On my Travels

So, you thought I was sitting on my bum watching TV all Sunday evening, did you? Nope... not a chance in the world for that sort of fun over here in Brazil as the TV signal gurus of wherever they come from in this part of the world has yet not managed to find anything in the air for us to download to our very fancy TV system on board this old ship. It's just the same, actually. I almost never watch TV anyway, so it's no loss at all to me. It seems to be a bit worse for some of the other guys, but they seem to have started getting used to it. I even noticed a couple of guys reading books the other day. A strange sight in our tiny little spot of this oil field I tell you. 
Me, myself I read a bit every now and again. I mean to the point I even got a dedicated electronic reading machine device thing. I should hastely add that I prefer books made of paper, but this little flat black thingy is extremely convenient for someone like me who travels quite a lot and at the same time got very limited space to carry stuff with me. I only travel with my tiny messenger bag with room for a couple of small cameras and even smaller lenses and a few rolls of film. In addition to this you will also find me carrying one of them rather small "Fjellräven" backpacks (which obviously has become very popular in the last couple of years... I have had mine since the heydays of Adam though). And that's it. Those two tiny little bags will have to hold everything I need for the six weeks I'm on board the ship. What's in that little backpack you might ask yourselves, since all necessities for six weeks are in there? 
Well, my official papers and certificates and everything I need to prove I'm a professional marine engineer needs to be there together with all visas, passports (yes, I got two of them...) seaman's book and you name it. So some space is always held for the thing that holds the documents into one bunch. 
Then there's a couple of sets of underwear just in case I need to stop over at a hotel or whatever on my way to wherever I'm on my way to. There also tends to be a few magazines containing photographic matters (usually two or three British Journals of Photography and maybe a copy of "Black + White" or two). Then there's my probably 7-8 years old Mac which should have been dead years ago, a telephone charger and a battery bank in case of emergency, a few different USB cables for this and that and a set of headphones of the noise canceling type. That's it. Oh yes, I'm one of those snobs using that sort of headphones, but when traveling alone they are a Godsend, true story!
OK, you have probably already figured out that this is not enough to survive the mentioned six weeks on board a ship, and you are quite right. I got some clothes permanently tucked away on board which of course is nice to find when I get here, but it's not that much. I have them washed twice a week, so nothing much is really needed. The only thing we do is work anyway. More or less, of course. 
Oh, and I almost forgot. There's about a thousand books or so as well hidden away somewhere inside that small backpack or sometimes in my little messenger type photo bag. 
Far from everything digital is good, but being able to carry a thousand books is really up there close to the top I tell you. 

The snap? As usual it's totally out of time and place of course, but it's a rather weird scene from the Fairy Glen out on there on the Lovely Isle of Skye somewhere. I took a short walk on my own while we were there and almost missed this little beauty because I had set my eyes on something else. Luckily I became a bit curious about it and went inside the shelter of the trees for a moment. Besides, this was the only place in the area I found I could manage to open the shutter of the camera for a short enough time to avoid snapping up some other tourist dandering about. 
This is just a film scan I'm afraid, and yes it's unsharp in case you care. The print looks gorgeous on Art 300 paper. You might see it some day with some luck.