Another year older!!!  Elaine, Tim and me at the local Chinese restaurant celebrating my 21st birthday last week.

Well, time is slipping away fast and we are now into March with less than 9 months to go to the start of my Atlantic bid.  I'm at the same stage I was with Personal Everest, if you've read the book, you'll know what I mean.  It's that calm before the storm. I must have a dozen or more balls in the air and I predict they are all going to come down all at once in the next few weeks.  We are still looking for a Title Sponsor so if you can think of anyone, let me know. The success of Personal Everest was all the more amazing considering the weather that year. And now I face another, equally challenging set of circumstances. But this time it's not the weather, it's the economic climate. Jeez, what a tough time to be finding money.

On the positive side, my 2 web sites are now live. www.geoffholt.com and www.personalatlantic.com, both the products of my good friend and clever IT whizz Richard who has endured my fanatical attention to detail to get the right end-product and he's worked some amazing technical wizardry on www.geoffholt.com. Please do register your details on www.personalatlantic.com so we can keep you updated with all of the latest news.

I have also had some meetings with OC Technology about fitting cameras to the boat to capture footage on the voyage itself.  OC Group is one of Dame Ellen's company's and in the next few weeks we've got some exciting news about supporting her charity, the Ellen Macarthur Trust. Please donate to this very worthy cause using the widget on the left.

In another exciting development, I have now shortlisted a couple of potential crew members.  They will both be coming to spend a few days with us at home so they can assess if they will be able to tolerate living with me on the boat for a month - Elaine will no doubt give them some useful tips.

Preparations are also now under way to bring Impossible Dream back from Malta in April.

The talks continue and I'm delighted to have been asked to be guest speaker with Sir Robin Knox-Johnston at Trinity House later this week at the launch of Clipper Venture's new events calendar. What an honour that is for me.

I must quickly tell you that I managed to go fishing at the weekend, the first opportunity in weeks. Friends and family know that I love my sea fishing and there's not much I like more than bobbing around in the Solent, rod in my hand, flask of chicken noodle soup in the other, just watching the world go by. And for the first time in months I caught one, only a Whiting, too small to keep so we put him back.What a great day.