Talisker Bounty Boat headed for Sydney Boat Show..another Kidney stone!..See Food diet!

I am in China at the moment just about to board a plane to the UK and the reception at Chatsworth House with the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire..all very exciting in itself but I will also get to catch up with all our friends at SIF and Diageo head office for our sponsors Talisker. Chris will be there too but unfortunately Dave Pryce can’t make it as he is in Hospital in Hobart as I write this having some wisdom teeth extracted under a General anaesthetic..they survived the Voyage..just!!..and Dave Wilkinson has family and Business pressures so will not make it either.

Hey I may have sounded a bit harsh with my comments on Dave at the end of the expedition..but just want to assure you all that Dave W. was a real asset to the whole voyage in so many ways..I really like the guy and could not have asked for a better shipmate. He added so much colour to every day, you have no idea!!. I fully understand that we are all different and no one is perfect..me included..which is the essence of life and the reason I so enjoy meeting new people from all walks of life…Dave pulled his weight in the big picture, so I am happy that he is a person with passion for his family, friends and work..that is something that is lacking in many people and is to be admired…that is the first ingredient to enjoying life…so in a strange way I did not really care that at the end of the day Dave left a little early…I know Chris and Dave felt the same…The differences in all the crew made the voyage and I am sure you all like reading the opinions and the little dramas as they happened. I look forward to sailing with Dave W again one day with real food!!

On that you may be interested to know that during the voyage we all had uncensored access to write what ever we wanted on the Blog without influence from anyone onboard..in fact we made a point of not reading each others blogs…funny part is I have still been too busy to go back and read what the others have said about me if anything!

It feels as if I have been off the boat for a month already so much has happened, but it is little more than two weeks. I am on a SEE FOOD diet wanting to eat everything I see, but now have to be very careful as my Bounty Belly is starting to come back and the voyage is over! I feel great though and happy to report that my Kidneys seem fine…After my last Blog I spent two days in bed with a bad attack of gout, then I had five days of kidney problems that finally lead to passing another 3mm stone. That was a huge relief as I was starting to think for awhile that it was not a stuck stone, but kidney problems! Margie was very keen to get me back to Australia as soon as possible for medical tests but fortunately it worked out OK. I will have the tests latter. Fortunately Chris, Dave and Jane were able to load the boat onto a truck and get it to the wharf as that last day was the worst and I was stuck in the hotel.

The boat then sailed as Deck cargo on a small freighter to Surabaya where thanks to the efforts of Graeme, it was finally loaded into a container and is now headed to Sydney for the International Boat show starting July 29^th..Dave Chris and I will be at the boat by the main stage so if you can make it see you all there! We have left the boat as we got out of it so check it out!

The 48 envelopes we carried onboard with Pitcairn Island Mutiny on the Bounty stamps were postmarked Ok in Kupang at the end of the Voyage and the Talikser Scotch bottles survived the voyage so watch out for them when we have the SIF auctions latter this year.

I will be Blogging here every Friday now ( as a minimum! ) so check back for news regularly. I have had a few requests to do some corp. presentations about the Talisker Bounty Boat expedition which I would love to do but it comes down to timing. I am all over the place at the moment. If you are interested you can make contact through the web site here. You will need to make a substantial donation to SIF…I will give 100% of your fee to SIF if you cover all my travel expenses..so let me know if you are interested.

The initial plans for the Documentary series are underway and starting to think about the structure of the book. 60 minutes in Australia now look like running the story maybe on the 11^th July in Australia?

Did I tell you that Chinese food is one of my favourites!!! It is so hard to control my desires…!!! Had to buy all new pants yesterday..none of my others fit anymore..My waste has disappeared and when I look in the mirror I still do not recognise myself. When I ran through some of the original video footage of us all the crew at the start..I could not recognise Dave W. and me..wow !! we were porkers!! I know Dave it going to try to keep it off..me too!! Will we succeed??..hope so…all the best..Don