People on board, the ship and what I see.....
Feel free to walk around my photo website and stories (they are in Dutch...)
:)
http://homepage.mac.com/diederickvangelder
CU!
Deepworkers
When night doesn't fall anymore, the air feels cold and hardly any birds are flying around, that is when I started this webblog. Welcome to my mind.
End of June 2007:
We're heading North, into the cold waters of the Bering Sea. A week before we were still in the calm and protected waters of B.C., Canada. Surrounded by high hills covert by huge trees and here and there a waterfall. On this location five men and one woman practiced in a little submarine. They had one week to learn how to react on all the things that can go wrong in a one-person 'deepworker'. Pressure failure, batteries down or fire, for every problem is a solution and there is not much space for creativity. Once, at the working depth of 2000 feet, they are on there own... In about a week or three they will be back on board, and then they have to show there skills again, but then in the cold and rough Bering Sea.
Within 36 hours we will be in Homer, Alaska. The crew is cleaning the decks, so that when visitors will be shown around during the 'open days', we make a good impression. And also there will be a big crewchange. Some of us are 3 months on board and home is waiting. So soon new energy will fill the atmosphere and lift the motivation to new levels.
About Me
diek
USA
Esperanza - Navigation Mate (2nd) From Holland Spring 2006: It started in a bar... called the equator, this winter in Amsterdam. The guy just listened to my story how I was fed up with commercial sailing after ten years and how I wanted to change my way of sailing. He didn't speak much and it wasn't until the third time we met, after a couple of beers he told me he was working for GP. I thought it was just another commercial sailing company he had been working for, GP, like Global something... big ugly cargo ships, but no, non of that, it was Greenpeace!! Then I realized I had a problem, and a chance at the same time; I had just told him how fed up I was with sailing, but sailing for Greenpeace would be a big difference. So we ordered another beer and he gave me the number of the office to call. A week later I went there, date and time accidentally exactly parallel with the sun eclipse. When I rang the bell, the moon just started slowly to cover the sun and birds went silent. Everything seemed so strange to me. The interview was to be called typical and fits perfectly in the top three of 'unusual conversations for a first time meeting'. Confused and filled with doubts I left the office, not knowing what on earth they might be thinking of me. I had just been honest and myself... Since I'm sailing I like to dig out local plants and take with me on the ship for at home, a habit which is never really understood by fellow sailors. But here nobody seems to be surprised wen i came walking on the quay towards the ship and started to replant my four new species in a pot. So, now (summer 2006) a little piece of the Azores (earth and plant) is hanging and swinging on the rhythm of the ocean in my cabin and doing fine. Actually, it is doing a little bit to good, and the stronger plants are pushing away the weaker. Because variety is necessary for balance, it ends up that even in this local environment, I have to defend the little ones, and play god once a week in my small precious kingdom... with a scissor... and no excuses... Think Global, Act Local! Built and raised in Rotterdam, a Monday morning and Friday afternoon studying economics in Amsterdam, five years commercial business putting companies in the market or expanding profits (what else is new) and then swichted to sailing, starting as a a/b (able body) on a commercial sailing ship. What a difference a day makes.
Your Personal Activist Network
