These photos were taken a long time ago, but my attitude towards adventure hasn't waned. I spent most of my teenage years in Devon. As well as going to school I spent many of my holidays exploring Dartmoor on horseback and later on foot. I had a go at canoeing and dinghy sailing, as well as the Ten Tors and attended an outward bound course in Wales. By the time I had reached the age of 16, I had crossed the English Channel to France and the Channel Islands, by yacht, with the Ocean Youth Club and was also an active member of the Dartmoor Recue Group.

I spent so much time in the outdoors as a teenager that it was only luck that I managed to get to university and achieve a BA degree! I travelled extensively in my holidays to France, Germany and Holland in one trip, daring myself and a friend to hitch hike through East Germany to Berlin and across the Berlin Wall to the East. A further trip took me down to Greece and, in the cold depths of winter, with a companion travelled to Spain and across to Morocco. After graduating I took time out to work on kibbutzim in Israel. Hard work , but it satisfied my fascination for other cultures and their lives.

Returning to England, I found a job in London where not long after I met Geoff, who was to be part of my adventure through life to come.

We were reunited in New Zealand in 1979 after a year apart - I had to complete a teacher training course. We spent a year travelling to the Pacific Islands, Australia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Kenya. Working in London for two years we set off yet again for a year travelling to the Caribbean Islands, Venezuala, Ecuador, the Galapagos, through the Darien Gap on foot from Columbia to Panama and further on to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico and the USA to Washington.

Back in London, in the same jobs, we planned our next adventure. Inspired by the sailing adventures of the 19 foot yacht "Shrimpy" and the earlier adventures of the Hiscocks, we decided to fly back to New Zealand and buy a yacht and sail it via the Great Barrier Reef, Asia, Sri Lanka and the Red Sea back to England.

The 1933 yacht "Corsair" was bought in Auckland in 1986 and slowly refurbished but only scantily equipped we set off in July 1987 for Fiji. What an ordeal it was! The wind constantly blew from the North and our plans for going to Fiji were dashed. Even Norfolk Island was a difficult prospect.

After 10 days, the wind finally moved round to the south east as we hit the trade winds and some 7 days later, we spotted Amadee lighthouse at the entrance to Port Noumea. We breathed a sigh of relief as we only had a cheap plastic sextant for navigation and we were never really sure where we were. Our sea legs were well and truly established when we set ashore on the Noumea wharf and found it hard to co ordinate properly for a few hours.

Three months later we made the 8 day trip to Bundaberg in Australia and spent the next few months sailing and exploring the islands and anchorages of the Great Barrier Reef and other sheltered harbours along the east coast.
1988 was to be a big change in our lives as late in the year we made landfall in Papua New Guinea and stayed for nearly 10 years.

After a brief trip by plane back to New Zealand to finalise our PNG work visas, we returned to start our first teaching job in a remote part of the Gulf Province. We couldn't take Corsair with us so we left her on a mooring in Bootless Bay, under the watchful eye of Ron Prior, for 18 months . We visited in the holidays to tidy up and relax, snorkelling and sailing on and around the nearby islands and reefs.

1991 we set sail again to the western part of PNG after securing jobs on the island of Daru (the "town of a 100 good mornings" we called it as we had to say good morning 100 times every day walking to work each day from the harbour). It is situated a couple of hundred kilometres north of Thursday Island in the northern Torres Strait. We stayed here for nearly four years working hard for this period entertaining, teaching and being entertained by the richness of cultures that abound in this region. This was a place where being alive was feeling alive and we were privileged to be part of it.