Remote Island Life sailing Mermaid reef to free diving the aquarium - Ep 125

Remote Island Life sailing from Mermaid reef to freediving the aquarium – Ep 125

“This is s***!” said a fellow sailor who had just picked up a mooring at the stunning Mermaid Reef – one of three remote atolls in the Rowley Shoals 170 nautical miles off the Western Australia coast. “You should check out Clerke Reef, it’s waaay better.” So we did and we were not disappointed; indeed it was sublime.

On arrival we got sweaty on the beach with a workout guided by the earthy boat people Kyle and Hayley of @thewholesomesailors.

We also let Declan relieve Rob of cooking duties as he had apparently done all the cooking – or so he reckoned – and it was about time someone else took up the reigns.

Thank you for helping keep us afloat and supporting the creative process. You can be part of the crew for less than the price of a coffee.
https://www.patreon.com/CruisingKiwis

A friend of ours has also set up crypto wallets if you’d like to contribute to our maintenance fund that way:
BITCOIN
bc1qds53n9tqepxvauqn9dygtczltyu6genkfp9a8a
ETHEREUM
0xB4Cb9e1Aa9c000055DAde5E077809B904EE34CDD
CARDANO
addr1q9xw6hjjqlad7av2k6facn0277u3q4tylrpyev9x9zs54vjva409ypl6ma6c4d5nm3x74aaezp2kf7xzfjc2v29pf2eqrf7zaz
Dash
Xh5xLgH4oQ4pwM6V3d9r96A52R6ckereTz
DOGE
DQGxY6Cak3AuuihR8R7iQHNcBp25z9WnMa

Thank you and much love to you all.
Rob, Rachel, Finn, Declan, Ivan
https://www.patreon.com/CruisingKiwis

MUSIC
Kaina – Hold fast
Kaina – Hold fast instrumental
David Mumford – Ball and chain

Thank you to Chasing Eden and Graeme Pollick for supplementary video footage

BACK STORY
In 1997, after rowing at the Atlanta Olympics, Rob decided to row a tiny seven-metre plywood boat, 2500 miles from Tenerife in the Canary Islands to Barbados in the Caribbean. It took 6 weeks and he and his rowing partner, Phil Stubbs, won the inaugural Atlantic Rowing Race. His first taste of a blue water ocean crossing.
Skip forward to 2014 and, married with three children, Rob and Rachel purchased Javelot a 43 ft Fountaine Pajot catamaran. Armed only with Rob’s 3 years of racing P class yachts from the age of 11 to 13, and Rachel’s non existent sailing knowledge, we set off to learn the ropes of ocean sailing. We broke stuff, replaced stuff and got to know our boat before heading offshore with the kids, Finn 19, Declan 17 and Ivan 14, in tow. Through trial and error, we have become confident wayfarers, kind of.
Our plan? To sail around the world.
Part of the journey will be retracing Rob’s eldest brother Kerry’s travels at sea. Using Kerry’s original letters from the 1970’s we will re trace his movements from Australia through Indonesia and South East Asia to Cambodia where Kerry’s life was cut short after straying into Cambodian waters in 1978. Kerry and two friends were attacked by a Khmer Rouge gun boat, captured, tortured and executed. www.brothernumberone.co.nz
*****
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