How to use Archives?

Below you will find our first news which we published on www.aroundtheworld.pl in June 2006.

All the other messages are listed in “Blog Archive” on your right side, with the newest on top. Enjoy!

how all that started...

Hallo everybody!

We would like to tell you our story which for us is really a fairy-tale in reality…

We met in May 2005 at our friends’ house. Mikolaj’s best friend had just married Patrycja’s best friend and both of us had come to visit at the same time. When we first saw each other, something really powerful sparkled between our eyes…

Mikolaj told us he had just quit a job as a marketing director. After six years spent in an office he was about to leave Poland and devote himself to sailing; his lifelong passion. His first step was to go to Montenegro, and he did not know when he would be returning. Recently he had met Jurek - a Polish yachtsman, who had been sailing for the last thirty years onboard his steel ketch, covering over 220,000NM including a 7-year-long cruise around the world. Mikolaj had been taken on as 1^st Mate and Bosun for the fully booked charter season that lay ahead.

Listening to the stories about the sea, the experienced yachtsman and his unbelievable adventures, Patrycja - on that first evening - decided to spend her holiday on a cruise in Montenegro (and with Mikolaj).

So we had only two weeks… We spent a lot of time talking and soon found out that we wanted to travel together. Mikolaj had a dream to sail around the world… O.K. We will sail together!

We didn’t quite know how or when it would start, but we were sure we would do it.

Our first idea was to persuade Mikolaj’s captain to sail around the world again – this time with us. With such a grand thought Mikolaj had left Poland leaving Patrycja alone but not sad.

Mikolaj then spent the next eight months in Montenegro. During that time we kept in contact by e-mails and text, and managed to visit each other twice. The first time was when Mikolaj managed to get a break between charters and had flown to Poland, and the second was when Patrycja came to Montenegro on her sailing holiday. However, when we spoke to Mikolaj’s captain about our idea we realized that unfortunately he had no such plans in the near future. So, we started to think about other possibilities for our dream to come true. Maybe on our own yacht? :)

After coming back from her holidays Patrycja found out she had lost her permanent job as a DJ at a commercial radio station. This was not a tragedy for her because as a freelance music journalist she still had contacts with many people in the media. To tell the truth it was even better! Now both of us were as free as birds… Mikolaj decided to come back and we started to look for jobs so we could save money for our own yacht, and most importantly, as we had found it hard being apart, now being together again was so wonderful.

Time was moving on, and we were becoming impatient. We realised that it would take us at least a year to save money for our little sailing yacht, and another year to prepare her for such a big voyage. Our dream was beginning to look more and more distant…

One night the turning-point happened. Mikolaj was spending hour after hour surfing the Internet, and Patrycja was falling asleep. He was checking his profile on the Find a Crew website, and watching the profiles of the boat owners. Suddenly he had a brainwave. He turned to Patrycja, with madness in his eyes and whispered: “Why not do it by yacht hitch-hiking? Look, there are hundreds of boats looking for crew!” Indeed, you do not need to buy a brewery in order to drink beer!

The idea was so crazy that Patrycja immediately woke up and right away we registered on Find a Crew as a team. Two weeks later we boarded on a beautiful wooden classic schooner Soteria!

The time between our decision to go and our departure was only five days… of madness. We had to pack and move out of our flat and arrange many other things. We slept eight hours altogether. In the last 24h we did not sleep at all, and we had a list of all the things that we still had to do. We counted down from our flight departure, and allocated time for each task to within half an hour. When that moment finally arrived Patrycja’s mother came 300km to say farewell and gave us some of our favourite Polish sausages to help us on our way :))

Our trip around the world combines our greatest passions – sailing, travelling, music and radio. Having a little money we know it will be a great challenge for us but we are determined and our skills we shall keep up our sleeve ready to draw them out when needed. Our enthusiasm, knowledge and creativity for sure will help us. All the time we are accompanied by camera, microphone, video camera and laptop. On our website there are more and more photos and reports from the first stage of our journey. Soon one can find here also short movies and podcasts – internet “radio” shows (for free downloading) full of alternative music we find on our way, interviews with interesting people we meet and reportages from all stages of our voyage.

Portslade by Sea, UK, June 2006

“We do believe that dreams come true but only if we make them real…”

Patrycja & Mikolaj