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Actual location and stories in French (but with automatic translation available on the mobile app): https://www.polarsteps.com/Jovolution/4473851-world-tour?s=de91d5f7-025a-454b-bc24-2cb03d130afb

Check out Instagram to get the latest pictures!

2023.03.27: So much has passed and I've been neglecting the website to focus on writing most of the adventure on Polarsteps in French. I find it easier for me to create and for you to visualize the journey at the same time. No need to get an account you can follow the link and check everything out. The automatic translation is unfortunately only available on their mobile app.

Anyway here is a short recap!

I left Chiloé in the beginning of December to reach the far south fast and allow me to find boats going to Antarctica. This wasn't a dream but I wanted to make all the opportunities available to me and not waste them. The journey was sometimes very fast but sometimes very slow, stopping in a camping in Puerto Rio Tranquilo on the Carretera Austral of Chile to work a bit or in Punta Arenas for 2 weeks (Christmas and New Year's Eve) to visit a couple who gave me a ride between El Chalten and El Calafate a bit before.

I had to go to Ushuaia at some point to meet a sailor going to Antarctica I've had contact with online but he declined my help as he was looking for more qualified crew to embark on a tough journey on his little sailboat. After navigating in the canals with other people he finally called me because no one sufficiently qualified was available and we went to Antarctica together! After a month and a half we came back last week and I will leave Ushuaia tomorrow to find other horizons.

2022.12.04: Chiloé Island, South Chile. After crossing Brazil to join Bolivia and I did some volunteering for some weeks with Horizons19 and Apapaya (french organizations helping to educate farmers to live well and efficiently together for the first one and to reforest the Andes for the second one).

I then crossed a big part of Chile in direction of Patagonia.

Tomorrow I will be traveling for one year! Isn't this adventure together incredible?

Contrarywise to what I thought and what one friend told me before I left, I am not tired. I always feel like I'm doing some different in every place I go to and I don't feel like I've seen everything (another traveler doing the same trip told me he had this feeling though). I feel more motivated than ever because I listen to myself, deep inside, to take decisions on my path, which I wasn't doing that much before and at the beginning of the trip, because of a "pressure" of our society but especially because of the one I was putting on myself. I feel free, free but a bit lost sometimes when in front of so many opportunities. But little by little, I am finding a path to follow, internally and geographically.

Thus, this is only starting and I fix a new meeting with you next year!

2022.09.04: In Boa Vista, Brazil! After French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana and a bit of Venezuela, I am back here (had to cross through this city to go to Venezuela) and I am going South very soon.

2022.07.17: I arrived in Suriname a few days ago after having spent a long time of relatively slow paced travel in Guyana, crossing it entirely from West to East (to Brazil!) and vice versa. I was starting to really want to see other countries and I'm still a little lost in front of a map of the world and all that I have left to do!

I don't dwell too much on Paramaribo, the capital. The historic city center has retained the Dutch colonial architecture but it is quickly seen and the rest of the city is not very interesting despite its very large area! The rest is shopping and housing.

What marks Suriname is the diversity of populations, at least as remarkable as French Guiana. Indians, Indonesians, Maroons,... all living next to each other without really mixing (a bit like in French Guiana by the way!). For my part, I manage to speak with everyone to have different points of view.

The truly wild and unique places here are difficult to access, the country seems to exploit its resources well (a lot?) everywhere (sawmills, gold mines, oil) and the fauna is inconspicuous. There are planes or canoes for tourists or locals living in the depths of the jungle, but I prefer to continue on my way.

2022.06.18: I was able to find a boat doing Guadeloupe - Guyana online!

It only remained for me to reach Guadeloupe from Saint Martin. I now know which places to check, I print posters, I put them at the dinghy dock of the anchorage (the place where the boats anchored in the bay can put their small "zodiac" style boat to land) and I take the opportunity to talk to those who pass by when I'm there. I also put it in the ship chandler (boat equipment store) as well as in the laundromat. At the end of the day, a couple from my city in France (Toulouse) met at the dinghy dock invite me for the night and finally for the trip to Guadeloupe too! They continue to Curaçao and believe me I would have loved to come with them but I decided to go to Guyana. About ten days at the yard to repaint (among other things) the boat leaving for French Guyana and off we go!

