You can hear the ocean in Greg Holden’s voice.
It’s been over fifty years since the Canadian prairie boy set foot on a hand-built balsa wood raft and drifted out into the Pacific, but when he speaks, you still feel the salt in the silence between his words. This article is centred around an exclusive interview with Greg Holden, one of the surviving raftsmen, offering a rare and intimate perspective that takes us beyond the story as captured in The Raftsmen, Dr Chadden Hunter’s award-winning documentary. This isn’t a retelling. It’s a remembering: raw, fragmented, and deeply human.
And as he recalls the journey — 175 days, 12 men, 16,000 kilometres into the Pacific, three rafts lashed together by rope and spirit — what emerges isn’t a chronology, but a tapestry of emotion: wonder, fear, absurdity, unity. This is not the story of 12 men and the sea. It’s the story of what we become when there is nothing between us and nature but the sheer passion for adventure.
Living with the Ocean, Not On It
“We lived 14 inches above the ocean,” Greg repeats, as though trying to explain what that means to someone who’s never felt the sea brush their mattress at night. “We weren’t sailing across it—we were living inside it.”
For Greg, the ocean was not just a backdrop. It was a force that taught them how insignificant they were in comparison to the deep blue that they called home, and how infinite the world could be. Every decision — when to fish, how to ration food, where to steer — was at the mercy of the currents. He recalls the first time he saw a whale shark: “I didn’t know what it was. I had to run below deck and look it up.”
Oblivion turned into education.
There’s awe in his voice still. “I’m from the prairies. I’d never seen the ocean before. Six months on it? It changes something in you.”
Unity Wasn’t a Goal. It Was Survival.
Holden didn’t set out to become a symbol of unity across nations, but he lived it. “We were from all over — Chile, Mexico, France, the States, Canada. And we didn’t always get along.”
There was tension. Friction. A radio operator who couldn’t operate a radio. Monkeys and kittens gifted to them by the people of Ecuador that soon turned into somewhat a nuisance of travel companions. But Holden is quick to say it was never about perfection. “Vital [Alsar, the expedition leader] wasn’t looking for skill. He was looking for spirit. And in the end, that’s what kept us together.”
It wasn’t diplomacy that bound them. It was a necessity. “You’re stuck in the middle of the Pacific. There’s nowhere to go. You have to figure it out. Or you don’t make it.”
Nature, the Teacher and the Trickster
Some of the most powerful moments in The Raftsmen, the 2024 documentary that now holds the Sydney Film Festival Audience Award for Best Australian Documentary, stem from nature’s surreal unpredictability. But Holden doesn’t recall them as cinematic. He recalls them as personal.
“There were nights when everything went still,” he says. “The stars looked so close you could touch them. Then a storm would hit, and you’d think it was over. That the ocean was finally going to take you.”
He speaks of a mysterious light that appeared over the raft one night/day — silent, hovering. “We never figured out what it was. But out there, you start to believe in things. Not because you’re spiritual. Because you’re human.”
Was it real or a hallucination? Only the weary eyes of the raftsmen would ever know the truth.
And the raft itself became its own floating world. “We had barnacles, a school of bluefin tuners or Maui, Maui Paradis. So it was a very exciting learning experience for a lot of us. Cats that could predict weather. [The raft] was like… a living being.”
An ecosystem that they had the privilege to be a part of.
The Real Voyage Was Inward
Holden describes the raft not as a vehicle, but as a crucible.
“You’re with the same people, every hour, for months. There’s nowhere to hide. Not from them, not from yourself.”
When asked how they passed the time, he doesn’t mention books or games. He mentions storms. Hunger. Long silences. “You think you’re going to go crazy. But then… nature gives you something. A school of fish. A sea turtle. And you’re okay again.” There were days when the sea stretched out in endless sameness, and the only way to hold onto themselves was through small rituals — songs hummed into the wind, shared melodies that floated between the rafts like lifelines, keeping them tethered not just to sanity, but to each other.
One of the darkest moments came when they killed a shark to protect their food supply. “We didn’t want to. But we had to. And I still regret it. It wasn’t fear of the shark — it was fear of losing the balance we had with the ocean.”
Home Wasn’t Land. It Was the Raft.
When they arrived in Australia, on Day 175, thousands greeted them. Cameras rolled. Reporters swarmed. But the greatest emotion was loss.
“We stepped onto land… and it felt wrong,” Greg says. “The ocean had accepted us. And we had become part of it.”
What followed was the shock of return. “You spend months surviving with strangers, and they become brothers. Then it’s over. You walk into a hotel. Take a shower. And you realise the real journey is behind you.”
Though decades have passed and continents separate them, Greg still keeps in touch with several of the crew. “Yes, physically, no—they’re all in different countries,” he says, “but we do make contact.” The documentary, he notes, has even rekindled friendships: “It brought me closer to Hugo—he’s from Chile but living in Sydney now. And the two Americans, Tom and Kermit—I talk to them quite a bit. We’re good friends.” Time and distance have done little to dissolve the bond forged by six months of wind, salt, and survival. The raft may be long gone, but its echo still carries between them.
The Film, the Memory, the Message
The Raftsmen, filmed in part on the original 16mm cameras from the expedition and newly restored with haunting precision, isn’t just a documentary. It’s a resurrection. Through Dr. Hunter’s vision and Holden’s voice, the film lets us relive something nearly lost: not just a record-breaking voyage, but a way of being that may never exist again.
More cinema screenings and a television broadcast are soon to be announced, but the story is already resonating with audiences — and not just because of its scale. It’s because of its honesty.
“This was never about being heroes,” Holden says. “It was about seeing if we could live together. Trust each other. Trust the ocean.”
And maybe, as The Raftsmen gently suggests, it was about something even simpler.
Survival. Surrender. And the space between the two.
“You don’t come back from something like that unchanged,” Holden says, pausing for a moment that feels like the tide. “Part of me is still out there. And I hope it stays.”
