Ahhhhh…. The end-of-year hatching-of-plans. I love it. 2011’s Year of Microadventure has been a positive surprise in many ways, but I can’t deny being excited about escaping this sceptred isle once again for far-flung adventures.

My priority remains the South Pole. It’s been a frustrating, depressing experience trying to get to Antarctica, but our preparation is better than ever. We’ve got such a good team involved (photographer and hard man Martin Hartley has joined us, as has talented videographer Temujin Doran) that I know the whole expedition package (trek, book, images, film, education) will be brilliant if we can only get ourselves to the start line.

But I am also keen to pack in one other big trip in 2012. For a few years now I have been trying to launch a desert expedition, a camel journey through the Empty Quarter inspired by the magnificent Wilfred Thesiger. I’mve been accumulating knowledge, chatting to experts and sniffing around permit problems for Saudi and Yemen. For lots of reasons though I have not been successful. Finally, I decided to cut all the complications and camels and just do it all by myself. My plan, in brief, was to fill a massive cart with water and drag it across a desert. A physically tough challenge, a brand new environment, an amazing experience of solitude in the footsteps of one of my heroes, and perfect strength training for the South Pole: it ticked a lot of boxes.

So at last the desert plan was coming together nicely. I was ready for waves of empty sand rolling on to the horizon. Dreaming of greenery and fresh food. A silent, sterile, pure world far from the frustrations of real life.

And then I received an email from somebody I had never met.
“Do you want to row across the Atlantic Ocean? We leave in six weeks…”

Wow! I thought of those empty waves rolling on to the horizon. Dreaming of greenery and fresh food. A silent, sterile, pure world far from the frustrations of real life. It sounded exactly what I was after.

I burned the midnight oil: getting just 3-5 hours of sleep a night buys you a lot of extra hours in your day. I finished writing my book then jumped on a plane to Slovenia. I wanted to meet the mystery emailer face-to-face. The Atlantic Ocean is a very large place to be with someone you don’t like, don’t trust, don’t respect.

But Marin and I got on well and I agreed to join his 4-man crew. Suddenly I found myself at a press conference in the VIP suite of the ten-pin bowling alley in the local shopping centre telling Slovenian television why I had always wanted to row the Atlantic Ocean. There were rows of microphones on the table, spotlights on our faces and even those little triangles of cardboard with our names on, like you see at the United Nations. It all appealed tremendously to my enjoyment of the absurd.

There have been times in the last couple of years when I have come very close to swapping what I do for a normal job and normal life. It is so frustrating at times: scrabbling unsuccessfully for sponsors, books not selling as well as I feel they should and insufficient time to tackle projects to the level I demand of myself.

But to be planning a desert crossing one week and an ocean crossing the next is what keeps me persevering. It is more than the pleasant position of doing fun stuff like this for my “job”. The real satisfaction comes from having the freedom to live spontaneously and be able to pursue opportunities and ideas.

We put to sea at the beginning of January.
More to follow.