In a strange twist of fate, Constellation is for sale again – But I’m not selling her! I wish I could buy her back… But, alas, paying rent on land is hard enough!

So, the person who bought her, is selling because he doesn’t have the time to do the things he wishes he could with Constellation… With that in mind, she’s a bargain and needs to be sold ASAP. I hope someone with big dreams buys her… Presently she’s up for $17k Australian Dollars, with all the gear that was previously listed. Since new ownership, she has new bottom paint, new dinghy, and some new seacocks.

Here is a video I recently made experimenting with a few things in my video editing software – The last scene is my seeing Constellation for the last time.

Someone who reads this blog, please buy my old boat back and sail her to… Madagascar. Or somewhere similarly far away.

If interested, contact me for details – She is on a mooring in Sydney.

nick.

It’s been awhile since I last updated… Thank you so much for all the friendly and encouraging comments on the end of this long voyage… I don’t really know what to do with this blog. I do get a lot of traffic and interest here, and sometimes I wonder whether I should just keep musing… You know, about sailing things, deep sea adventures, knots and bilges. Or whether this site should just stay around as an archive. What do you think?

It’s hard re-adjusting to life on land. The constant drama and adventure of sailing is in the past… It isn’t gone forever, but things are certainly different. So what’s been happening in the aftermath? I seem to have lost some inclination to write, but things are definitely active, post-sailing. Firstly, I’d like to introduce the work of Jack Rath, who has been following me around the planet with a camera. Following is a 6minute trailer of the film he has been shooting on my travels for the last four years. It’s a very strange feeling having a film made about oneself… The film is called ‘Between Home’ & the project website is www.betweenhome.com, if you’d like to keep up to date with its progress.

The film isn’t my only news… The adventure will always continue in one way or another. Please say hello to my new sailing boat ‘Harmony’ –

More photos here

She’s a perfect 32ft long, and has all the wonderful attributes of a solid and trustworthy sailing vessel, much like my dear old friend Constellation… As to where we shall venture – Unlike my last voyage, future sailing will be just as ambitious, yet less prone to deadlines, and specific goals. I have new work commitments involving a freshly formed company with a great friend here in Melbourne, so I’m 100% focused on that at the moment & for the foreseeable future – Yet the very fact of knowing Harmony exists keeps my sense of adventure and connection to the sea alive. The type of sailing I performed with Constellation was to give up everything and concentrate on one single goal for several years – This worked for me at the time, but I plan for my future sailing endeavours to work a little differently. Harmony also resides many thousands of miles away, and I have to thank my friends Adam, Captain Ted and Rob for helping me make the purchase from Australia. Thank you also to Zack the former owner, for being patient and helpful through such a faraway sale.

For those interested in keeping up to date on the goings on of the adventures of Harmony, please click on the drawing of her on www.silentunrest.com. A new website will be announced there when the time is right.

nick.

I’ll leave the photos and video to do the talking, but I’m sticking around a little longer here in Apia, Samoa to volunteer with the Red Cross. I took this media while out today, volunteering on the worst affected area: The east of the island.

Thank you to Weide, Stuart, Mark, Benjamin and Lidia for their donations to the sailing kitty – I will be using the donated money to cover the costs of staying longer here in the marina. I cannot stay long, due to the weather situation (I’m always… Late in the season). However I will stay for a bit longer, and think about departing early next week.

The start of my second day with the Red Cross










Recovering a body

More photos online here.
Nick.

Firstly, I have a bunch of people to thank. To begin with… All those great people who sent through donations while I was sailing to Hawaii or sitting in port – You know who you are, but many people don’t: Debbie, Deborah, Terri, Julio, Weide, James, Gillian, TV Navigation, Kevin, Bain… You guys (and girls) are awesome. You all made my life much easier in port – I could afford to provision with some decent food as opposed to junking it with Ramen noodles, which make me utterly miserable. They make Constellation miserable too, because I get cranky and yell into the wind more (like a crazy person). And speaking of nice food – Special thanks to Adam for the Trader Joe’s care package, posted from San Francisco and full of tasty treats.

