Bottled Messages

I suddenly inherit a big amount of money... somehow; and I decide to go to Southampton and buy a sailing boat, leave all my stuff in a warehouse, and head on to America, sailing south towards the Canary Islands and take "the highway", which are the trade winds, also called the trades, which blow 30º from the the north-east in the Northern Hemisphere... During the trip, I started to write a diary of my lonely solitaire journey, plus due the lack of someone to speak to, I start to set film a diary with my underwater camera... For doing so, I organized quite a few batteries in a charger system which takes the energy from the wind and the water itself, so I can avoid to take the energy to charge them from the main batteries which take the energy from the engine, and therefore, avoid the necessity to switch it on and save the gas oil to when is really needed. I can easily edit the filmed diary through the camera, and I go across a journey of images of the ocean and interaction of the boat's elements with it, my interaction with the boat, the movement, and the exploration of my mind, which blows feelings, thoughts, confessions and hopes all the way through nice soft weather, to stormy ones, day and night, moments of relaxation, boredom, craziness an exhaustion. As is an underwater camera, I manage to hold it on the chain which attaches the anchor, with a view of the boat underwater, once I reach the tropic islands in America, and add clips of an underwater dance... After staying for a few days recuperating from the Atlantic, I stop in a tropical port, refill the gas oil tanks and water ones, buy some food and head to Panama. From there I cross to the Pacific and start heading north sailing close to the coast. I bought a number of bottles, corks and wax sealant in one of the ports I've been, because I have an impulse to throw messages to the sea, with parts of the writing diary... All of them have an initial page which says "Over the vast ocean of life you may feel at times you are lost, that you are alone... but you found this message because you need to know one thing: You are not alone, and someone may be looking for you in this vastness, just feeling as lost and lonely as you"... I put this message in 3 different languages, English, French and Spanish. The last bottle I had left, I considered it as special one, and therefore, I thought I had to put something even more risky, more personal, like if it was the final explosions of a firework celebration... So I passed the 2h film I got from the film diary, excerpts of the last few months in the sea plus an email to contact me, to the laptop, and place a copy in a SD card, wrapped it with cling film to protect it, put it in the last bottle with the page of the initial message and throw it to the sea. By that moment, I was already in USA coast line, California, and I stop in one of its ports. Contact my friend Ricardo and meet up with him in LA, where he was having a fashion show for his last collection, and invited me to high style parties and that. I decided that my trip was ended with the boat, so I sold it over there. Soon after I received an email regarding someone had found the last bottle with the film, and wanted to meet up in LA, this person resulted being a producer who wanted to buy the rights for making a film of "my story", as he found it a very original...', and I thought, 'Yeah, and I'll probably be upset because they would change the script into something else! ha ha ha... 'Well, doesn't matter, as long as I get the money to keep going my trip, they can do what they want!!' So I sold the rights for the film for a big amount of money, spent a month with my friend visiting parts of USA, and decided to go treking Nepal towards the city of Kathmandu. Over there, I spent a couple of months chanting mantras in a Buddhist monastery, and then keep my journey towards China, by train, and following the Great Wall of China. Then, I left the boots and the backpack behind and head to the islands of South-east Asia, where I had all the fruits I never imagined they existed, went to Gamelan music concerts while visiting Bali and Java. After that, I head to Australia, and went to see the Uluru, and head south to the city, where I met some people who were preparing an expedition to Antarctica. I told them them my story, and were pretty amazed. They told me I was the type of person they were looking for, to join them in the next expedition to film a documentary of Antarctica and the impact of global warming, plus also related to the impact of those changes in the life of the white bear. I accepted and joined them. I spent a couple of months in an icebreaker... very cold. After the documentary was finished, we changed boats and head to South America crossing the Roaring Forties... I remember the art work of Tacita Dean during those days of stormy sea and insane winds... and arrive finally to Tierra de Fuego, in Argentina, passed through Comodoro Rivadabia, say goodbye to the last bit of the team that was left, and head north. I stayed a couple of months in Buenos Aires, learning Tango, and flirting loads,then I got bored and head to the Amazons, then to Colombia, Peru and the Machu Pichu, and went back to the tropics, then to Mexico and Costa Rica. I was particularly keen to spend more time in those last ones as there were the countries I passed my childhood, and I was glad to visit them again...',