I picked up the hand mike and peered out of the cabin window, the sea was still almost flat calm and the wind light the Atlantic-Eclipse was chunking gracefully through the water at the 12 knots set by the autonav system, so why was base calling when they knew I'd gone for a kip whist the waves were quiet.

"Plymstock Base - Atlantic Eclipse receiving, over"

"Eclipse, Plymstock. Sorry to disturb you old chum but we've got a nasty creeping down on you from the north, should be with you in about three to four hours, over."

I reached into a cabinet beside the remote set and pulled out a pair of Ibuprofens before I replied, "Plymstock - Eclipse, No problem Luke, what's coming?"

There was a slight pause as Luke's worried voice poured out of the tiny speaker, "Eclipse, Plymstock, I've got the full SP and I'll send it out over the sat-fax as soon as we've done. Meanwhile what your looking at is Wind veering South South West and gusting 40, Rain Imminent and the sea state is moderate to heavy, which according to our naval chums at the Admiralty means a wave height 12 to 15 feet, over"

"Plymstock - Eclipse, well I was bound to run into some weather sooner or later and that doesn't seem to severe, I'll batten down everything and call back in one hour, over and out."

 "Eclipse - Plymstock, stay lucky Steve, Plymstock out." Luke's voice faded out.

The Ibuprofen's had started to kick in as I pulled my joggers and sea boots on, I grabbed my well worn Arran jumper and pulled it over my head. Time for better preparation and mode of dress later. I opened the cabin door and pulled myself up the short steps into the wheelhouse where I could see through about 270 degrees. Everywhere was calm, the sea had a gently swell of less than a foot. I looked down at the binnacle and the compass was showing west north west and the digital readout above the front window was showing 295° WNW as if to confirm.

*          *          *          *          *

'This will be my first dose of really stiff weather' I mused

*          *          *          *          *

I had been on boats of all shapes and sizes  but never until I had set sail from Bridlington harbour had I ever captained my own boat or anyone else's for that matter. Previously I had seen quite a bit of the world but then settled down into the family man and children routine, then build your own business and make a fortune or in my case lose a fortune as I was more inclined to see my customers happy than I was me, rich. So the story goes soldier of the world, intrepid adventurer and bug hunter, dad of six,  happy traveller, corporate grafter, entrepreneur that got pruned and before I set out I was happy looking after three waifs that had been classed as severe learning disorder, autism, asberger's, epilepsy the poor guys have more ailments between them than you'd find in a small hospital. Many people , my mother included turned their noses up when I informed them of my new career twist. It was no easy job, one day you'd go in and get a scalp massage from one of them, the next day one of them would try to throw a three seater settee at you (he picked it up - just couldn't figure out how to throw it was all - thank goodness!) and the next day they'd just try and strangle you, but I believe we helped to make their lives a little more bearable. It was one of the few jobs I'd ever had in my life that was stress free, I'd been in more bar fights when I was younger and even been caught up in a particularly nasty mutiny which was more like an unarmed two day battle between the military police and 2 squadrons of rock apes (RAF Regiment).

The need to travel can be suppressed but it can never be erased. I have always been dreaming about the adventures yet to come. Even through this fading maelstrom of a headache I feel truly at peace with the world, no one to shout down your yer wattle about how this should be done, no petrol stations, irate lorry drivers, shopping expeditions. Just me 'n the sea, quite a few fish, on my quest to travel around the boundaries of the Atlantic Ocean. Which sounds easy to say but at a minimum possible distance of some 33,670 miles was going to take me anything from 9 months to 15 months depending on weather, breakdowns and the Bureaucrats of over 30 countries before I'll be back in British waters

*          *          *          *          *

Pondering over and done with, I turned my attentions completely to the surrounding water & sky. The motors slow bumbling drone had become silent to my ears, all I could here was the surging bow wave coursing through the dark cold water of the Atlantic, as the Eclipse slapped the ocean out of her way, the bubbling wake made by the twin screws which were churning the water behind us into a boiling broth. Blue Sea everywhere you looked no smoke, no ships, I had never ever been this far away from my fellow man before in my life and I'd never had so much water beneath the soles of my Nike's before - that was two more firsts!

Satisfied that all was well, I began scouring through the charts in the mini filing cabinet screwed to the wall of the wheelhouse, so many maps I needed only two at this time and these I clipped to the pull out map table when I found them. I had intended to use only manual navigation techniques but I'd been so wildly off plot that it was deemed foolhardy to continue. Sony had given me a rootin' tootin' digital sextant that you programmed in a few salient points like North/South hemisphere which even I could figure that one out, date and year, time it already had, point at the sun and clicked a button. Hey Presto! latitude & longitude which I wrote in pencil on the map. This next bit was pretty straight forward to me as I'd spent some thirteen years in the military and some four years wandering Europe and messing around in a desert or two.

