Planalto Cycles

338 Ship 14 between Crete und Malta 23.6.2019
The last two days, I slept longer than before, awakening between 5:30 and 6, and I was less tired during the day. There are 10 days left on this trip to see if this is a tendency towards calming down a bit. My foot was much better in the morning, but he even doesn’t appreciate the training on the cross-trainer. Until today I used the word ellipter instead but today I read in Wikipedia that in fact that machine is a cross-trainer. And I read that a good and healthy alternative is running back, not only on the cross-trainer, but also outside. What I didn’t know before is that there are even competitions in back running and the record for 5km is less than 20min, what I dreamed to manage in the normal way.
In the afternoon, we 4 passengers made a tour around Benjamin Franklin for filming and reporting.

Jochen had written down texts and had some ideas for direction and we accompanied him from stern to bow. We knew that the wind would make problems but later we realized that some parts were completely inaudible. My thought was to make some voice-over recordings, but this was again hard, because Jochen had to tell the same text in the same tempo without hearing the original sound while I recorded him. After two hours we gave up and decided to continue tomorrow with the overdubs and to record some parts again in more silent environment.
In this evening time, we had passed Malta on the left and Sicily on the right side. You could clearly see the lights, the next step in approaching native areas…

339 Ship 15 along Tunisia 24.6.2019

Today, I tried to find a photo selection of December and saw a photo of the sign Hà Nôi 1453km. This was after 4 days after leaving HCMC and is about the distance from Dunkirk to Vienna.

My major editing project since yesterday is the ship’s round with Jochen’s comments. He had recorded them again and now I try to fit them in in the original video.
So, not much else to tell!

340 Ship 16 along Algeria 25.6.2019

This night, I tried to sleep on my mat. In Australia, it had lost air faster and faster and later I had found to leaky spots that I finally fixed on the ship. The first test was to inflate it and within 3days there was no big loss of air. I inflated it again and when I lay down, it popped loudly, again a section dividing had torn apart. The mat looks progressively strange. Overnight, it lost air again and I could feel my hip and shoulder touching the floor. I also felt cold since going to sleep, so I gave up and went to the bed. I wonder how often I will use the mat on the way to Vienna and if it will stand those few times…
When Jochen wanted to do his daily ship-walk, he slipped at the stairs (I wanted to write about the stairs before, they are too short for adult feet, you cannot go reasonably) and dislocated his shoulder. He tries to stand the pain and restrictions until tomorrow when we reach the port and hopes that he can continue the ship’s journey after a treatment in a hospital in Algeciras. We will see if this is possible from his side, but it is the captain’s decision also. At the moment everybody wants, and nobody can help him

335 Ship 11 approaching Suez 20.6.2019

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)

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.

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

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

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….

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.

332 Ship 08 passing Somalia 17.6.2019

In the morning you could feel that we had arrived in the Gulf of Aden, the sea and the containers became silent. I wanted to make my morning-GPS-screen-shot but the phone was wet within seconds and didn’t work properly. And when I tried to take a photo of the Somalian coast, that was in the haze of humidity anyway, my camera added even more mist because of the temperature difference to the cabin. My picture of Somalia stays incomplete ?

Since two days three of four sockets didn’t supply current anymore, it had stopped before several times for shorter or longer but now it seemed for ever. So, the electricians came, checked and wondered. The problem and the symptoms were unexplainable and so they gave me an extension cable. But 2h later the current flew again in the dead sockets. Maybe the presence of the extension cable will help for the rest of the trip, directly or indirectly!
Today, the chief officer wanted to get my ticket for this trip. I looked around but first found only that of Puccini. Then I found another one, but it was again for Puccini and I was confused. Later I found out that in Kuala Lumpur I had again printed the old ticket instead of that for Benjamin Franklin, but so far no one, including me had looked hard enough to see the difference.
We had another tea party and showed each other some traveling related things. Jochen had a video of an equator crossing celebration where the captain played Neptun and every new “crosser” was baptised with an egg cracked on the head and a bucket of cold water afterwards. Jean Marc last time had shown a photo with cream baptising. On Columba I had also crossed the equator for the first time but there and also on Puccini was no ceremony. This is partly ok with it, because I even couldn’t decide if I would prefer cream or egg smashed on my head

