Wildlife on sea

It is really amazing how many animals you meet hundreds of kilometers away form the shore. Seagull accompanying us for days, flying in our wind next to the vessel or 200 dolphins on the coast of Costa Rica hunting for flying fishes ?!?

When we arrive at a port they will send us some security guards to watch the vessel, thievery and stowaways are a big problem but as you can see they are very cute ;).

3 weeks on the vessel

Dear friends,

After now a little more than 3 weeks my vessel the „Cap Manuel“ finally arrived in Mexico, and I find some time to write emails and blog. We started in Hong Kong on the 3 of November one day later than planed; which gave me the opportunity to enjoy this big city one day and one night and trust me I did not waste any minute. The airplane landed around 6 in the morning and a nice sedan plus driver was already waiting for me. Checking in the hotel was not possible at this early time as the room was only available form 11 o´clock. Eager and still filled up by stewardesses I booked a city tour at the reception which started like 2 minutes later J lucky me… so ne the next 5 hours I spend I a nice new MAN exploring various sights of Hong Kong and the surrounding area. After the educational part I decided to treat myself with a new lens for my camera; as we all know it supposed to be very cheap here, but disappointment followed. Never the less seeing all this busy Chinese people on the street shopping for electronics was a nice thing to see and made me a little jealous as well as the can buy a much greater variety on cell phone brands than we in Germany of any other place I have been yet. So it got dark and it was time for me to have supper; Hong Kong compared to the rest of China is quit a developed place, I mean nearly everybody will understand English and even in the smallest soup kitchen they will provide you with an English menu. 2 years in Beijing and I meet 3 taxi drivers who spoke a little English but still did not understand me. Well fed and a little rested I felt the 12 hours of airplane chair in my back and of course there was just one solution àMasterCardàMassage .

One whole hour of pure evil Chinese deep disuse massage cured me of any pain and released so much adrenalin that sleeping was not an option. Back at the hotel, finally my room was ready I quickly changed and went out to hit the bars. Al you people knowing me a little better know how I react when somebody tries to but ice or juice in my drinksJ. I must say that the local Hong Kong girls are as pretty as my former colleges in Beijing mentioned. After finding some company we went to see the big skyline with all its colorful signs and displays, unfortunately there was a cyclone coming towards the city so a lot of mist made in impossible to take decent pics. After a couple of ours sleep I was ready to meet my new working place. Via private shuttle service we arrived at the harbor and there she was 230 meters long 40 wide brand new made in Shanghai. As time is money I quickly changed in to a boiler suit and stood in less than 5 minutes on the main deck helping to store provision. Here I must say that I was happy and surprised more than 4000 kg of food and beverages: Beer form Netherlands, French water, Argentinean beef, Australian lam, Danish cookies and the list went on and on. The crew on board is spitted in to officers and seaman. Officers represented by the eastern European countries like Russia, Ukraine and Poland the seaman crew was pure Philippine. They did not even dare to place me in to the Philippines in the mess room, no; I am sitting and dining with the officers, cold beer for every meal, nice steward, and room service when needed. But sometimes I sit with the crew as they are much more fun and share more time together than the officers.

Photokina 2008 Cologne

Lucky me just before I have to leave Germany "again", I was able to attend the Photokina exhibition 2008. On a very sunny day I arrived in cologne, a little sad not having the time to take some pics around the “Dom” of cologne. The exhibition was amazing, seeing all these cameras, comparing them to another and shooting pictures with all of them.

The attending companies where so kind and also provided models to take pictures from; they had hawks as well as nice girls, posing in perfect lightning. After several hours of wondering around I enjoyed the comfort of a nice massage chair combined with a mind trainer; an amazing experience I must say, like a laser show inside your brain.

Flea market Bonn

The most favorite event for me in summer is the annual flea market located in Bonn – Rheinaue. Right next to the river Rhein in between beautiful arranged gardens and rare trees is it always possible to find exact the most unuseful item you did not have yet but always wanted to know what it feels like to own it.