After my cries at the cost of a new sail to replace my 20 year old UV destroyed genoa… Dave Benjamin of Island Planet Sails, out of Alameda, offered to help with a deep discount on a new cruising genoa. Still stuck for funds, but wanting to take up Dave’s offer and sail off with a reliable sail, my good friends Mari and Paul came to the rescue (again…) with some extra funds. For those who follow regularly, Mari is the amazing person out of Greenport that fed me, lent a car, helped rebuild Constellation and even re-wire her for the Pacific, while I was on Long Island… Paul is my friend from Melbourne whom I had the first chance to talk about sailing many years ago, and who came to visit me in Southampton, and even organise accommodation for me in Melbourne when I visited over Christmas. Two great friends, and a nice sailmaker = Constellation gets a new Genoa… So, that’s the story on why I was waiting around for a new sail. It arrived, and is fantastic… And somehow Dave rushed it through in two weeks. If you’re buying new sails – Let Dave help you, he ships anywhere, makes nice sails, and is a really nice guy. Thanks also to Ken for being the postbox for the new sail, and hand-delivering it to the club.

So… The Hurricane. You can see what it’s up to on my new tracking page. I left Waikiki Yacht Club, bound for Palmyra two days ago, and swiftly turned around. I was spooked, and rushing out because my Visa expired. I called the coastguard and discussed my problem, and then promptly returned to the Waikik Yacht Club – Who’ve been extraordinarily patient with me and my need to stay in port (either waiting for a new sail, or waiting for hurricanes). I erred on the side of caution with Hurricane Felicia, even though I did my fair share of research – Watching historical data, and current modeling. I think I would have been safe to continue my passage, but, it was a risk, and as someone else mentioned – Better to be sitting in port wishing you were sailing, than sailing and wishing you were in port… In a faster boat with crew, it would have not posed a problem. But in a slow boat with no crew, I think maybe it’s nicer sitting at the yacht club, listening to old salts at the bar discuss high winds and surging seas, than have to experience them. As soon as the Pacific basin clears up, I’m outta here. As for my Visa… Customs and Immigration were completely understanding, and even came to my boat to fix up the paperwork and help me out. Nice.

For those curious on where I’m going, and what I’m doing, my route is fairly simple, and I’m looking forward to nice sailing with a perfect wind-angle for my next leg. As already noted, I plan to head for Palmyra first, the small Pacific atoll just over 900nm from Honolulu. Palmyra has a really interesting history, and is currently a Nature Conservancy, run by the US government – Read the Wikipedia page for better information. I’ve been given permission to visit, and can’t wait to enter the reef-shark infested lagoon that has had its entrance blasted out by dynamite, and who’s shores sparkle with blue crabs. Located 6degrees above the equator, the Atoll is 3ft above sea level, drenched in equatorial heat and haunted with ghosts and a curious past. Hiding (supposedly) Spanish bullion and the body parts of a double murder, Palmyra is the kind of island I’ve been waiting to visit since the inception of this voyage. Of all the oceans, (as with most people), the Pacific conjures up mystery, intrigue and a phenomenal sea-fairing history. I simply can’t wait to explore these odd places that are virtually inaccessible except by private vessel. After Palmyra, I hope to visit Western Samoa, and then hop across to Fiji and then I don’t know… Maybe the (also) strange Lord Howe Island before Sydney… But we’ll take it one island at a time.

Since I’m land-bound again, here is a brief video of my first Pacific leg. It isn’t really as comprehensive as my other videos, but you get the picture… And besides, there is only so much film one can make about bobbing around in the middle of nowhere!

Nick.

Here is a 16minute film I put together from footage I took across the Atlantic. Note: There is swearing at the beginning.

Special thanks to Jack for the camera, and to Tracy for letting me use her computer for editing!

Fundraising party writeup and trip update/announcement in my next post!

nick.

After spending a few days in and around the muddy mangrove area of English harbour, I went on a long walk through some fenced off areas across the lagoon, got kicked out of some hotel grounds by security, and found the most beautiful decrepit house in the world:

I’ve put an offer in for $60 American dollars – They tell me the deal is pending…!

Constellation is that tiny boat you can see through the trees.

After my walk, I found a beautiful little beach:

I sat down for a few hours, and read Thor Heyerdahl’s wonderful Kon-tiki. I felt terribly guilty just sitting there on the white sand when Constellation was in need of preparation, however those feelings soon departed, as I began the construction of a raft out of flotsam and let it drift away in the bay.

