Warning to People interested in Island-hopping

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald is a warning to travellers looking to travel by sea between the island countries of the Pacific. See
Instead, the real challenge proved to be "those tiny island nations out in the world...the guys that turn up to the Olympics with a flag and two athletes", and where perhaps only one supply ship visits each month.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/holiday-type/budget/traveller-visits-every-country-in-the-world-without-flying-20121127-2a4eq.html#ixzz2DfDHGasC

Well, it actually makes it sound possible at least.
As one of his rules was to have to use "scheduled ground transport", I wonder how he could find such to many Pacific island nations.

Other than that, the mad stamp-collecting rush visiting of visiting up to 133 countries in a year is definitely not something I can appreciate.

"As one of his rules was to have to use "scheduled ground transport", I wonder how he could find such to many Pacific island nations"

I imagine his definition of 'scheduled' was somewhat elastic.

Yeah, I wonder if he included cruise ships, which do run to schedule, in that category. ;-)
Those could get one to many Pacific islands in one go, though even using those to cover the region, countries like Nauru must still pose a challenge!

On his website you can read his blog for every country, In the South Pacific he used cargo ships that take passengers and as their trips are certainly scheduled, this appears to satisfy the requirements. Obviously it does not have to be public transport.

He did use cruise ships too, for example AU > New Caledonia > Vanuatu > Fiji were done on this:

http://www.pocruises.com.au/ourships/pages/pacificpearl.aspx

Definitely not a cargo ship, and some of the ports it called at are definitely not cargo ports! ;-)

http://www.theodysseyexpedition.com/images/misc2/ThePacific.jpg

Samoa, Pago and Nauru he went to on cargo ships, i.,e the Southern Lily - that is what I had checked. But you are right - the Sea Princess certainly is a Cruise Ship. Their trips use to be scheduled too, so no problem.

Looks like he missed French Polynesia, the Cooks and Niue, possibly because they are not independent.

And while neither trips on cruise ships nor those on freighter vessels come cheap, he still claims to have done it all "on a shoestring budget of less than $100 a week".
And yet he needs to look for sponsors on his site - maybe sponsors' money is excluded from that weekly budget.

I noticed one sponsor is Swire shipping, who run a lot of Pacific (and probably other) cargo ships.

Free trip was most likely the kind of sponsorship they could (easily) offer. However - when you think of 'scheduled' transport, this just defines that there has to be a schedule. Like the boat from Samoa to Tokelau (not visited either), which has a clear schedule. It does not really run on it, but there is one. Same with the cargo ships - that Southern Lily was coming to Samoa weeks late recently. But running on a schedule. On the other hand, Samoan buses would not qualify, even they run reliably and regularly. But nobody bothers to write a schedule.

But that is a really nice example of the difference between Western thinking and Pacific thinking. In the Western thinking having a plan is almost as good as reality, or even better, as in this case. Living in the Pacific I would never believe that the flight will go before I see that there is a plane. And even then ...

wks, I know just what you mean. Honiara buses run from one end of town to the other, and then back again. Regular, but no schedule. The buses and trucks to more distant stops do have a sort of schedule, though - to arrive in time for the market, and leave when it is closing.

Yes, the same here in Samoa, for the long distance lines. Always in time before school starts and ready to go after school and after work. But still no written schedule of any kind. You know when the bus will come and it does - it is just not written down and published.

Not good enough for Western record books, I'm afraid. A piece of paper with a schedule is so assuring and when the transport then just goes when it goes, that's life ;-)