Planalto Cycles

At midnight, the officer at the bridge had told me that it is no use waiting for passing by Sydney. It would be even later than 1:00 in the night (as I first had been told), maybe around 4:00 and the ship will be too far from the coast to see anything.
At 5:00, I woke up and my brain started working, telling me, I could at least try to see something, and I could make a screenshot of the location. At this time of the day, I normally cannot avoid listening to my brain and so I got up.

It was dark but only a bit cloudy and you could see some gloomy light from the direction of Sydney and from more in the South, too, apparently from Wollegong.
My camera could hardly see anything were I saw at least something, so it is more a matter of interpretation if you see light or not on those photos.
Today was the final day for:
* ) eating up the ants & grasshoppers, except one little tin with ants that I will show the immigration office, together with my shoes and the Ukulele.

*) editing the videos of February – it is not completely finished, because after uploading on youtube as “unlisted” I want to ask the appearing persons if publishing is ok.
*) washing clothes (I gave my best, only one sock fell on the floor!)
*) recording “Blowin’ in the wind” (meanwhile I got used to my talking voice, but singing…)
*) going to the bridge and ask questions (eg. the ship needs ~35 tons fuel for 14knots, but 60 tons for 18 knots and they bought 2000 tons of oil in a Russian port where they got good and cheap stuff)
and it was the first day for taking many photos of fog and rainbows, I was more outside than in the complete week before.

I started packing those things that I only had put out of the bags because I had cleaned them.

Tomorrow and later I will wonder why I did not this or that on the ship when I had so much time! I had made notes what I want to do, for example mending a bag and more professionally fixing a container or cup on my handlebar for different uses (there was dog food inside, it was a cup holder, I sometimes put my camera there, etc). Now I made some holes in the bottom as drainage and mended some loops for the straps that before sometimes had slipped down.
But whatever I had forgotten to do:
I will cycle less than additional 4 weeks on this trip, only to Sydney and then from Duncerque to Vienna, the trip is near to his final destination and a bit near to the end, too.

At breakfast, Gihan, the messman by the way said on Wednesday, I should not forget my chocolate in the fridge of the ship-kitchen.
Why Wednesday?
Because  on that day, we arrive in Melbourne!
But it should be Friday, I have been told?!
The company had told the captain to speed up so to catch up the delay.

That is a big surprise for me, because on the first day, the captain had told me we would arrive on Friday late night and because of too much fuel consumption, the ship would not go faster to compensate the delay.

This was a completely new situation and I was glad that Gihan had told me that two days before it happens, because so I had time enough for doing what has to be done.

Cleaning my bike was set for today anyway, and cleaning my bags was additional, because today was sunny to get them dry again fast.

But first, I went to the administration office to write some emails. Markus and Doron were my contact persons for the hosts along the route Melbourne – Sydney. A few days before, I had asked them to tell my hosts from Warmshowers and Couchsurfing about my delay and only one of them had said that he would not be available later. So, I hope that changing back again is only annoying but no problem.
The videos of February are finished except the day of school visit in Pitou, it consists of 5 parts and each of them would normally be an own video. But the parts of the English performance class, the Lion dance and the weight-lifting class are completed, only my presentation and the bike tour must be edited and then the parts can be put together and the video is finished.
My delay was more than a month, now thirteen days of March will be left for later.
When I think back, I sometimes get the impression I was more “in the moment” when I started to travel than now. Now it is more like a job, cycling, writing, editing, uploading, organizing…
And everything additional must be integrated or the usual business must be postponed.
I am still nervous, because there are always things you can find to make you nervous when this is part of your personality. But I was deeper involved in the adventure in the first weeks or months. Now, I found a way to integrate everything in my special personality instead that such an extreme or at least exceptional year would change my attitude and develop my personality.
That doesn’t matter too much, because it makes no difference if I die as an enlightened Guru or Buddhist or just one night don’t wake up too early because I don’t wake up anymore. And even as the Martin that I am, was and apparently will be the rest of my life, I can always improve some details, create systems to get control over me until they erode because I am not a 100% control freak, I am lazy, too. But this is the chance for new freedom or new systems…

This morning I went out to catch a sunrise, there were some clouds but still it was ok. I did my stretching exercises outside, too, and that was a nice variation. Another variation was my scrambled egg, from now on with ants-topping.

I wonder if for the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service there would be any difference if my insects have/are expired (best before June 2018) but I eat them up anyway or at least try it, because at lunch, I had forgotten my ants and admittedly it was easier to eat without publicly putting ants on my food…
In the evening, I came earlier and could drown some ants in the soup and hide another company on the spaghetti ant-onara.
The day was complete, no hour missing and every hour full with some activity but no news.

