Captain's Christmas News 16th December 2005

Kat and I arrived back on board Alvei one week ago

today. We spent a couple of days cleaning things up.

Got the fire hose out and gave the deck a good scrub.

And put in a day in the galley cleaning and making an

inventory. We were able to get all the engines back on

line and running in a day.

Have spent a couple of days on the fore top yard

getting it cleaned up for fresh rigging slush and

overhauling some of the blocks. Now we have a showery

day, good for correspondence.

We had a meeting with the Project MARC people the day

after we returned. They are committed to using Alvei

as the “flagship” of their medical aid work in

Vanuatu. They want to use Alvei for the months of

August, September and October. In November we will set

sail for Australia.

We are planning to have Alvei underway for the islands

by the middle of April. Allowing a month or so for the

passage north we should be in the islands from late

May onwards.

Two weeks ago we started a dialogue with a European

company who are making a reality television series.

This is still in the early stages, but they have said

they would like to use Alvei for 3 or 4 ten-day

sessions comprised of 10 contestants each. This would

be about 2 months work and would fill June and July.

I got a note from Dan Hennah 2 days ago. He is part of

a project Danny DeVito is producing. They both visited

Alvei 3 months ago and said they would like to use

Alvei in a film. He said he was just back from New

York for the premiere of King Kong and would be over

for a visit soon. At this point in time all I know is

that they plan to start work in February.

The Project MARC offer is for real and we will do it.

The movie and television jobs are still just potential

at the moment. Time will tell.

When MARC is with us we will have room for only 6 or 7

crew. If the television project actually happens the

same will be true. I don’t think there will be space

restrictions with the Kiwi film project. We will have

room for up to 18 crew after we finish with MARC.