I must say the climate of flee market certainly has changed over the years, people trying to sell stuff; I would be ashamed to be seen with. Overpriced comic books, corroded tools and of course the Rollex watch for 90 bucks. Never the less, it awakes the hunter in me and after hours of looking through other people belongings you will find a thing or two that will come in handy soon. The most rewarding thing afterwards is, like in so many other German activities, the usual beer ceremony; sitting down in a beer garden nearby, eating a pretzel and drinking a beer or two.

Algebra 1

Servus
hier für alle die noch etwas Vorbereitung brauchen. Lineare Algebra heißt das Zauberwort!!!
Wer schon Skripte für andere Vorlesungen hat kann diese hier auch noch einstellen, denke doch das wir alle im selben Boot sitzen ;).

MFG

2 Bücher ca 600 Seiten

Lineare Algebra.zip

Algebra 2

Und hier nun der Hammer 630 Seiten geballte Algebra !?!

Download hier:

Wine tour to Linz

This weekend we went for a little trip to see some of the nice surroundings of my hometown. We passed the last remains of the bridge of Remagen to arrive at Linz.

Linz is a typical old German village as tourist imagine whole Germany must look like; I certainly felt like stuck in an old 60´s movie. The local brass ensemble played hits only the elderly can remember, anyway there was a very good reason for me to come here on this lovely sunny Sunday afternoon and this reason was called “Federweißer und Ziebelkuchen” for all you non German speaker I will explain:

Federweißer is a very young wine, very sweet and with still yeast in it. It’s a deadly mixture as it tastes like juice but makes boom at some point ;) most probably to happen 1 hour later when you sit in the sun zipping the last bit out of your glass ready to go but not able to. Ziebelkuchen on the other hand is neither a pie nor a pizza it’s an onion pie and only eatable with enough Federweißer. Lucky me I wasn´t driving…

Fire fighting

The biggest enemy on board a ship is a fire, so met a firefighter at a fire station nearby and did some exercising with a breathing apparatus. Highlight here was a obstacle course. We crawled through tubes and holes, over walls and other obstacles just for fun the light was turn of a fog machine started, screaming sound where coming out of the speakers last but not least special lamps where sending heat rays towards us. After a morning indoor the afternoon was all about the outdoor. We all met on a gravel pit and gave the fire extinguishers a try. Just some diesel and Gas put together in a pan, lighted up and we had an easy target to practice on. Powder extinguishers, CO2 extinguishers or the good old fire hose we tried them all.

One other highlight on this birthday of mine was that I was allowed to drive a Trabbi. For all of you not knowing what that is here a little intro. The Trabbi was the most manufactured car in East Germany an icon of socialist communism. Made out of a composite fabric and not metal it is very light and very noisy. Rumor has it, that it was made out of old cleaning rags soaked in epoxy. Never the less a great car, a merc everybody can drive but steering this one you have to think ahead, as there is no power brake unit nor a power steering. I was really thankful for this opportunity; a very old dream of mine came true this day.

Basic Safty Training "The Boat"

These days I am in Cuxhaven, a really small town on in the north of Germany to learn about safety procedures in nautical vessels. Trust me it is more fun than it sounds like. Despite all the boring theoretical lessons we have, the practical stuff is making up for it. Here are just some impressions what it was all about.

The lifeboat:
Boarding a lifeboat early in the morning wasn´t a lot of fun at first, as it was still a little wet and slippery. With the sun cam the fun and for ours we row the little boat around forward, backward, in circles, everybody had a turn shouting the commandos.

New challenges ahead

Got in!

My application on the Nautical University of Leer has been accepted, means that by the end of this month I am a student again. This time get a driving license for the kind of vessel you see on you left hand side.

Beginning with an internship at B&S Ship management, 26 weeks should be a sufficient time to get an insight how it feels to work on a boat like this. Catching up with the vessel in Korea at the end of September it will travel between Asia and South America. For the moment I do not know what to expect, it will certainly be very exciting.

Music from Africa

To all those people, how liked partying in Africa here are download links to some mp3 collections I made. I guess there will be some traditional ones as well :). If you want your favourite songs listed here as well just send me the link or the file.

