Ocean Film Festival Tour Magazine - 2023 Virtual Edition

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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