Three days after the interview and I receive an email confirming my place on the 2015 Clipper Round The World race! I sent an email to all my friends along with a picture of the new Clipper 70s attached and asking who wants to meet me in Rio 3 years time?

I even posted it on my LinkedIn profile - very bad form, but I don't care.

Then came an invite to join the 2015 Facebook group. I previously never had any intention or inclination to join Facebook for two reasons; to me it looked like most people used it to tell they were bored and had just made a cheese sandwich - face, bothered?; Facebook, the company, is a little be sinister.

As this is really the only way to communicate with other Clipper participants, then I really had no choice, so in I went. It has actually turned out to be quite a bit of fun virtually getting to know a whole group of new people. A group of us then arranged to meet at the Southampton Boat Show, which was a great idea. We had breakfast whilst doing the "why are you doing this" and "which legs" etc. We then wondered around see if we could bag an deals. Ali had turned up in a short covered in Clipper badges, so it was quite obvious why we were asking and I have to say that quite a few suppliers were very sympathetic.

We had such a good time that even more of us are meeting up at the London Boat Show as well - which wi be nice!