Welcome back Blog followers and a brilliant 2016 to you.

Here we are at 38,000 feet en-route for Jamaica and the start of our 2016, El Niño year cruising around aimlessly.

As for Robert de Niro, somewhere there's a song with a lyric that says something like "Robert De Niro Talking". Well, seems he's talking to us right now.

We're watching a movie. The Intern. In its first two minutes it seems to sum us up.

Old Bob, as his friends call him is playing a recently retired, business executive. His opening words are,

"As for retirement, that's an ongoing relentless effort in creativity."

"Key to the whole deal is to keep moving. Get get out of the house. Keep moving. I can't explain but it (his intern job) makes me feel part of something."

Well folks, that's us. We're out the house (at 03:45 this morning) and we're moving and "it" for us is exploring the islands and world by boat. So where we gonna go in 2016?

Let's get creative......

The Options from Jamaica.....

1. Columbia, Panama, Galapagos and west
2. Columbia, Panama, Ecuador, park boat and tour Ecuador and Peru
3. Columbia, Panama, Galapagos and back for winter.

2015/2016 is apparently a "Godzilla" year for El Niño. That's newspaper speak for it's likely to be a record breaker. The Pacific is up to 3c warmer than normal meaning the west / east thermocline is lower than normal (stay with me) meaning the Trade Winds are compromised. For us, that means rather than having a pleasant downwind sail all the way west we stand a good chance of hitting no wind or headwinds. That's what makes Option 3 a possibility.

Finding somewhere to park Time Bandit for a few weeks will dictate whether Option 2 is viable.

Whatever happens, we're off to meet up with and tag along with the World ARC fleet at Santa Marta, Colombia and cruise in company as far as the Pacific side of the Panama Canal.

Thereafter we're on our own.

Tune in to find out where we go.

Exciting, isn't it.