We’ve put together this 2010 highlight reel for all our owners, guests and well- anyone who has ever had interest in playing in the Indian Ocean as we covered just about all of it this past season. This will be mostly a slideshow from the field but I’ll give you a little run-down as well. Don’t miss the slideshow at the end!
We recently completed two incredible sponsorship deals. One for Eddie Bauer/First Ascent which was sealed up this week and includes some very cool future video dispatches for Outside TV. The other with well-respected Niviuk Paragliders, who are now supplying the expedition with freestyle and acro wings for our upcoming flying expedition in Namibia, as well as planned future flying missions on The Best Odyssey. These two events made me realize two things. 1) We’ve come a long way from wandering around tradeshows disguised as magazine editors trying to get anyone with a pulse to talk to us and 2) we’ve learned a few things about not only getting sponsored, but creating a great relationship that is beneficial to both parties.
In the 2 1/2 days between 14 day back to back trips I found myself deflated and exhausted. A common theme of these logs I know. Less than 60 hours to clean, provision, complete necessary maintenance, handle all the administrative tasks, take on fuel, propane- all the things that happen behind the scenes that are so necessary to keep Discovery on the move. Yet I hear again and again, from just about everyone who boards that I must have the best job in the world. Hmmm. My house has guests visiting 200+ days every year. It is small (as houses go), always on the move, in constant need of repair; and my office, bed, bathroom and only place to be “alone”, is the size of a large closet and shared with my partner Jody.
After our 30 day Cargados trip I was looking forward to 8 badly needed days of rest in Reunion with no clients and no guests. I’d researched all the surf waves and paragliding sites over a year ago and couldn’t wait to taste the goods. I should have known better. Maintenace alone took the better part of a week. Continued engine worries, a number of canvas and sail projects, burned out battery charger- the list kept growing. And then 48 hours before our planned departure things went from bad to awful. We’d flown our wonder chef Bobby back to Jakarta for the week so he could meet his new daughter, who was born in February. I’d received a number of emails all week about how good everything was going with his family and how excited he was to return. I drove to the airport to pick him up, but he didn’t show. I assumed he’d just missed a connection, but learned shortly thereafter from his first wife (Bobby has two wives) that he been very badly injured in a car crash en route to the airport in Jakarta on his way back to Discovery. We were told he had a broken back, badly damaged face, hands and one knee; and of course would not be returning to the boat.
Come aboard the Best Odyssey with superstar Ben Wilson for the swell of the decade in Sumbawa.
Join Moehau Goold, Mauricio Abreu, and Josh Mulcoy on a kitesurfing expedition in the middle of the Pacific, a lone island in Micronesia