There are only 3 videos from February left for cutting, but they are longer and more complex, so I will not manage to cut more than one per day, and 8 more are left so far from March. And 6 days are left on the ship. So, maybe, I will not finish everything. But I have a reserve of 21 videos waiting for upload and I will upload only one video per day, so I will be arrived in Sydney and can continue cutting there for some days, before we leave for Adelaide.
There would be no good reason to be stressed about these videos, because in average they have 10 or 20 views and maybe these few people who really watch those clips are happy if they don’t have to watch one every day. It is only that I want to be done what has to be done and it must be done, because I began this work.
This night I slept on my camping mattress, because I suppose that partly the ship mattress is responsible for my bad sleep with bad dreams. The result was not clear enough, so I will do it again. For the first time however, I woke up by the alarm, what it less impressing because of the latest time conversion.
This noon I could take a photo of the nearly vertical shadow. Maybe half an hour earlier it would have been better, but there were clouds.

For another time-consuming video project, I filmed a bird, that for me was a dove until now, because Bob Dylan sings “how many seas must a white dove sail”. But during filming I remembered the word seagull (Jonathan!) and was not sure anymore. But what is a pigeon? And if a dove is a pigeon, why should it sail many seas?
The project I mean is my daily life on the ship. So, it should cover stairs, food, turning on/off the SPOT-GPS, video cutting, workouts and playing a bit on the Ukulele. I play only one song, “Blowin’ in the wind”, because it is one of the few songs (or the only one?) where I know the chords and even the first verse, that with the white dove. And while I was playing it in all harmonies from C to B, there was a white “dove” sailing in front of the ship which is in front of my window. And I thought it would be interesting to sing that song and partly film the Ukulele and when the dove-line comes the video should show that bird. Yet, I am not sure if Magix and I will cooperate successfully to do that, but I am motivated to try it.
In the afternoon was an alarm signal and then an announcement. I could detect it as English but could only understand a few words, not the message. I wonder sometimes how the Sri Lankans can understand the Chinese accent and the other way around, I can hardly catch anything in both cases. Meanwhile I know what the captain means when he says Moulbairne, because we go there, and I suppose that the crew members also can guess meanings because there is only a certain number of repeating things to tell on a ship.
At least I know that in any emergency case I must go to the bridge and I went there. The announcement was “only for drill” but the chief officer has something for me anyway, a paper from Australian Customs and Border Protection Service regarding things I want to bring.
Question 7
“Are you bringing into Australia (…) wooden articles?”
Yes, an Ukulele – do they mean that?
Question 8
“Are you bringing into Australia animals, parts of animals, animal products including equipment, (…), insects, shells, bee products?
Yes, I wanted to bring some ants and locusts of the brand “don’t cry EAT IT!” to spice up our camping tour but now I better eat them on my daily white rice (deserves to be spiced up, too) before the officers freak out and maybe make troubles beyond those little packages.

In late afternoon the crew had a barbecue like every fortnight. The captain invited me to sit next to him and the conversation had to face diverse difficulties: His Chinese (and my Austrian!) accent, loud music, lack of common topics, eating…

When I asked something and understood the answer, then I knew the captain had not understood my question, when he said something I tried to guess by the melody of the sentence, where a good moment for nodding or smiling could be. The loud music was his own playlist and he skipped all Chinese songs although some started more promising than many of the more international songs were. First, you saw the whole crew around the grille but soon the Sri Lankans went inside in the crew’s recreation room and the Chinese still were outside. The captain said something about beef, but I am not sure if the segregation is based on meat. At 19:00, everything was over again and two times I got the explanation that there is no beer allowed and so, people don’t sit longer together than necessary….
When I went back to my cabin, I could hear loud music from the captain’s room. Now he was playing Chinese songs but after an hour, he played only the same two songs and finally only one song 3 or four times in a row. Then the night could begin.

It is the second time that by accidently pressing a devilish key-combination my diary that I write in “word” is lost, completely except the title that I use to save the document.
Basically, I admire all that electronic stuff and software for working at all, and there are some great features here and there, but in most apps there is also something from time to time making me use four-letter-words. Loud or at least whispered between the teeth.
Ironically “Magix” is the app I use most every day and at the same time the one offering most opportunities for getting aggressive or desperate or tired of everything.
In a ranking, it would be followed by “audacity”, but I know this long enough to handle most handicaps and I don’t forget that it is freeware.
Today, in the video of day 223 (the way to Pingdong) I tried to combine them more intensely than usual and that means to multiply occasions to get mad.
Besides this video from my diary-list, I only could finish another one, but I recorded something new, too:
Now, the messman of the ship, Gihan Mendis is member of the Bürgschaft-team and I cut his video and incooperated his lines in the current version. He was fast and did well. I had made a “transcription” of the German words into English (“dir” now was “deer” or “dear”) and he transcribed that into his Singhalese writing.