It puts me . . . finger on the map . . . there, mark with an x - over to the GPS - main menu - data log - current position - Enter and another hey presto a match give or take 10 seconds. I spent the next few minutes  to thirty minutes working out how far since the last waypoint and beggar me we were actually going almost the exact way I'd wished for. Elated was not the word, I was consumed with self praise. Another 75 miles and I'd be entering the inshore map of the east coast of Greenland.

The largest town is on this frozen western coastline and its my first port of call, where I intend to get some real sleep and a proper meal and hopefully refuel before pressing on to Nanortalik for another big sleep before reaching the capital, Godthåb on the west coast some 700 miles further round and the last port of call before I had the 900 mile crossing over to Baffin Island in Canada's Northern Territories. The first's just keep lining up and I keep knocking them down.

  I fingered through the Greenland chart, till a red outlined box caught my eye about 20 miles off the coastline and about 30 miles square, it was labelled maritime Hazard Karver Pinnacles. Karver would be about right I reckoned I was at least 90 miles from there right now. A place to keep in mind. I looked out of the wheelhouse at the approaching storm. If I can hold this course through this blanket of bad weather I should pass approx 20 miles to the north of the Karver rocks and 20 miles seems a long way to be blown off course, I felt wary but confident that I would adjust speed and heading a bit further to the north to make doubly sure.

Time to check and batten down everything that wasn't already nailed down. I started with the wheelhouse, which was not exactly huge, but all the windows and the rear doors were all double panelled and had to be checked to make certain they were all locked down firmly. No second chances when you are alone and in a delicate position. I worked my way from the stem to the stern, all two cabins and three storage holes, checking every thing I could think of or see. It didn't take too long, next it was me. I went back down into the main cabin and dressed for the occasion. Normally I wouldn't even come out of my bunk without first putting on my light weight wet, a Arran or Gansey for warmth and topped off with my Force 10 Psycho Orange flotation Suit. This may seem a bit extreme but I'd spent a long time in getting this project off the ground and I didn't wish for it to end with a single dunking in the North Atlantic. I quickly finished off by filling my pockets with two hi-yield energy bars and a packet of minstrels for the time I could go - phewww! Now I was ready to face anything - I hoped!

The boat was small to tackle this job, but it was based on a Humber Boats 10 metre RIB or rigid inflatable boat, I'd had the superstructure designed by me and made by our local harbour Ship wrights in Bridlington. Essentially it was a floating fuel tank with a bunk and storage for food and stuff, everyone tried to tell me that an internal diesel motor would be better, my thinking was that if the motor was inboard then It would take up far too much room. Besides I had been using Honda's all my life and never ever had a problem with one of their engines, so with two large outboards fettled for lean burn I could go round the world and back 10 times and still feel safe. Back in the wheelhouse I glared at the blackening clouds and freshening wind, the tough approach I found often worked best, then I figured respect would be better and resorted to: 'Please be gentle with me - its my first time!' -  I'm not proud, if pleading keeps the skin on my bones then its a result.

I had considered passing the rest of the time till I was needed just fishing, The freezer still had several large cod fillets and a few other assorted fish in it but I was too restless to fish. The black clouds looked to be still quite a ways off and although the swell and the wind were building steadily, my tension was building at twice the speed. I turned to the control panel and flipped up another gizmo from our wonderful friends at Sony, it was a splashproof Vaio laptop with inbuilt GPS and satellite communications suite for voice, keyboard and video. I selected the logbook entry mode and began typing in Day 16, 18.12 hrs Zulu and began tapping away with all that had occurred since the last entry some 6 hours ago, there was not a lot to tell. I clicked on Send next connection so that when I called Chris in about an hours time the log entry would automatically reroute to the Plymstock PC and enter it in the main Quest logbook stored there. Two copies of everything.

I decided to go fill up the Coffee Jug and make some nice cod, cheese and mayo sandwiches for later on when almost certainly I would have no time for anything apart from wrestling with the boat. I kept going over and over in my mind; 'Beam on is a killer - the only way to tackle the sea is head on and look for the gaps between the crests after they collide!' It was another pearl of wisdom from another one of my new maritime friends, I only hope to god he was right. I would do it his way initially then if I survived it would prove him right, Hmmm????

I was getting confused now, concern and tension were mounting as the sky grew ever darker, I was beginning to feel as if someone was closing my book and the hairs on the back of my neck felt like marlin spikes. A glance over to the RADAR display showed nothing at all even at the maximum range of 30 miles, I was alone. I had never felt so alone before, my mind wandered back to a time that felt similar staring down at the corpse of a young lad of possibly seventeen summers, his face had been frozen with what I could only call surprise that is if a face with no nose could look surprised. My bullet had been true and had caught him in the middle of his face a face that haunts me even to this day, it casts me into a deep pit of despair with walls like a fortress covered in slime. That was a different kind of loneliness, the crampons that helped me climb the walls of that fortress were the faces of the women and children staring out at me as I walked back to the convoy, the rifle felt like it had been welded to my hand.

It all seemed to happen at once, my despair that threatened to engulf me was dashed by the walls of water that were now all around me.