Introduction

This blog is a diary of the journey from Palm Beach Florida To Townsville Australia on board the 93' Broward motor cruiser "Island Voyager"
Being one of the many victims of the global economic crisis, Island Voyager has been laid up for 18 months in Florida after a charter career in the US Virgin Islands, prior to her purchase by Skipper and new owner Tom and his wife Kaye Hatrick.
Eventually Island Voyager will be doing luxury charters on the Great Barrier Reef as part of Tom's charter business 'Utopia Charters". www.utopiagamefishing.com.au

Tom would like to make a special thanks to John Blumenthal a very helpful ex pat Australian boat broker living in Florida for his invaluable help with an army of available tradesmen and local knowledge. Johns local Florida knowledge and willingness to help has saved us many of the pitfalls experienced when trying to source reliable and honest trades people when in a foreign country. If you're thinking about importing a boat, John's your man.
The huge skill pool we have from our very experienced crew has been invaluable in the process of getting this old classic cruiser and all her systems back up and running again in pristine condition for our voyage. We are all are eager to throw the lines and depart on our adventure of a life time. Watch this spot and see how we go.


Preparation
After purchasing the vessel and having little success negotiating a reasonable shipping rate, I decided to take on a long dreamt about adventure, motor my own vessel across the Pacific. deciding to do it was the easy part as was finding the number of friends willing and eager to join us. In fact almost every one of my friends from the game fishing fraternity I mentioned what I was considering to, couldn't start trying to arrange work leave quick enough.
Sourcing correct information was what I would only describe as a very interesting and very often frustrating experience. In fact weeks of time spent on the phone and internet seems mind boggling for the little amount of vital and important information we actually needed.