333 Ship 09 passing Djibouti 18.6.2019

Another magic number, day -333-
I woke up at 5 and for a moment thought that I had slept comparably long, before I realized that only my watch was not set on the correct time, it was 4. For a while I thought about all variants how you can confuse time with two different watches, one at the correct time, one an hour ahead and depending on which watch you look at night and on which in the morning, 6h sleep can also seem only 4 or up to 8 hours, depending on which watch you look when and given that you don’t know if it was the correct or the wrong time.
That was enough to wake me up. Sometimes I hope that being bothered by such things and dealing with all my systems for optimization could have a benefit like training the memory. Or it will only path my way to become a quirky old guy (please, don’t discuss the word “become” in this context, at present, I know well enough, who and what I am).
Waking up….
There is another thing where I am a bit too lazy to explore it thoroughly, the different levels of being awake or sleeping (or dead). But there could be more than 6 of them. My crucial level is one level beyond lucid dreaming, let’s call it lucid-waking-oneself-up-without-a-better-reason-than-being-a-bit-neurotic. You are sleeping but your brain starts working, telling you silly things, like “Interesting – you are sleeping! Are you sure? But how can you hear me when you sleep?! Come on, you are awake, check it out yourself!”
So, awake like this can be combined with being too tired for many things. In such a situation, I often start reading. In the ship’s library, I found a book that is meant funny and that starts with the title, the word game “the liver grows with its task (duty/mission)”, the author is a doctor and knows that. So far, it was not too funny for me, because most jokes were predictable, but some facts at least were interesting. And maybe it is not surprising that I cannot leave a book unfinished, I can get angry but still complete it. And at 5 in the morning, the more when I realize it is only 4, I think it is not the big waste of time to read that. And then, I was surprised, because I laughed sometimes. I wondered if the text were getting better in the second half of the book or if I had adjusted to it or I can deal better with humour in the early morning. Anyway, there were some surprising new thoughts for me in the evening and in the morning, an example: snails are hermaphrodites because they are so slow, so they must save the time for finding a partner by changing the chance to meet the right sex partner from 50% to 100%.
Later in the morning, I listened to and practised a Feldenkrais lection. I like that very much, except that it is a bit time-consuming. You need about 30min to do it and be aware of your body and breathing etc. And in the end, you do a movement that was not easy or only in a small radius and now it is easy and wide. This time it was turning from left to right and the speaker said that it might help to imagine looking at the horizon at the sea, and then I felt very privileged when I looked out of my window!
What is the solution for a guy like me if Feldenkrais lections are too long? Cutting and editing! First, I changed the tempo of the recording, the person now speaks faster and higher. It is wise not to exaggerate this, because it is harder to exercise seriously when Micky mouse instructs you. Then I cut all those long breaks meant for relaxation and/or meditational awareness that in my case anyway mainly bare the risk that I fall asleep. In the end, 30min shrink to 22-25min. And then, I prepared to even shorter versions for those days when I want to do Feldenkrais but 25min seem too long. In this shortcut version, I expelled everything beyond clear instructions, like “feel the echo of this turning of your head in your legs!”, by that, I can reduce the time to 7min. And from there it was only a small step to the quintessence version: the lections in general I built up from easier single movements to more complex and combined movements in the end. My emergency case Feldenkrais version is 1min and maybe not exactly what was originally intended, but still helpful, because those movements are very pleasant and better practice body awareness for one minute than never!

Today, you sometimes could guess to see coast line of and island in front of Saudi Arabia, and taking pictures of that misty view made things even worse, because immediately after going outside the camera (and my glasses) became foggy. In the afternoon, I didn’t take the camera inside and then it was better from this side, the mist on the ocean still was strong.

334 Ship 10 middle of red sea 19.6.2019

For breakfast, I went down earlier, to be there faster with my Ukulele than Jochen. When the others arrived, I wanted to sing “Happy birthday” but Jochen stopped me, because (as you can see in the title) it was not the 20^th, his birthday. So, my preparation was unnecessary and tomorrow the surprise only could be to ignore his birthday.
At 10:30, we four passengers had a guided tour by the Cadet to the engine room.

From now on, I know that my initials can not only mean Musical Education but also Main Engine. Compared to other ME I know so far (Georgia, Puccini), that of Benjamin Franklin is not located in the same area as the tower, it is separated. The effect is, that if you need loud noise you only get it by strong wind and rumbling containers or by going to the engine room. The extra benefit there is a warm environment, some call it hot – 45°C and more. I partly had the impression that there and in the long corridors was not enough oxygen around. For orientation: from upper deck level, we went down 3 levels and maybe 150m to the heck, with no windows or direct access to air. The ME is another 3 or 4 levels down.
The cadet tried his best to explain something on the way, but we had ear protection and the noise level was still high. In the engine control room, it was better, but we could mainly see different screens showing the different features of the ship.
Today, I sewed the last 3 missing flags of France, Belgium and Germany to the bike cover. Maybe, I will need the cover in Europe more often that on the rest of the trip, but completing the flags is more motivated by trying to find my inner peace than by any necessity. I got another check mark on my to do list.
Also on my to-do-list is the treadmill training. My goal is to run 5km in 20min. Not even on the treadmill, I can run longer than 3min at 15km/h for now. But everyday I run a bit faster, today it was 12,4km/h. At the end of the ship passage it would be 15km/h but now there is a challenge, because my left foot hurts. For some days I just hoped it would stop hurting, then I tried to run “softer” but I must accept that it becomes worse. Whenever I have an exact schedule, it is hard to find the point to say “time for a change!”. Tomorrow, I will do a last run before I decide what to do.

