I’ve been jammed full of great ideas (at the time) for many, many years. Since I could first talk, my mother might have said.

One of these great ideas was to buy an ocean cruising boat, just in case we could, one day, escape the rat race and retire at an age when we could manage the rigours of crossing oceans. Little did I know, the most taxing rigour, other than dancing around on the foredeck fighting a giant spinnaker pole, largely revolved around how best to keep one’s liver in decent shape.

Anyway, the “great idea” sprang from an event that you will best enjoy reading about in my “Forthcoming Book”. That event subsequently led to a lazy evening fiddling about on that amazing piece of time-wasting technology; the Internet.

It was while indulging in this invaluable research that I found the first Time Bandit, now known as Beige Bandit.

Long story, kept brief here so as not to spoil your future reading pleasure, in early 2008, we ended up buying Beige Bandit. It was all just perfect. The right spec, the right size, the right type of boat for our planned future endeavours and, most importantly, the right exchange rate. You see, Beige Bandit was a continent and an ocean away in Boston, USA.

Undeterred, we pushed ahead with the purchase and, come May 2008 we hopped on a flight across, “The Pond” to toss the boat in the water and sail it home to Scotland.

It was while we were somewhere over the aforementioned ocean that I glanced out the window. Down below, at sea level, there was mayhem. Even from thirty thousand feet you could tell it was absolutely honking. Huge foaming breakers leaving trails of spume and foam in their path.

“Oh oh.” I thought. “Maybe we’ve bitten off more than we could chew. Just four of us in our little boat in amongst that vastness.”

Obviously, we made it, relatively unscathed and it will make for a jolly good read. I hope.

Two days ago, on a flight to Puerto Montt, Chile, I once again looked out the window.

“Oh oh.” I thought. “Maybe we’ve bitten off more than we could chew.”

We were returning to South America to continue our attempt to motorcycle around its classic biking routes, power across miles of salt flats in Bolivia and zig-zag across the Andes, hopefully getting good weather to gawk at the Torres Del Paine and Aconcagua.

However, looking down, from horizon to horizon the mountains, through which I was planning to ride in just a few days were plastered in deep, freezing snow.

Another “great idea at the time.” So, here we go again. South America part ll.