Planalto Cycles

Although I had been awake until the ship had been finally arriving at 1 a.m., I couldn’t sleep longer than until 5 a.m.  So, there will be a lack of energy and motivation accompanying me through this day. First symptom: no Feldenkrais lesson before breakfast  but a lot of facebook scrolling, but with a good reason or explanation: The vice-chancellor of Austria, Strache in 2017 (before elections) had been filmed offering influence on the most-read newspaper in Austria, because he himself wants to have more influence on the media. There were more bad things to see in that video, but I could not stand it, I just read reactions to that topic and ask myself what will come now. Strache is only a symbol, at the one hand for bad politicians but also for his devoted followers. Most of them are predisposed to simple right-wing messages and resistant for anything else, what they then call fake news or extreme left. If you take away Strache (or before him Haider) they will find someone else. Nothing of global relevance is important to them except it is linked to the only topics that matter to them, like nationalism or Muslim immigration. Those are fueled and driven by outrage, mistrust, hatred and the feeling of injustice (but only against themselves). It is such a waste of energy, time and manpower, that we would need to change everything that really matters. By the way, if we finally would start to do the right things (fight global warming, fight global injustice, poverty and hunger, built up a fair and sustainable society of ONE mankind, because we live together on this one globe), immigration would be only a marginal phenomenon not a threat.
Today I found out that I can not only upload my youtube clips unlisted and later make them public myself, I can plan the date of publishing. This is good, because now I want to edit and upload as many videos as I can, but only publish them one per day.
and now some cargo loading photos. I saw a bit more than on my last two trips, for example that on upper deck level, they put big panels after filling up the belly of the ship with 10 layers of containers.

This morning, I woke up even earlier and made another Feldenkrais lesson, but it was exhausting, because I had to sit 30min in an uncomfortable pose and I only should imagine the movements, what is good and effective but hard to do for so long time, the more if sitting starts to hurt. I am warned and will not repeat this lesson too soon!
At the moment, it is easy not to eat too much, because I am not hungry at all. We’ll see if this is enough to lose some weight. I know that it is not urgent in any way, but first, I don’t want to miss the point when I gain unnecessary “reserves” and second I want to deal with this problem that is a real problem for so many people (at least more than for me).
I went to the bridge, because the ship was swinging stronger than I had experienced before and the officer explained that it is about 3-4°. I wondered that the sea seemed to be qualm and still there is this movement and he showed me something he called swell, some bigger and slower waves that move the ship although the sea is not rough. He showed me an instrument to measure the movement to the left and right. When the movement gets up to 10° (he told me, that on the way to Sydney they had such), you should not use the lift anymore and when it is 15°, they start to be concerned. But danger starts around 30°. I cannot imagine this, because also today things fell from the desk and when I did my running training on the tread mill, I alternately ran uphill and downhill – and had to strain harder and to slow down every few seconds.
A few hours later, I came again to the bridge, because I had seen that the ship didn’t move anymore. At noon we were in front of Melbourne, but instead of going long-side at 1800 we would have to wait for the pilot until 2200 and would not arrive before midnight, again because of lack of space in the port.
The next thing I learned today was that only in Singapore they would get new supplies. They haven’t any muesli or better bread onboard and I think about buying it in Fremantle when I wanted to leave the ship for a while anyway.
I asked my travel agent in Berlin, if it would be possible to care for healthy stuff on the last ship (Benjamin Franklin, from Singapore to Duncerque) and I also asked where I could address my concern about the terrible food-waste on all the ships. The problem is that at least the officers get their meals served and many of them eat just a little bit, the rest is thrown away. If they could take it by themselves or could decide how much they want to get on their plate, it would be better. And it is interesting that the company looks so much on the prices, that maybe differ in a range from 10-30% depending on what and where you buy, but in the end more than what they save by buying cheaper is wasted and this is not only a waste of their money it is also a waste of global resources.

Tomorrow, the Sri Lankan Buddhists (70% of the population) celebrates Buddhas birthday and they B-Deck is decorates.

I had asked the chief officer for a magnet, so I can pin a note on the door when I am outside, because it had happened that someone locked the door when I was on deck. And he just teared down one decoration to give me the clip magnet that held it.