Walking back, I wondered why I wasn’t anchored over on the other side of English harbour, where I could go swimming everyday. I’m told Lord Nelson woke up every morning, and promptly had six buckets of water thrown over him, for his ‘daily hygiene routine’. After that he drank a quart of goats milk, and then complained about the mosquitos of the previous night, loudly exclaiming “damn this infernal hole!”, so the entire harbour could hear. However, I’m sure as the day went by, even Lord Nelson must have grown to appreciate his surroundings again. So I decided for my hygiene routine (and, I must admit, I haven’t had a proper shower since Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, circa the 26th of March) – The closest I’ve come (under strict and self-imposed sweet water conservation rules) is the dumping of 2 litres squarely over my head – A mere three times since that fateful day in March. So, while I couldn’t afford, nor find a personal hygiene assistant, what I needed was a daily swim. I guess that explains why Jack left so quickly… Here is my public apology!

Really, that’s the colour of the water. Promise.

I edged up as close as I could to the beach, next to this beautiful Cornish Trader, owned by ex-merchant seaman Peter, from the white cliffs of Dover:

I swam over and circled his boat to check it out, thinking it looked like a beefed up Cornish Crabber, which I guess is exactly what it turned out to be. Built in 1979, Peter bought ‘Rainbow’ brand new, and upon asking when he crossed the Atlantic, he looked at me sheepishly and said ‘1989′. Ha! He’s been sailing up and down these islands and the East coast of America ever since. I think he was rather excited to have met an Australian, and kept mentioning the cricket (which was currently playing on his TV in the cabin). Unfortunately when it comes to popular sports, I know very little. He kept mentioning players and cricket grounds, and I nodded agreeably with everything he said, blissfully ignorant of how good a player Brian Lara really was.

As we sat drinking tea, an enormous Catamaran with fifty drunken tourists came speeding up to our private paradise, as if attempting to play ‘chicken’ with our stationary boats. It proceeded to beach itself in the sand, and let loose it’s store of pasty white tourists into the bay. After the noisy tourists left, a turtle swam by the boat, with what must have been fifty years of growth on its back. Someone should introduce him to International Antifoul.

During my daily hygiene routine, with a set of goggles on, I came across a pile of chain underneath my boat. I spent 20 minutes diving down to find each end of it, thinking it was probably a mooring. I was pleasantly suprised to find it had two stainless steel shackles on the end of it, and wasn’t attached to anything! It’s diameter was enormous, and weighed a ton – Constellation could probably anchor off the chain alone, with nothing on the other end! Getting the dinghy over, I hauled it up, to the suspicious eyes of the boats around me, who I’m quite certain thought I was a mooring thief. Not wanting to be labeled ‘The Great Ground Tackle Pirate of English Harbour’ (or rather, wanting to named exactly that, but afraid of its consequences), I dropped the chain and got back to my boat. At dusk I dived down and attached one end underwater to my existing chain, and will pull up my anchor when I leave, quite innocent of the fact that there is a loose 12mm length of chain attached to it. So, while I was worried about my lack of chain (remember, 35ft was all I could afford, at $2.76 a foot, duty free), I now feel confident Constellation could sit rock solid in full hurricane strength winds, and I could sit onboard cooking pasta, oblivious to the carnage and uprooted trees being flung past my port window.

I previously mentioned my camera had died on the Atlantic, which it had (it’s alive again after I hard rest it). I managed to take a few photos, and found this video looking to the stern of Constellation. Other than the footage on the video camera, it’s all I have, and sorry for not making it pretty or editing it – But you get an idea of what it’s like out there:

While this has all been going on, I’ve been chipping away at the tasks that need to be done on Constellation, and also spending a lot of time collecting information for my trip up to New York. I’ve been assisted greatly by several Americans and Canadians, and now feel much more confident about what I’m doing and where I’m going. Not having any almanacs or cruising books on the area, I was really at a loss of what to do – I felt grossly underprepared. Nevertheless, I now have an enormous amount of information, from tidal data, charts, and first hand information and advice for my trip into New York harbour. I’ll detail things a bit more in the post I make before setting sail. I said I was going on the weekend, but heck, can I have one more day in paradise before I break back into 40 degree latitudes? I think so.

Monday it is.

nick.

P.S Before I forget, I haven’t blown the money I raised over the Atlantic on electric winches or rum parties – Jack had the idea of attempting to raise the remaining $275 to buy a full bridge with my North American voyage of 1552nm. So that’s what I’m going to do – The $400 already raised is in a separate savings account with a rum lock on it. A ‘rum lock’ is a special option now offered by Lloyds TSB to poor sailors, smugglers and misfits.

P.P.S Thanks to everyone on the subscription list that responded to my ’spamming’ in order to test that things were working again. If you’re on the subscribe list, and are reading this but didn’t receive a notification… Please let me know.