Aug 26, 2026 · 29 min · 10 segments
When A.J. 'Sandy' Mackinnon sailed a tiny dinghy through twelve countries from North Wales to the Black Sea, he survived pirates, the English Channel, international incidents and all the disasters…
A.J. 'Sandy' MackinnonGuest
Greg DobbsHost
I wondered if curiosity is the fundamental motivating factor for your chapels, for people and for places, or is it just for the unknown?
Look, it's partly curiosity, but the underlying factor of almost everything I've ever done since being a little boy is the idea, you know, I read stories and especially stories of magic and adventure and fantasy.
I grew up on Narnia and Tolkien and Swallows and Amazons and Dr. Doolittle.
And I've always had this incurable belief that even the most fanciful stories can, in a sense, be recreated.
You can go off and do a voyage such as Dr. Doolittle might have done.
And you may not be able to speak to animals, but you can take off in a little boat and have adventures and bump into Africa.
Or you can set off on a voyage like the Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the Narnia books and come to different islands, each inhabited by their strange different inhabitants or dangers.
the desire to recreate story-like adventures and voyages has always been really, really strong.
And I think that goes right back to when I was eight and my parents decided to travel over to England and we went by P&O liner back in those days, you didn't just fly.
And there was something so magical about that, sailing out of Sydney Harbour Bridge Seeing Cape Town and Table Mountain, seeing whales and turtles and albatrosses coming to the Canary Islands, which occurred in one of my favourite Dr Doolittle books.
From the age of eight, I worked out that actually In the world, there is room, if you make it or if you seek it, for fantasy storybook adventure.
And that's been the main motivation, I think, for every one of my adventures.
My daily life, I live in a house by a river, which is almost a cross between Rivendell and Merlin's Cottage from The Sword in the Stone.
And that sounds a very pretentious thing to do, but it's not really trying to do that.
It's just gathering things around you or doing things which you love.
And then they turn into things or adventures that other people enjoy.
are quite engaged by as well and go, wow, really, can you do that? Can you just set sail in an 11-foot boat and travel almost 4,000 kilometers and sail into Venice? Like in Wind of the Willows, the seafaring rat talks about sailing into Venice on the rosy gold dawn.
Well, yep, I arrived in a rosy gold dawn and rode that sunlight into the canals of Venice.
I wondered if curiosity is the fundamental motivating factor for your chapels, for people and for places, or is it just for the unknown?
Look, it's partly curiosity, but the underlying factor of almost everything I've ever done since being a little boy is the idea, you know, I read stories and especially stories of magic and adventure and fantasy.
I grew up on Narnia and Tolkien and Swallows and Amazons and Dr. Doolittle.
And I've always had this incurable belief that even the most fanciful stories can, in a sense, be recreated.
You can go off and do a voyage such as Dr. Doolittle might have done.
And you may not be able to speak to animals, but you can take off in a little boat and have adventures and bump into Africa.
Or you can set off on a voyage like the Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the Narnia books and come to different islands, each inhabited by their strange different inhabitants or dangers.
the desire to recreate story-like adventures and voyages has always been really, really strong.
And I think that goes right back to when I was eight and my parents decided to travel over to England and we went by P&O liner back in those days, you didn't just fly.
And there was something so magical about that, sailing out of Sydney Harbour Bridge Seeing Cape Town and Table Mountain, seeing whales and turtles and albatrosses coming to the Canary Islands, which occurred in one of my favourite Dr Doolittle books.
From the age of eight, I worked out that actually In the world, there is room, if you make it or if you seek it, for fantasy storybook adventure.
And that's been the main motivation, I think, for every one of my adventures.
My daily life, I live in a house by a river, which is almost a cross between Rivendell and Merlin's Cottage from The Sword in the Stone.
And that sounds a very pretentious thing to do, but it's not really trying to do that.
It's just gathering things around you or doing things which you love.
And then they turn into things or adventures that other people enjoy.
are quite engaged by as well and go, wow, really, can you do that? Can you just set sail in an 11-foot boat and travel almost 4,000 kilometers and sail into Venice? Like in Wind of the Willows, the seafaring rat talks about sailing into Venice on the rosy gold dawn.
Well, yep, I arrived in a rosy gold dawn and rode that sunlight into the canals of Venice.
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