days 335-337 20.-22.6.2019

335 Ship 11 approaching Suez 20.6.2019

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In the morning, I used my Ukulele for singing Happy birthday to Jochen. Then I went to the ship’s office to check emails and found another long one from Pascal. Maybe we will manage to bring this school + gathering 2025 project to live together! What I really like very much: Pascal always answers my questions one by one accurately and he has beautiful and kind ways to express everything. It took me some hours to react to his letter that was also very inspiring.  Still, it will be challenging to find a starting point and a way to put one step after the other in a logic way, it is so big and diverse (technical, social, financial etc).
“One step after the other” reminds me on my running topic. Today, I ran and during running it didn’t hurt much and after running only a bit more than before. So, my decision for the moment is, to reduce other stress for that foot like jumping and to substitute some running by the ellipter accepting that I will fall behind my plan. This is not easy for me, but I try to act like a mature person.
Today the sun had the turning point on the Northern hemisphere and maybe we nearly crossed the according latitude at the right time. I tried to visualize this moment this time after missing it on the way to Australia (I only was near to that, but one noon was too early, the next noon too late)

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In the afternoon, Jochen invited to a birthday cake that he had organized. It was taste und let’s say “rich” because of enough cream. So, in the evening, I had to ask Messie and Cookie, how they are called, to give me less. Still I wonder why other people don’t do that and leave a half-eaten plate instead. At least sometimes, the food that had not been given out can be found in the next food but food that is on the plate goes into the bin.
Something, I only know now, because Benjamin Franklin brings me there: today I took a photo and saw that the water had the strongest blue I had remembered on my ship passages.

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So, I looked up why it is called the Red Sea and read that the Achaemenids associated red with South and black with North. And now I also know that even the old Egyptians built several canals to link the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. We will reach the actual Channel this night and must queue up, a complete group will come from the north at 3:30 in the morning and ours from the South at 4a.m., pass each other at a by-pass in the middle and pay 300000$ in average for this 9h and 190km passage, which is enough for some ships to go around Africa instead.

336 Ship 12 through Suez Channel 21.6.2019

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At 4a.m., the ship convoy should start but at least for us it was 5:30. We had been told that we are not allowed to take pictures in front of the pilots and we should better not ask them, so I stayed at F-deck and G-deck and went from portside to starboard side and back to see something and take picture and film. At 6:30 I went up to the bridge and saw the other passengers. To my surprise all had their cameras. Later I asked Jochen about that and he said that the pilots didn’t say anything. Now, on one hand I think it is disrespectful against the crew who had asked us not to photograph in front of the pilots, because they go here more often than us and know about the problems on the other hand it is strange to obey to a rule that doesn’t really exist. I would not know about the possibility to take pictures on the bridge, because I would not try (and still don’t want to, because for me this is provocative). I cannot decide what is better in general. For me many problems in society are caused by reckless egoistic behaviour that makes rules necessary but there are also rules set up by so-called authorities that mainly manifest their power or restrict personal freedom or freedom of society without good reason or benefit. I don’t know for which kind of rule the apple in paradise stood, but in my view in this case the provocation was from the guy in power who invented a tree of knowledge, planted that in the middle of Eden instead of somewhere else and forbids to take those fruits. And I am in a dilemma, because I don’t like bondage + useless limitation or provocation + disrespect and I also don’t like the third way of avoidance of confrontation or slavery (although I chose it in case of photographing of ). But normally in life, I know which of those three solutions I would prefer when. It is just a matter of price and worth.
In a radiobroadcast, I learned about the early Christians (not the very early) who after being persecuted, later were much more brutal to other believers and eg. destroyed Greek temples and statues. It was strange to hear that the author wanted to go to Palmyra for documentation of this vandalism but couldn’t, because now it is ISIS continuing this brutal tradition there….
Today, I ran as every day and during the run didn’t feel any difference, but after it even walking hurt. I must stop my training and probably cannot reach my goal to participate at the Vienna Night Run (and be better than last time). The feeling is something between losing orientation, direction, motivation, meaning + too early losing this long final fight against death (I feel the progress of restrictions that cannot be reversed) and a new freedom.
After lunch the chief officer came to tell us that the pilot banned the passengers from the bridge. And five minutes later he came to add that photos are also forbidden. Now I wonder if the pilot just executes some regulations and who established them or if this is his own arbitrariness. I will not find out, because in this case it is a chain from passengers to captain/crew to pilot to authorities and I cannot ignore the captain/crew in this setting. And in doubt the pilot is more important for them than some passengers with their wishes. Half an hour after this, the chief officer again knocked at my door and all passengers were asked to come to the bridge with their camera to delete their pictures of the Suez Channel in front of the pilot. I was doing my “results”-training and was sweating and in funny clothes, so I asked for 5min to change. Let’s say I knew what else to do in those few minutes, so I could be generous on the bridge but I tried to show everything what you probably should show in this situation, regret, cooperation, a little bargaining if this photo shows only outside the channel or also inside, again showing some more cooperation. I asked if it is possible to explain what the problem is, but the captain interrupted me, obviously pissed, and said that he would explain later and that yesterday we had been told not to take photos, which is true. After deleting was finished, one of the pilots said sorry, but these are the regulations.
At the tea party, we finished Jochen’s cake and discussed the situation. Jean Marc had had the feeling that the new pilots were less nice (my impression of the first pilots was not better than of the second couple exchanging them at noon) and had saved his photos from the morning so he only had lost some, and as he said: bad photos of the afternoon. Jochen, who had been here2x before lost everything and was angry, but I tried to calm him down and explained that whatever we do now that bothers the pilots and/or the captain has consequences for passengers in future. Compared to 300000$ for the Channel and 50tons of fuel and so on it is not attractive enough to have paying passengers if they bring troubles.
I had been looking outside very often, but I had missed the bridge over the Channel, so I didn’t need to hide or delete it. In the end I wonder which pictures are worth showing to someone and interesting to see, because I had started to reduce my photos to a reasonable number, my idea was a photo for each day, but for August to November, still 50-90 photos/month remained. Who will wait for my “best 10 Suez photos” after seeing hundreds of other pictures of the 11 months before?

337 Ship 13 between Libya and Crete 22.6.2019

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In the last days, especially the “explorer” of the PC has more and more difficulties to function properly, always looking for something which means waiting for me and sometimes showing deleted items again which is frustrating when you try to take leave of pictures and then they are here again. There are some signs that make me believe that the PC would love to connect to the internet to refresh in a way but this relates to something that potentially makes me angry, also on the phone: I would prefer to have some control about this machine, even if I am no expert and I don’t want to be overruled by all that google and windows stuff that knows everything better and in the end makes things opaque and less reliable.
Today, I tried to walk instead running and wonder if this will be better for my left foot “in the long run”. I could feel that exercise, but it was not hurting. The question is if this is enough reduction for recovering….

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After dinner I checked ship’s-emails and found a 3-word-message of Marvin: “Welcome in Europe”. What he could not know: when I went up to my GPS on F-Deck, I saw an island in the North, it was the Greek Gavlos! This was a nice coincidence, because this island was in sight only for a few minutes and might be the only land to see until maybe Malta.

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