It rained all day, so much that I could not use my phone outside for a screenshot of the location, and only during the few seconds that I needed to turn on the GPS tracker, I got wet enough.
At 13:00 we had to change time for the 3^rd time, I don’t understand this, because I had been told we had the time of Sydney already, but no I am curious if we change back again.
The announcement for that came by loudspeakers during lunch and besides that I was thinking about cultures and habits and manners. So far, I had the concept that some manners are arbitrary (like curtseys or bows) or have anachronistic reasons (like shacking the right hands because the left hand was used for other things…) and some are polite in the sense of consideration or thoughtfulness, a matter of social compatibility.
But my slurping neighbour who uses his fork only as a kind of supporting tool between the plate and his mouth that is nearly touching the plate, because not everything can be slurped or it has to be pushed from other places of the plate to the slurping position (he doesn’t move his head over the plate during slurping, be it for convenience or convention) made me re-think that.
And now I thought that my reaction to his way of eating is also arbitrary. I can be amused or just interested in the optical presentation but feel disturbed or disgusted by the acoustics. And there are “bad manners” that can even smell and until today I was sure that this is a matter of social compatibility (in a post-medieval society) and that it is not arbitrary or anachronistic to call that “bad manners”.
But where is a good reason to declare offending the nose or disturbing the ear more important than irritating the eye?
Is this just a matter of education in early childhood? Normally I use exposure to things that seem to be “bad manners” in my view just for remembering all those smaller and bigger things I had been told as bad manners myself and then it easy to be more generous. And now I am even grateful for this lesson my neighbour taught me, because otherwise today’s entry in my diary would have been meagre.

What was new or different?

I woke up only 10min before the alarm would ring, but this is not my merit, it was just caused by the latest time conversion.
Today, as we had passed the equator, I wanted to see how near to vertical the sun would be at noon. And guess what?! It was rainy (please, kindly read about the signification of rain on day 234 or, if you prefer primary sources take the bible, part I, Genesis,  or better, because older, the Gilgamesh epos, or best because oldest: the Atrahasis myth, keyword: floods and the like)
At 11:00, the rain paused, the sun came out and I wondered why it is standing so inclined at that time of the day. But I didn’t need to wonder long, because clouds and rain came back soon.
A look at my watch, however, caused confusion, here it was 10:00 (11:00 was the time of my PC) and without time conversion it would be 9:00. I went to the administration office to compare and 10:00 was correct. For a while, I was sure that in my confusion and as a scatterbrain, I had done too much and forgotten that I already had changed the time settings but when I corrected it, I saw that there was summertime added by the PC.

Today, I saw a ton drifting along, a container ship (from Maersk) on the horizon

and a smaller ship coming towards us and then making a bow behind us.

This was more than in the last days and especially the ton could have been everything when it was far away, but still I hope to see dolphins.
The drilling work is only finished on F-deck, but you can hear it well from everywhere, the sound propagation of metal and this concrete look-alike is perfect. A ship is a loud thing anyway, the engine demonstrates its power also acoustically, the wind makes noise, everything trembles.
During the meals two sounds are more intrusive to my ear, it is my neighbour at the table when he eats soup (slurping with this noise production must be exhausting!) and when he eats something else, opening his mouth with every chewing motion and apparently enjoying food more, when he sees, feels, smells, tastes and hears it. My inner eye produces diverse pictures fitting to this soundscape, one is a 150kg Viking in bear fur sitting near an open fire with is big wooden spoon and his long hair and longer beard and so on.
But here sits a Chinese young man, looking even younger than he can be, and he wears his white uniform most of the time.
Regarding the food, I miss the Colomba, because this chef here is from Colombo (the crew is only from China and Sri Lanka) and I would be the only reason to cook less spicy. I need much salad to extinguish the fire on my lips and tongue. At least I could successfully suggest putting less salt in the soups.
Today was the second time conversion in those 4 days, and I didn’t expect that. Last time, we were going mostly east, now mostly south, and the changes came faster than on the tout Dubai-Kuala Lumpur. After dinner the security officer met me at the bridge to talk about the questionnaire, he had given to me on day 1.
There were some questions that I couldn’t answer, because I didn’t know what it is about, eg what I should do in case of SOPEP. It is always good to answer, “go to the bridge” and “as to master’s order”, because as a passenger I have no fixed duties. SOPEP means shipboard oil pollution emergency plan. The most important part in this case is to avoid oil going to the sea. There are many other nice abbreviations, OOW is the officer of (or on?) watch and MOB is the man over board. Most important for sure is STBD which means starboard side and that is the right side of the ship.
On the wall, I saw our coordinates, we will pass the equator this night but the sun should be still in the south if I understand the situation (I am very bad in simplest astronomical matters), because the sun should change to the northern hemisphere on 20^th of March. I will try to see that at noon, but noon is also more complicated than only 12:00, because only at 135° or 150° it would be nearly 12:00 (there are many more complications) and the ship currently is at 140° that might mean 20 earlier or 40min later, depending on the time-zone. Do I suppose…

