The voyage ended up taking eight years. How do you plan for something like that?
I had some experience with big trips. I rowed across the Atlantic in 2013. At first, I tried to fund this new journey by pitching it as a film project. Unfortunately, producers weren’t lining up to pay for a potentially decade-long timeline plus a lot of risk. By 2015, I was 33. I figured I’d waited long enough. I started a crowdfunding website, which over the course of my travels raised close to $150,000. I left Toronto on a canoe with a barrel of food, a drone and video editing equipment.
Three things will help you on a trip like this: flexibility, patience and, especially, the kindness of strangers. I kept meeting lovely people who lent me gear.Oh, no. I had Google Maps. I wasn’t trying to be tech-free about it.I cycled from Victoria to San Francisco and then joined a friend on a nine-metre sailboat for a 25-day sail to Hawaii. I stayed there for three months and mowed lawns to make money. Then I sailed alone for 21 days to the Marshall Islands. That part was challenging.
Not yet. I felt like I was doing exactly what I was put on this earth to do. Once I healed, I sailed and biked through the south of China all the way to Malaysia, eventually kayaking across the Malacca Strait, the world’s busiest shipping lane. I was lucky to avoid other ships and the massive tidal waves. Once I hit land again, I was running extremely low on funds. So I started a YouTube vlog to raise money. The donations I received there kept me afloat.
No. I’ll eventually head to Tofino, where I’ll surf every day and grow food to sell. I have no money, so I’m going to work on a book and a film about my experience and try to land a grant.Physically, I’ve lost my hair and I carry around a few more aches and pains. Mentally, the trip humbled me. It helped me accept that I’m not in control. I spent two ten-day stints doing Vipassana meditation, which allowed me to let go of a lot of anxiety.