329 Ship 05 passing Maldives 14.6.2019

In the afternoon, I joined the passenger tea party in the passenger’s recreation room for the second time, the first time was on day 327 and I forgot to mention it. It was a quite “formal” gathering, we try our best to communicate and after 30-60min we go for something else. Last time, I introduced my Bürgschafts-project to them, but I am not sure if they will do it. This time, I tried to take a photo of all of us, but although the settings showed 10sec delay for a selfie, it always was 3sec and I was not ready. After that, I got internet access by the 2^nd officer, so I can upload my diary entries. The 10min I needed to check the texts with the online translator, upload them and check my emails took 1$ of my balance, but I guess the next time, I will have less emails and that will save some MBs. The only big risk are the windows updates and I found no possibility to block them. Maybe I will get a warning, but Jean Marc also had tried many times and once an update cost him 20$ at another passage. At the gym, there is one guy at most afternoons who trains very hard (but maybe not very healthy) with very loud music. I have my own music via earphones but his is louder (and not at all my taste). Additionally, he needs to turn on a video with posing women, control his beautiful body in some mirrors and moan during some heavy weightlifting, to create the correct gym feeling. I like to train in the morning but every 2^nd day I run in the morning and use the ellipter in the afternoon. Well, this will happen another 9x before we reach Dunkirk, I think I can stand it.

330 Ship 06 in the middle of the ocean 15.6.2019

Because of big problems with broken teeth, Jochen wanted to leave the ship in Algeciras and take a flight back to Hannover to see his doctor, but he had expected or hoped to get the money for the last week back. Now he wants to stay and stand the problems.
For the border controls at the ports the chief officer wanted to know what more important goods I have with me. It was a bit embarrassing to admit that I have two phones and two cameras and two kinds of GPS. At least I have “only” one computer…
At the 15:30 tea party we managed to take some photos. Yesterday I also had tried, but although the settings were on 10 seconds, the camera shot after 3 sec and I always was late.

I found out that I must change other settings in another list but don’t know why. We shared some stories, about the equator celebration (crew and passengers who cross the equator for the first time get tricked), pirates and their techniques, ship travel in general and compared our methods of keeping records and diaries.
Today the ship was shaking sometimes and often it was more a tug not directly caused by the swell but, as far as I guess, indirectly by the containers who swing with the waves and add an extra impulse to them.
In the afternoon, I “normally” ate one of the five mangos I had bought in Singapore, only today and 2d before I skipped that and saved the fruits, because I had some cookies instead. But still, now there was only one left.

And then, in the evening, we got fruits as a dessert, including two mangos! So, the French shared one and Jochen and I the other one. The messman saw how much we liked them and brought four other mangos. I will miss that in Austria, first, I would not buy them and second, they are far from tasting like the real ones. But I can say, that on this trip, I had my share.

331 Ship 07 in front of Somalia 16.6.2019

One of the more useful tools I brought on this trip, is a magnifying glass. My eyes got worse and e.g. the “Lonely planet” for Uganda has some very tiny letters, especially in the maps.