After that I went again to the laundry to make everything fit for Australia (no mud ). The floor is quite dirty, and I have no basket for the clothes. So, I try to get everything out from a bag to the machine and back to the bag. But always something falls to the floor, the clean, wet clothes of course more likely. This is not a valid proof for the existence of that jolly God, because I bet even as a monk and praying 5 times or all the time, I could not avoid it and God cannot use this for punishing or rewarding people, it is stronger than everything – washed wet clothes must fall in the mud or dirt, you can only avoid that by staying naked or never washing.

Today, I opened my last bag, with camping-stuff and the Ukulele. I opened the sleepingbag and the tent to let them breathe that health ocean air and to check if there is any mold (no!).
I played a bit on the guitar (makes no fun, because starting with the 3^rd fret, the guitar is out of tune and a bit on the Ukulele (makes a bit more fun, but I cannot really practise, only play around). I started writing a concept for the Uganda project and I chew 2 “Taiwanese chewing gums” in the afternoon. I had had the wrong imagination that I could bring them to Sydney, but today I remembered that it is a fruit and a leaf, and it is in a plastic bag and that even when I call it Taiwanese chewing gum, it will react like a fruit and a leaf in a plastic bag. And it had. I had to throw one away because it was a bit mouldy and brought 3 down to the fridge in the kitchen, so 2 were left for consuming. I cut them into halves and took the pieces in 30-45min intervals and I can’t tell if the little dizziness was from the drug or because I still was sleepy or because of the ship’s movements. I wonder how people could find out about the effects of betel nuts, it is so bitter that, normally, I would just spit. Today, I helped myself with small pieces of chocolate, maybe this was the reason that thee effect was not that bad?

The rest would be repeating things that I had repeatedly before.
I just “repeat” posting sky-clouds-water photos, because everyday i saw something nice

This night I even woke up earlier than before, at 4, and managed to doze on until 5. I fooled around with the SUDOKU app on my re-born 2^nd fairphone for a while and got up. But for this ship trip, this is the last time that I write down my early starts, like with the rain in Vietnam I will make it the other way around, and would inform you when I sleep until the alarm rings at 6:30. There was a beautiful sunrise to see but not to photograph, because I could not do that through the window and the deck is orientated in the wrong direction. But in the evening, I could take a photo of a sunset scenery that looked as if I would have used filters and edited it under drug influence. I thought I would not take any other sea&sun photos but sometimes it is hard to resist.
What happened between those two pictures?
I was in the “gymnasium” today. The equipment is in a worse condition than on the “Columba” but I could run on the treadmill for a while.
Yesterday, I had used the ship laundry and had used the few hooks in my cabin to hang the clothes for drying. But today I had to leave my cabin because the technicians had to establish a cable connection between the above bridge and the F-deck, and it was exactly to do in my cabin. So, I set down with my PC in another room, but when I came back to get my water bottle, I saw that they had been drilling and the ceiling is made of something like concrete. The result was a hole (what they wanted) the side-effect is that the content of the former part of ceiling now was transformed to powder and the ventilation helped that powder to find its way to everywhere, including my bed (with makeshift cover) and my clothes on those hooks. I put this on the list of coincidences that would prove the existence of a god who not only invented those 10 big plagues to educate “his” people but who is jolly enough to invent also the smaller challenges for daily life. He is apparently an old-fashioned guy who still prefers something connected with rain (we remember: cleaning windows means rain, cleaning a bike, too) but sometimes can also take advantage of things modern life offer – he fears to be forgotten, I guess.
What else?

