A solo, unassisted, non-stop circumnavigation of the world

Announcing my new dream: attempting the world record of oldest person to sail non-stop, unassisted, solo around the world via the five Great Capes.

The old saying has it that Mohammad must go to the mountain, the mountain cannot come to Mohammad. Well, last week, the mountain came to me.

Suddenly, there it was in front of me, in all of its daunting, even taunting presence, daring me to boldly accept its inconceivable challenge. Climb me! I have arrived, your next mountain. The one you were born to face.

And in that instant, all peripheral distractions fell away into the insubstantial, ethereal mists, dousing the gloom of a survivor’s melancholic meandering.

And so it creeps in, silently, on mouse-stalking pads. Just when I thought I was done, that there no more mountains to conquer - the first solo circumnavigation and cancer having knocked me flat. Grateful, of course, for having survived both. Though perhaps survivors bounce back with renewed vigour for pushing boundaries; perhaps they were the necessary precursors, simmering in the undergrowth, awaiting the right conditions to bud.

Yes, everything needs the right conditions. Nothing comes from nothing. Having tasted Death’s sickly breath, undefeated Life bursts free of its crippling cage.

Inspiration is everywhere to be found, in the boldness of others. Jeanne Socrates is now in her early eighties, still sprightly as a diminutive naiad. I lean into her sparkling wake and feel myself towed under.

“How old were you,” I ask her, “when you completed your last solo circumnavigation?”

77 years, 21 days.

And the final piece of my puzzle falls into place. It’s not so far off. Really only another couple of years in which to prepare, to find the right boat, to learn all that needs to be learned about such things as long-distance provisioning, and now, the Rules of the game: non-stop, unassisted, solo, no engine, crossing the equator twice to round the antipodean point in the opposite hemisphere, passing below the five great capes. I guess I need to tell someone, not just sail off quietly and return even more quietly, like last time.

And so the dream is born, in all its belly-tingling, fluttering excitement.

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