This morning, partly because of another time conversion (now Dubai) I woke up at 3:30 and started reading in that book. It is very inspiring and makes me uneasy, because there is so much lying ahead of me and I hang around on this cargo ship. I read about Rwenzori mountains (where, btw my father had been climbing in the late 80ies), one of the only 3 remaining African mountains still permanently covered with snow and ice (+ Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya) and now I know that AMS has another meaning than in German (AMS = Arbeitsmarktsevice = employment exchange), it means acute mountain sickness.
Yesterday I heard an Ö1-broadcast and in the morning remembered one sentence about implementing social responsibility in global economy and a scientist said about the USA that they use another word, because they fear the word “social” that reminds them on “socialism”, something obviously ranking somewhere between hell and plague for them. I wanted to find that word and heard through this broadcast 3 times and didn’t find anything about it. Where else could I have heard that? Things like that show me the limits of my mind and memory. For a while, I feared most that my memory is so bad (and on the other hand I know that I am just too lazy to train it – I wanted to learn some important telephone numbers by heart and I wanted to learn some Farsi words, both didn’t happen so far), but now I am much more worried by tricks my memory in cooperation with the rest of my brain plays. Sometimes I am so sure about something and later must realize that I was wrong.
I tried to find that sentence also in other “suspicious” broadcasts but first only found some interesting words, like “man is an animal with a problem of identity” (Kierkegaard) or “Geist ist die Fähigkeit sich angemessen zu verhalten”, something I cannot translate well (~Mind is the ability to behave adequate).
The shacking and rocking of the ship is stronger than before, the sea is rough and while you can see clouds of water brought up even to F-deck, maybe 40 or 50m over the sea, on A deck you get big drops of water in you face, and this is also at least 20m over sea level.
But this night we will enter the Gulf of Aden and even in case of bad weather it will nearly quiet.
And then I found those words ?
In the USA “they” don’t talk about “socially responsible investment”, now they say “responsible/ ethical/sustainable investing”. I had “remembered” a discussion of a journalist and a political writer, both women, but it was a report with an interview of a male university professor. Only the topic was the same, about impact of capitalism and modern way of life on everything.

325 Ship (1) along Sumatra 10.6.2019

It was the most silent night on any ship so far. The ship is new and big and maybe the engine is far enough and the noise reduction very effective. My schedule can be a little less strict this time, because I have less things on my to do list and more time, so maybe I will find a bit more inner peace? Today, I woke up before 5 and I am curious if this will change when I have the feeling I am free to choose something to do instead of seeing too much that must be done, always having in mind that this is not even a first-world problem, it is a luxury “problem”. I am far from complaining , just wondering about me.
In the next days, I will try to find out the names of my fellow travellers, we introduced us to each other and in the end, I still knew only my own name. The German man is 77 years old, a former engineer for constructions regarding water and still fascinated by that element, and because of that he had done 8 cargo ship trips so far. He is most critic about the ship, mainly the service, partly because of his very positive last experience on “Mozart”. For me, this a complicated thing, because at one hand, we all had paid a lot, but even in a hotel that is designed for hosting guests, I would not demand something, maybe I would try to ask. And here we are “guests” in another way, we don’t belong here, the captain and his crew are not our hosts, they are working here and if the company accepts passengers, for the crew it is additional work.
He had told me, that he also doesn’t like food waste and I saw that he tried to get a smaller portion, but in the end, he again had left-overs, so it is a matter of priorities. At least, we all agreed that we don’t need an extra plate with cheese and sausage at lunch, when we get soup, main course and dessert. We will see if the messman can cope with the idea of reducing that.
At 1300, we had “familiarisation” if the security officer. Part one, theory, was done quickly, because he had filled in the forms for us and we only needed to sign them. Then, he showed us the way to life-boats, -rafts and -jackets. We will come to a region with higher piracy danger, where we might not be allowed to go on deck, because it would be important to reach the “citadel” fast.
Before dinner, I went to the bridge, to say hello and to get the ship’s email address. So, I saw that we still were near the last corner of Sumatra. The officer sent me down to the captain and I must say that he was quite rude and nearly impolite and treating me as if I would be too bold demanding a free ship’s address (which had been offered to me on all three other ships). I think it is a bad mixture of this special captain having four passengers who maybe all have wishes, so that he tends to block as much as possible. But it would have been ok to explain to me that it is not possible without making me feel like a silly kid who had impossible wishes like flying to the moon or getting daddy’s car keys.
I am glad that I had been on three other ships before, so I don’t expect to have the greatest experience of all, I have a good room, get good food (of course they have all kinds of muesli, “because” I brought my own!), can do something in the gymnasium (yes, I am off school, but still going to the “Gymnasium” every day!), do my “work” and do not depend on anybody’s “love” on this ship.
(While I was writing this, a spectacular and very near thunder was to hear, for sure an above creature – Thor, Ba’al, Indra or Lei Gong –  tells me not to be so arrogant.