Yes, day 300…
I used my too early awakening for catch up yesterday’s Feldenkrais session before breakfast. In my luggage, I had found another chocolate from Taiwan that was totally mouldy, and I brought it down to the kitchen where they have a place for waste separation. The Bosun took the disgusting completely mouldy chunk out of the box with bare hands, which was at least surprising. But the next thing he wanted to do without washing his hands after this action, was giving toast bread for me in the toaster. He is a nice guy, but I would prefer to take my own bread with my own fingers in general and in such a situation in particular.
I will survive.
Today, I got a ship-email-address, but until Freemantle or even a bit more northward, I will have connection from time to time, because we are sometimes near the coast (ok, even at the coast, you don’t have connection all the time, it must be near a town) and we will have stops in Melbourne, Adelaide and Fremantle (named after Captain Charles Fremantle, who established a camp there in 1829. Sometimes called Freo and in an area called Walyallup (in Nyungar, a language with only a few individuals still able to use its full resources)).
At the gym, I had started my running program yesterday and wanted to cycle today, but the batteries are gone, so my complicated system of increasing tempo and duration is difficult to monitor. But I found a personal scale, stepped on it and saw something like 5kg over my original weight before leaving Vienna. This is more than I can lose during cycling those 1400km back home and no wonder after being so lazy the last weeks and eating lots, especially chocolate. Since I entered the ship, I hadn’t eaten any chocolate, but still always a lot. This lunch, I wanted to eat less, but the bosun brought an extra plate with rice and I feared he would throw the rest if it seems too little to keep it, so I again ate more than I needed and even 4 hours later felt very full (2 hours before dinner…) But I will try to eat less from now on and maybe in combination with some exercise I can get rid of 1 kg on during this trip, 1-2 until reaching France and the rest until being back in Vienna. Normally, I have a tolerance of 1-2kg, before eating less chocolate and other sweet stuff and when it is 3+, I become stricter, but in general, I still eat when I am hungry. Now I would try to reduce in general, but mainly in the evening, (like at home, when I normally don’t eat after lunch) and in the morning, I want to skip the less healthy stuff, like white bread, jam, Nutella, crepes.
I asked for a smaller portion for dinner, not sure if it was, and although I was not hungry, I easily could eat all of it, because of the taste.
Then, I went to the “Owner’s recreation room” (Btw, I live in the “Owner’s room”, but it is less comfortable than the passenger’s rooms on the previous ships, maybe because this ship is some years older and smaller than those?) to see what books they have. There are some French, Russian, English and even German books, but they are not appealing for me, luckily I could say, because then I don’t need to read one of them and lose my precious working time or training time – strange thoughts…

The night was loud and rumbling, because they emptied the space in front of me completely and filled it with other containers, but it was not too bad for me.

At breakfast, I could take crêpes with Nutella and only a bad muesli without oats was available and no full grain bread, what I had hoped to get for a healthy diet, but still there is a lot of salad at noon and for dinner, so it will be good.
I read about Nutella and there was one argument that you can think about: you cannot tell for sure that the palm oil they use, is not causing overexploitation, although they have a certificate that the WWF accepts. But for sure they would need at least 3x more space for growing alternative oils and then the problem could be even bigger. I wrote an email to the producing company, Ferrero, and suggest going a step ahead and use organic ingredients, so not only I, but many customers would feel better to buy that spread. Maybe, they were waiting for my letter and will change this soon!
In the morning, I wanted to do a Feldenkrais lesson, but was 2x interrupted by a guy who wanted to have my documents. I stopped it, and avoided to be interrupted two more times, because he wanted to have my passport again for a copy. But he gave it back to me, so maybe I will take the chance to leave the ship in Fremantle for a short round there (and buying oat flakes?!)
Today, I only cut two videos, because the first one was longer, and I tried to download new music from youtube. I also wasted some time by listening hit-music of the 70ties-90ties, because in the stadium in Sydney they had played a song that I had heard before but didn’t know the name of it or the band and I want to use it for the next open air concert in my school. I heard a lot of songs from Toto, Yes, Foreigners and all those bands suspicious for me, but didn’t find that song.
At dinner, the captain invited me to the bridge when we would leave. I had seen a woman on board yesterday and now it was clear that she is the wife of the captain, because she sat beside him and they were not talking like colleagues. The pilot came at 18:30 and the ship left the port. From time to time he said a number or something like for instance “midship”, and in the same second, 3 crewmembers repeated that one after the other as a confirmation.

The tug-boats stayed with us for a while after pulling the ship about 10m from the harbour wall. And then, the pilot also left us. I wrote a last message to M&M before my phone lost the connection and sat down for finishing the second video. But because of the vibrations of the ship, caused by the engine, the screen began to shiver. I hope this problem will not become more serious and I can finish some videos. If I can complete 3 of them every day, I would have done all the videos until leaving Sydney, and only if I film too much on board, I will again built up a delay. But there are not too many new things for filming, so I will see!