Sailors Complete Circumnavigation Dream

Sept. 20, 2011 - PRLog -- Having set off from Gibraltar’s Ocean Village back on 26 October 2009, nearly two years and 35,000 nautical miles later intrepid duo Pete Callis and John Hazell made a triumphant return to the marina at the end of August on their 43ft Bruce Roberts Norfolk sailing boat.  Participants in the 2009 – 2011 Blue Water Rally, Pete and John were rewarded with a full Irish breakfast at O’Reilly’s accompanied by a chilled bottle of Moët & Chandon courtesy of Ocean Village.  

Pete describes their epic adventure, “Both John and I had always dreamt of circumnavigating the world but as novice sailors who’d never done an ocean passage we decided to sign-up with Blue Water Rallies to achieve that dream.  We left our wives at home and took what was now our new residence, our steel-hulled yacht Faï Tira, and embarked on a journey that took us from Gibraltar’s Ocean Village to Lanzarote, Antigua, Panama, Galapagos, Marquesas, Tuamotus, Society Islands, Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and Oman where unfortunately we ran into a few pirate problems.”

Pete continues, “We had some incredible high- and low-lights.  We will never forget the beauty of swimming with sea lions in the Galapagos or admiring the whales at the Great Barrier Reef and neither will we lose touch with the many different kinds of people we met along the way.  The strangest element was probably being all alone in this massive ocean.  Our longest passage was 24 days and we did not see another boat or another soul for the duration.  It’s been pretty life changing.”

The Blue Water Rally was established in 1997 following the success of the RAF Yacht Club's 1995 round the world Tradewinds Rally when 38 boats left Gibraltar.  Since its formation, Blue Water Rallies has organised eight world rallies and enabled over 200 owners and hundreds of crew members to realise their dream of a circumnavigation.

Sadly the 2009 – 2011 Rally goes  down in history as the last as the organizers had to cancel the current event due to the economic downturn and a dramatic rise in piracy in the Indian Ocean which shows little prospect of resolution.  

To stay up to date with events at Ocean Village keep an eye on Ocean Village’s Official FaceBook Group - https://www.facebook.com/OceanVillageGibraltarOFFICIAL or follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/OceanVillageGib.

-ends-
for further press information or photography please contact Sarah Drane
on sarah@purplecakefactory.com or telephone 00 34 607 564 726

# # #

About Ocean Village - Gibraltar's Ocean Village is fast-gathering a reputation for being the rising star in the superyacht arena and is now competing with the most established marinas across the Mediterranean.
Located on the west side of Gibraltar, Ocean Village is the most sheltered marina in the region with close-up views of Africa some 14km across the Straits. As the ‘gateway to the Mediterranean’, it provides a base for sailing across the Atlantic or exploring the marinas and beaches which populate the North African, Spanish and Portuguese coastlines.
Aside from geography, the Rock itself has obvious appeal to yacht owners. Gibraltar has Cat 1 Red Ensign Group status, EU membership and is the most important ship refuelling point in the Mediterranean thanks to cut-price fuel. It also has a favourable system of taxation (including no VAT), a no surprises legal system based on the UK and pound sterling as its currency.