326 Ship (2) to Sri Lanka 11.6.2019

And now it was the noisiest night on any ship so far! First, there was a thunderstorm, I can cope with that, but then the containers started to dance, some doors seem to be closed weakly. And in general, the wind seems to be more effective on the containers than on the other ships. In this night you could feel that also this big ship can be moved by the swell but so far, I can see it is much less.
At breakfast, Joachim, the German, (I saw his name on a list, but later I learned he always is called Jochen) was there earlier. And he, the man, who had told me that he cannot bare food waste because he was born during the war, now had put butter on his plate and had two slices of bread but ate only half of the corner of the second one and left enough butter for the whole slice on his plate when he left the room. I cannot understand this contradiction between words and deeds. I ate it up after he left but it is a useless effort to make things better.
Later in the morning, I got a phone call from the captain to come to the admin office. He apologized for yesterday and explained that he didn’t know about the possibility to give an email addy to passengers. I am grateful to the person who told him, but he maybe even informed himself. He tried to be polite & friendly and I am not sure if he didn’t succeed too well because he felt awkward in this situation or if he cannot do better. But at least it will be easier for both of us to meet on our ways on the ship.
I wrote the first 5 emails of my list just for establishing contact, (in the next days I will add some others) and got the first answer from Marvin. The rest of the day was nearly business as usual, I allow myself to be a bit lazy with videos, only one per day, because I Have enough time and so I started to read a bit more, today mostly in my offline Wikipedia, I am very happy to have that.

327 Ship (3) near Sri Lanka 12.6.2019

Yesterday, I felt something strange inside my cheek and when I checked it, I saw a kind of bladder, black 8mm wide and 2mm strong. As every man ( I am not sure if women are different in this aspect) I was prepared to die, there were not many other possibilities than some kind of mouth cancer and I wanted to get to the state of dignity of late Sigmund Freud bearing this destiny. Today it was subject of miraculous spontaneous healing and gratefully I accepted destiny’s decision that I am not yet ready for this (or any other) kind of heroism.
This night we had the second time conversion, from Singapore to Jakarta to Almaty. For my body it was in a way logic to wake up at 3:30, my mind tried to follow. I wonder if the most obvious change I will undergo by this adventure would be a more sophisticated sleep disorder than before. I don’t care too much, except those moments when I am so sleepy that the feeling is so unpleasant like pain only that it doesn’t hurt.
Another unpleasant feeling: the temperature in the cabin. It is simply too cold and today I got an objective prove from my camera, because when I went outside, the lens clouded over. I don’t like cooling rooms and vehicles down too much in general. I can understand when people want to cool down unbearable heat until it is bearable but then I my acceptance sinks parallel to the temperature until I get aggressive when I see people wearing more clothes because the rooms are too cold.
Jochen, the German helps himself by opening the windows (it is the first ship where this is possible). You get warm air, stinky air and much noise and I guess that warming up the room is only challenging the AC to work harder.
To make my despair complete, at the same time I heard a report about a guy suggesting we should colonized some other planets, because the earth will be uninhabitable. I am sure, that with some common sense and 10% of the money and efforts that will be necessary to make the first steps in this direction, you could save the planet and make it a good place to live for all of us.

328 Ship (4) to Maldives 13.6.2019

This night a had a very special repeating nightmare about video editing! The background: when I compiled the videos about Kangaroo Island, after completing everything including music and some coordination of timing between this music and the video, I found a clip about a big burning area that I had not integrated. I now can just add it without music, skip it or re-do the whole thing, let’s call that a trilemma as I cannot prefer one of these solutions. And last night, I dreamed about a lot of similar situations. But in reality, I am near to finish this work  for the moment, there are only two videos about Kuala Lumpur left and 6 things about the cargo ships. I don’t expect to film much before reaching the Suez Canal. From my cabin I have a very limited view, because of the containers in front and the bridge construction to the side. So, I didn’t see any seducing sunrise or sunset and I also postponed walking around the deck, something Marie France, Jean Marc and Jochen do on a daily basis.
Jochen btw, now gives me his food overflow from his plate and so I can safe his and my food for breakfast, which is a bit much, but my own weight overflow is now only 3kg, something I can tolerate until adjusting it back in Vienna.
After the Suez Canal, the next visible highlight most probably will be the port of Algeciras, the 2^nd most South town of Continental Europe (after Tarifa), as I now know. From there we go to Dunkerque, the most Northern town of France. In between will be a stop in Southampton, without any superlative. Maybe I can mention that Titanic left from there…
So there will be again something to film and edit and I guess it will take me until end of July to finish all of that. Today I had a frustrating moment that probably everybody working on a computer knows. In general, I try to safe everything from time to time, I try to make back-ups and so on. But today I was deeply involved and concentrated in a special part of a video, puzzling around with slow motion and then, of course, the program crashed down and many complicated changes since the last autosave were gone. Now, I again start saving after each step, until it will be saving after a few steps, then only sometimes, until…