Many of us dream of taking leave of the daily grind and heading out into the great unknown. Nico Edwards, the director and a character in the new, award winning, documentary Sea Gypsies: The Far Side of the World, decided to check out of society by taking to the ocean.

He found passage as a crew member on a boat called Infinity, which set sail from Australia to Patagonia via some of the planet’s roughest waters in the Ross Sea.

This film manages to be smart and thoughtful, yet fun and rollicking at the same time. It documents a tremendous journey, showing what it takes — mentally, physically and nautically — to take on this kind of wild adventure.

The story of a small group of modern seafaring gypsies, following them as they strike out across the largest expanse of uninhabited geography on earth, in search of adventure, awe and whatever else lies at the far side of the world.

In early Feb 2014, during the iciest year on record in the Southern Ocean, Infinity and her crew of 16, left New Zealand on an 8,000 mile pacific crossing to Patagonia, with a stop in Antarctica.

The vessel is Infinity, a 120-foot handbuilt sailing ketch that plies the Pacific Ocean on a never ending voyage of nomadic exploration.

Along the way, they battled a hurricane of ice in the Ross Sea, struggled with compounding mechanical and flooding problems, undertook a mission with the radical environmental group Sea Shepherd, tore every sail they had, and unwittingly went further south than any sailing vessel in 2014.

This expedition was undertaken with a non-ice-reinforced gypsy boat built by hand in the 1970's, crewed by a band of wandering miscreants, with no permits or insurance and an almost non-existent budget. This is a story about sailing, the camaraderie of a shared struggle and the raw awe inspiring power of the natural world.

The next voyage - Sea Gypsies: The NorthMost Passage

Following the two warmest Arctic summers on record, the sailing vessel Infinity will tackle the formidable Northwest Passage, attempt to reach the Northernmost inhabited settlement on the planet, aptly named Alert.

More than just breaking a record, reaching this normally icebound settlement at the tip of Ellesmere Island, will be a stark warning to the world.

The route, over 4,000 miles, speckled with 36,000 islands is a truly vast labyrinth of ice; just 10% of which has been charted. To reach Alert at 82° latitude, Infinity will traverse through Nares Strait, a narrow channel of fierce currents and rapidly moving mountains of ice at the height of summer. Along the way, the ship and crew will battle severe storms, avoid marauding icebergs and hungry polar bears, and explore a part of the world that is rarely seen.

This is the most dangerous maritime route in the world; more people have been to the top of Mt. Everest than have successfully taken a sailing vessel through the Northwest Passage, and no one has ever sailed this far north. The expedition begins July 2018.