Well, the last 2 weeks have been an absolute blast. We have a great group - 23 of us in total - Marcus and Ollie (the tour leaders - both Brits) are great, Charles is our cook from Kenya and booms out 'Don't wait' when the kettle has boiled and tells us to do everything 'immediately'. We have a really mixed group - 50/50 gender split (which is fab!) and people from all over the world - UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Holland, Denmark and Norway. I've met ...

I left Port Elizabeth bright and early on Saturday morning and cruised my way to Jeffreys Bay (J-Bay) which is one of the world's top surfing destinations. People flock there to ride the 'supertubes' - once described as "the most perfect wave in the world". I didn't stay long but did stop by all of the factory outlets - Billabong, Roxy, Ripcurl etc. Sooo cheap. I wish I had room in my backpack as I could have bought loads for nothing! I set of to try an...

Happy New Year!! Well, after I left you in Dubai airport, the remainder of my trip was fairly uneventful. I got to Jo'Burg, got hassled in the airport, managed to check in for my domestic flight (which seemed far more complicated than it should have been!) and settled down in my business class seat for the 90 minute flight to Port Elizabeth (PE). I had to fly business as there were no other flights available on Christmas Day but it was worth it for the bubbles a...

Happy Christmas! Bah Humbug!! And so onto the next stage of my epic adventure. I was only due to be back in the UK for 3 days to swap over some belongings and then fly out to Cape Town to start my 2 week volunteering project on a game reserve. Of course, as the world weather had gone mad, it was freezing cold and snowing. I have since come to the conclusion that the UK is bordering on being a third world country - but worse!! I was supposed to fly with BA from ...

So, we finally arrived in Rodney Bay, St Lucia just after 9am on 11th December. Last year it took Lancelot 15 days to make the crossing so at 20 days this was longer than everyone expected. In fact, at one stage, our ETA was showing as 14th January!! Every boat struggled due to the lack of wind - this year the trade winds just didn't seem to appear! The first boats arrived in early December but most of them used their engines. Some of the racers even retired from...