China….
I am sure “America first” is a silly, egoistic, small-time slogan. But why is China powerful and can do what they want (nearly)? Because we by all that stuff they produce there. …

For breakfast, we get juice and this one is halal. I didn’t know that a juice can be halal or haram and thought that is an advertisement, like “fat-free” for Americans. But then I read about filtration of juices. To get a pure liquid, some juices are filtered through a gelatin grid and that can stem from a pig. The gelatin is not in the end product so there is no need to declare it. It is more like homeopathic medicine were water had been in contact with the active substance and by shaking and diluting the “power” of that water (the potential) gets even higher. For those who believe in it. And in the same way your salvation can be endangered if your juice ran through a filter not made of metal (you would not eat that, too) but of gelatin that in a way stems from a pig. I say pig not pork, because it is not from the meat and I am quite sure Mohammed meant that pork should not be eaten, because there are/were good reasons to avoid it. But it is typical for religion, or better: for people who try to interpret it, that things develop their own life and meaningful things turn meaningless and then are burdened with artificial meaning. If a God is really so picky that he judges his admirers on what they eat instead on what they do or say, I am sure you could read that in those holy books

The messman gave me one of two guitars from the crew’s messroom. It is not the best instrument and has steel strings, so not good for taking up practicing classical guitar but maybe for playing a little bit. In the evening I unpacked the last bag, with my ukulele. Tomorrow I will play on both instruments for a little while.

photos:
I had tried to put them on the right place, but it was too time consuming – so all together in the start.

Oh, this was frustrating – I had been writing for an hour and wanted to change to the explorer to see my photos so that I know if had forgotten something but whatever key I accidentally had pressed, “word” closed without even asking if I want to safe the text or not and everything was gone ☹

Ok, new start…
Let’s begin with the start, “Georgia” left Kaohsiung at 1:30 and I had been awake two times before, because the engines became louder and I thought now we leave. For whatever reason I woke up early, too and so I was a bit tired all day. Maybe that is the reason that I didn’t find back to the tight and strict exercise schedule I obeyed last time, or I am just less motivated. Last time I wanted to learn the “pistol squat” and the splits but I am not flexible enough for both and even that strict schedule of hourly exercise didn’t help. But I will do something, and I re-started the “results” program, that app that forces me to do exhausting jump squats and other things that I would not do voluntarily. I remember well how painful it was when I began with it last year, because after a few months, re-starting is not much better (and by the way, the app always demands more than I would do on my own).
At 9:00 (say “nine hundred”) the security officer called me to come down at H/C deck. He showed me some things that were new to me like the emergency escape breathing device EEBD in orange (sealed for emergency) and blue (for training). You must open a complicated shutter, take in the mouthpiece, close your nose with a strong magnetic clip and pull on a string to get oxygen for 15min to escape from smoke.
We then made a tour outside to the life rafts and the life boats. Again, you must loosen a complicated mechanism on front and back of the boat and the officer admitted that it is a bit complicated but in case I would be the only survivor I should know it. It is an interesting idea – the big ship is in such troubles that I must leave it and the complete experienced and well-trained crew had died. I guess the lights will be out, the storm, heavy rain and the roaring sea call my name and I go to choose the life boat on the starboard or port side, not for aesthetic reason, no, the ship has list (SCHLAGSEITE) and in this situation I try to remember what has to be done to get the boat to the water. Let’s say I managed to do it, the poor thing is down, the sea smashes it against the ship, huge waves try to drown it and I wonder how to get down those 10m and how to open the door and close it before I share the space with a good part of the ocean…
But in reality it is much better than that! If I am the only survivor, I can go in the life boat directly, close the door, turn on the battery and press the “hook” button – the boat will go down to the water, me included. Then I would preheat the system, turn the key to start the engine and go on a private cruise without having any plan, without orientation. Maybe the last survivor of  ship “Georgia” would eventually die of thirst.
This time, we didn’t exercise putting on the immersion suit but the life jacket. It is another type then last time and maybe at least this I would manage to put on even when I need it.
The rest of the day was business as usual, I cut 2 and a half videos, the half one is from Hongkong where I again have 45 min of hidden camera, this time in the sense of the word, because you can see me struggling to get it out of the case and then I put it in the net-pocket of my bag  where it glimpsed out, filming the net and recording the conversation with the taxi driver (see day 197). I was to sleepy to finish it and took a nap.
When I wrote my diary, I saw that the translator German-English on my phone didn’t work anymore. He told me that I am offline, but this should be normal working conditions for an offline translator, but he offered only English-Chinese. My “spare-part phone” had been very strange during the last weeks, always showing a fuzzy screen until by trying this and that I could fix that but then it was extremely slowly, 2-3 sec between pressing a button and the reaction. Now I was curious if this translator would work and be it slowly. He did and what is even more, from one second to the other the phone turned back to normal speed, I even could see this recovery process!