite a few emails asking what’s going on. Well, not a lot really… The project is still on, and I’m at home in Australia working, and scheming for the next leg. I’m still adamant about trucking the boat, and will do so sometime in April. We’ll go somewhere on the West coast of the US (obviously), most likely Berkeley because I have a couple of contacts in the area… I also like Ginsberg, and I hear he wrote a poem there. While my blogging has slowed down, the project hasn’t – So for anyone thinking I’ve just thrown the towel in, you’d be more than wrong… ! It also remains to be seen how I will get myself across the country, as the original idea of cycling may have changed slightly in recent weeks.

I continue to work with Bluemapia.com, which has been fantastic – If you’re a sailor, go there, sign up, and share your tips & info on your local sailing area. When not working with Bluemapia, I have the great fortune to be working on my own ideas. They involve the web, and sailing… And another project may involve helping someone else begin an enormous and seemingly impossible voyage. More on all of that some other time.

After Christmas (which involved no snow) I went on a small trip – Photos are below. My return ticket to New York is booked for the 19th of January, however, due to a lack of housing options, and the fact it’s much easier for me to survive here than in a foreign country in the dead of winter, it is more than likely I will stay another month or two. There is little I can do on Constellation right now, and she will probably not touch the water again until April or early May. Much work remains, and she’s in a state of disarray, however 2009 is set to be the year Constellation is more seaworthy than in any other time of her life!

More photos in the usual place.

Skandia week is coming up, and with any luck I might get to sail then… I may finally get to write about sailing again!

Nick