7 days later (for a navigation supposed to last between 10 and 15 days) we arrived at Saint Laurent du Maroni, from where I am leaving today to slowly reach Kourou. There is an Ariane rocket launch on June 22 that I would like to attend. A plan for the future could be: Cayenne then return to Saint Laurent then Suriname (or I could go up the Maroni a little in-between), Guyana, Brazil…

05.05.2022 : Finally some news! The latest months have been quite intense and low on internet connection.

Once well arrived in Cape Verde, as planned, I was lucky to find another boat to cross the Altantic a few days after. Let's go to Guadalupe! There is just enough time before the departure to check out the most beautiful island (according to me) of the archipelago: Santo Anto, the "Verde" (green) in Cape Verde.

16 days of crossing later, we are in Guadalupe and the next weeks are used to rest a bit, get some chores done on the boat and of course explore the island!

The 13th of April I then get on a new boat found online for Saint Martin, through Antigua and Barbuda (it would have been nice to see Montserrat or St Kitts and Nevis but the entry conditions due to Covid were too much of a hassle and expensive).

I now had time to explore Saint Martin while keeping an eye on boats, but no boat found for now! So I'm gonna head to the marinas and dinghy docks for boats at the anchorage and speak to some sailors.

And to sleep, let's do some camping with the mosquitoes!

12.02.2021: After a journey on a boat with a lovely couple to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and several weeks of networking on the pontons of the marina, I finally found a boat (catamaran) to go to Cape Verde with another boat hitchhiker! We are now back in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, we are then going to La Gomera before crossing to Cape Verde. We should arrive at the end of this month at Mindelo in Sao Vicente.

I will then need to find another boat to cross the Atlantic (or to go to Africa? I stay open-minded, it could help me do a more original journey) .

Exploration to do once in Cape Verde: the island of Santo Antao, it seems to be incredible...

21.01.2021 : Well arrived in the Canaries the 11th of January at La Graciosa then in Gran Canaria 3 days after. I decided to leave the boat because of a toxic atmosphere. I am now looking for a new one in Tenerife!

03.01.2021: Waiting for a crossing to the Canaries islands. We should leave Wednesday 5th of January in the morning for a 5-day trip.

I was contacted by a couple on a trimaran looking for a crew member while I was in Barcelona. I joined them as fast I possible in Aguadulce next to Almeria the 11th of December. I won't have enough internet to update the website for a week at least.

Departure : 5th of december

Direction : If none of the skippers recently contacted answer, I will leave for Barcelona, Valencia and then Gibraltar where I will try to find a boat there. If there is still nothing I will finish my tour of Spain and come back to France to get my 3rd shot of vaccine before leaving right after for another direction.

Initial plan: Leaving by the end of october with a skipper found through friends to cross the Atlantic. The skipper had to push back the departure again and again for administrative reasons and I have to start from scratch.

Crossing the oceans is surely one of the hardest parts of the trip. It's hard to find boats: the offer doesn't fit the demand at all as more and more people are exploring new transportation means to avoid using planes and few boat owners accept new crew members. They need to know them first (they're basically inviting the crew in their house) and it's much better if the crew has experience! This leads to some kinds of abuse:

Monetization: a crew member usually participates to his fees on the boat, which are around 15-20€ / day (food, marinas, gas (use of the engine to get in and out of the ports or when there is no wind and it's important to move to avoid drifting in direction of the shore for example)). But some people ask for much more (I had propositions around 100€/day). These offers are more destined to tourists as no one is expected to be a crew member and they don't exist to establish some human contact, which isn't exactly my objective!
Speaking of human contacts, a large (too large?) number of ads could just be put on dating websites. I was shocked at the beginning but it seems to be a normal and assumed practice (no idea if it really works).

You'll have noted that I spoke about crew members and not passengers. Indeed, you usually have to work on the boat (or at least be on a watch). Transports of passengers don't really exist (as you have planes for that...) and the ones existing look more like cruises and are obviously more expensive per day but can be much faster if made on cruise ships.

In the end, you'll have much more chances if you are experienced and / or have a sailing diploma! You can learn all the theory you want, some people with more experience will get a spot faster. It just feels like the job market when you are asked 2 years of experience for a beginner's role.