Fri
28 Oct
2016

After the sum­mer and autumn trips in Spits­ber­gen, it was time to spend some weeks fur­ther south. Not­hing of exci­te­ment con­cer­ning this blog, arc­tic acti­vi­ties were limi­t­ed to post-pro­ces­sing of recent trips and pre­pa­ra­ti­on of upco­ming ones, down to adre­na­lin-kicking neces­si­ties like book kee­ping and the like. Also working on new polar books was on the agen­da, but how exci­ting is it to fol­low how that is being done?

Then it was time to move nor­thwards again. Not direct­ly. Logi­sti­cal­ly skillful­ly incor­po­ra­ted into the jour­ney north, I had and took the rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet mas­ter gui­ta­rist Jeff Beck in south Ger­ma­ny – in a sports hall! Thanks to the 25th anni­ver­sa­ry of a local rock music club and their spon­sors, I guess Beck and his band would other­wi­se hard­ly have got lost in Win­ter­bach, half an hour by local train from Stutt­gart into the dark­ness. And well, what can I say, mas­ter Beck was in bril­li­ant shape and mood, his gui­tar, sound and play­ing, sharp as a kni­fe and of dead­ly pre­cis­i­on. Tasty bits and pie­ces from almost half a cen­tu­ry of musi­cal histo­ry. A guitarist’s gui­ta­rist, play­ing in a league on his own with a sound and style total­ly uni­que and imme­dia­te­ly reco­g­nisable after just a few notes. Gui­tar play­ing from outer space. At an age of 72 years. Ama­zing!

The train ride next ear­ly mor­ning to Frank­furt air­port was also quite ama­zing. It should have taken an hour, it took three. That included lea­ving a total­ly over­c­row­ded train which did not con­ti­nue the jour­ney for safe­ty reasons. Secu­ri­ty was alre­a­dy on stand-by to part­ly evacua­te the next one which was equal­ly over­c­row­ded. While being men­tal­ly alre­a­dy pre­pared for a lon­gish and very expen­si­ve taxi ride to the air­port, it tur­ned out that the third and, as far as I was con­cer­ned, last con­nec­tion had enough space to stand in a cor­ner for half an hour to Frank­furt. Well … I got the flight, that’s what counts.

Life is so much more rela­xed in the far north. Good to get back to Anti­gua, good to see the peo­p­le here, the crew, loo­king for­ward to the season’s final trip which is start­ing today (Sun­day). We are hoping for wha­les and nor­t­hern lights the next days. Fin­gers crossed!