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Ocean Film Festival Tour Magazine - 2023 Virtual Edition

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Where are they now? cont...

nico edwards: All aboard for a lifetime of carefree

adventure! The 2017 film Sea Gypsies featured the 120ft

sailing boat Infinity (rescued from a scrap yard) and

her ragtag crew, on a never-ending voyage of nomadic

exploration. In Sea Gypsies we joined the tribe as they

ventured from New Zealand to Patagonia via Antarctica,

and their adventures since then have been no less thrilling.

Since 2017, Infinity has been on two major expeditions.

In 2018 she did a very long version of the Northwest

Passage: from Fiji to Amsterdam, over the top of Canada.

And in 2022 she went back to Antarctica, so late in the

season that she was the only ship down there.

“The 2018 Northwest Passage was pretty brutal and completely amazing,” says Nico

Edwards, Infinity’s resident filmmaker. “Hot air at the North Pole pushed the ice south into

the passage, clogging it up to the point that locals told us it was the most ice they had seen

in summer in living memory. Infinity got stuck a number of times and we were beginning to

prepare ourselves for overwintering, but we got through by the skin of our teeth.”

Nico is currently editing footage of the expedition, and we hope to show it in a forthcoming

Ocean Film Festival. Watch this space!

KARLIS BARDELIS: In 2018 we met Latvian adventurers

Kārlis Bārdelis and Gints Barkovskis, who became the

first ever team to row across the South Atlantic Ocean, as

documented in the film Touched by the Ocean. The pair had

plenty of enthusiasm but no rowing experience... which

made it an interesting voyage!

Gints was content to hang up his paddles when they

reached Brazil, but for Kārlis the adventure was just

getting going. From Brazil he cycled 5,400km across the

continent to Lima in Peru. He then rowed solo from Peru

to Malaysia, a journey that took nearly two years (stopping

at a few islands along the way), becoming the first person

to row from South America to Asia.

After a covid-enforced break, Kārlis was back in Malaysia for the final leg of his journey.

Aiming for Tanzania, he hit many challenges on his return to Africa, with huge waves and

strong winds blowing him off course. Despite that, his six-year circumnavigation of the world

was unprecedented, earning him six world records.

Karlis explained what motivates him to do all these crazy adventures: “I can’t imagine not

doing the things I do. I’ve got 99 problems, but motivation isn’t one of them!”

UK & IRELAND OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL TOUR

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