I. Kenya Club

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=8d58489f6a37c8dcab1eab3e9fa335ca8084e0d369bd9bb7

Tratitional Kenya Music; I think this ones where form Steve the Maisai truck driver :)

Part 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?bcyjz0fyd42

Part 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?wuc0jvohed5

Part 3: http://www.mediafire.com/?0d93tjb1dty

Part-4 will come soon

Uh I found this nice page with a lot of cool local music videos

http://www.kenyans.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=61285

enjoy

Day 3 Hazyview to Graskop

Early in the morning we took a little tour through the bushes; guided by a still drunk but heavily armed immigrant we explored the surroundings of our camp.

Personally I liked this kind of “game walking” much better than “driving” as you can much more appreciate the little things that happen all around you, birds signaling your arrival to the other animals, marks on the ground and evidence of a kill. If you want you can touch it and you will see that it´s still warm he said, standing in front of a big pile of shit from a rhino, but I politely declined.

After this exiting morning we got back to the camp and shortly after back on the road heading towards Graskop.

After a while we stopped at this beautiful viewpoint, It really earned its name “God´s window” , funny thing there was a adult film shooting going on when we came there I captured the male lead as the girls where hiding in the bushes when we arrived. I think his artist name was comander Bomb and he still had his gun in the holster. :)

Second stop was a little water fall, nice surroundings unfortuatly to cold to swim.

Day 2 Hazyview

Second day we went so see Krueger national park. Despite that is wasn´t the most authentic game park in Africa, it was the only place we spotted a leopard.

So the day started with an amazing sunrise, made of fire and blood putting us in the right mood to go and hunt down the big five (of course only with our camerasJ). The group spited up in to vehicles, one in a 4x4 open Landover and the rest stayed with the truck.

One advise here, if you go to see a game park insist on a second guide, the driver we had wasn´t any good at game spotting at all; so it helps if there is somebody else how knows the area and believe me when I say that you only can see up to 10 meters into the bushes around you. But sometimes we got lucky and animals like these elephants came near to the road for dinner.

DAY 1: Johannesburg to Hazyview

After inspec ting our new vehicle and Toni, our tour guide, insistently demanding to call it a truck and not a bus, we got comfortable. A lot of space was guaranteed as there were just 12 of us in a truck build for 30 people. A sound system was provided which allowed us to use our own mp3 players and share our music with the rest of the group.



To give us a warm welcome the first camping spot was a pre erectet tent village with real beds. 8 km from the Kruger’s Numbi Gate, surrounded by only an electric fence I started feeling safari! Cocktails at the bar and a pool just in sight made us wondering if we can expect that kind of luxury every day.

First night, first bottle!
As it was colder that most of us expected, it was the right time to get some hot rum and a slice of lemon to stay worm. Of course Amy and the pot of steaming hot water did a great job as well, keeping my body temperature at a reasonably stable level.

How it started

Day -1

Before we really started our tour, there was a little pre departure meeting a the nice "Backpackers Ritz" in Johannesburg, quite a nice place and of course they had a bar! So the party could start. Good beer a friendly barkeeper and my new truckmates Jenn, Joe and Louis had arrived as well.

This was just the beginning but it made me realise that we need a bar as well on our trip. Scared because of the descriptions of my tour sales man, that there might be a alcohol shortage in some of the countries we will go through, a big bottle shopping was made the next day. A wise decision, as I would realise later, because it was surprisingly cold in Africa.

Intro

Before we start, quick something about me and how I ended up on this tour.

After fininshing my hard work in South Africa, leaving my surfboard and Merc behind. It was clear to me, that just leaving the country by plane isn´t enough. Woring and living in SA but never getting to feel the real Africa, pure nature and acient peoples, I could not allow to happen.

Young and with no bounderys, if not now when will there be time to do an extensice Africa tour. First I was thinking of doing a Cape to Cairo tour but political instabilities made it impossible for me to go all the way up to Cairo. So Johannesburg to Narobi it was.


You people how where wondering how he ended up with so much luggage during his trip, here a little insight of how it happened.

Just a tip, never listen to a mother what to bring on a trip like this one, you will end up with way to much, 54kg was the number the scale showed at the airport. Lucky me there was a lot of space in the truck and a lot of Zimbabweans eager to trade most of it for some nice souvenirs.