I looked at this a couple of years ago - the big handicap for me is that it looks difficult to guarantee vegetarian food. From what I could find you had a good chance of getting away with it, but nobody who'd guarantee "yes, we will feed vegetarians".

You'll travel on a ship fuelled by dead creatures carrying plastic items made from dead creatures, but you wont fuel your body with dead (macroscopic) creatures?

Until they start mining cows for oil, eating meat tends to promote killing creatures, using plastic doesn't.

Ever heard of the abiogenic petroleum hypothesis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

I wonder what their net access is like? Guess everything’s done via satellite phone, which might get a little expensive.

I think having regular internet access would ruin the whole point of such a trip to me. The appeal is in the refuge-less disconnect, both from the internet and everything else.

I frequently try becoming a internet fugitive for periods of time, but its long arms eventually capture me again. I believe being in the middle of the ocean would certainly liberate me for a prolonged period of time, however so would going into cottage country in a tent . . . although there is considerably less bears at sea (note that there still is technically a fair amount due to Polar Bears being on ice in mid ocean, hence 'considerably less' and not 'no').

Internet access is both a curse and a blessing, however it tends to lean more towards the former rather than the heavy lean towards the latter that everyone desires.

Go south of the equator. No Polar bears down here.

But you have to watch underwater for frigging birds and there's flying fish! The southern hemispheres wildlife is insane.

I suspect that's the reason for the recommendation to pack reference books. :)