Kinder. Children. Bambini

'Kinder. Children. Bambini' - The book that was published with my photos in it is now available to order on the internet.....

Please go to www.avisys.at and order it!! All proceeds go to AMREF - www.amref.org - (African Medical Research Foundation) and www.sos-kinderdorfinternational.org which help provide medicines and build housing and schools for orphaned children.
It is a great cause and only costs 30 euros which to us is nothing, but to them is huge!

We are sitting in our hotel room on Miami Beach..... The room kinda smells at the moment and we are struggling to find the cause of it! We have the incense burning and all the windows open so that should fix it........ hopefully. All of us are on our laptops working right now..... trying to find sponsors, flights, organize fuel, accomodation etc etc.....

This morning i went and took some photos of the sun rising over the ocean....... Definately a good start to the day and will TRY and do that each morning whilst we are staying here. you really do meet some strange people in the early morning hours which is always uplifting. Yesturday i went for a walk along the beach for a while to gather my thoughts. The thing i loved the most, apart from topless women running towards me, was how multicultural it is here....... even more so than New Zealand. There were people from every continent all swimming together and just having a great time.... Its hard to imagine that happening 100 years ago.......... Here is a photo of the sunrise this morning:



and just a random that i liked:



John just farted......

I found a piece of music on the internet yesturday that really inspired me to be a cameraman as a kid........ Its called 'Cadillac of the skies' by John Williams and was on the movie "Empire of the Sun" - an amazing movie. So have been listening to that song a lot whilst trying to install software on my computer..... a lengthy process..... and john just farted again.

Since spanish is the main language for a few of the locations we are going to, Alison and Scott are going to try and teach me...... I will also try and download some lessons off the internet some time soon. gonna go get some cuban lunch.......

Adios!

www.earthrace.net - Go there!!!

Yoga! I am now completely hooked on it. Devann, Ryan and I went to a free lesson kindly donated to the Earthrace crew by Jeffrey and Andrea (www.satsangyoga.com) and we had a blast! Some of the moves that you have to do are amazing and completely impossible for short ginga's with stiff muscles! But, the next morning Devann and I went back for a new session and I could really feel the difference in flexibility and my body did feel a lot better...... So have decided to take up Yoga when I get back to NZ or wherever i end up next.

After 3 weeks it was a real shame to leave Charleston..... especially since we had made so many friends there..... but, everything has to end some time so last week Devann and I had to drive from Charleston, South carolina to Miami......... A good 10 hour drive. It is pretty fun driving on the wrong side of the road and some of the rules are a little different which can be confusing. On the way down we stopped off at a pretty cool cafe to get a much needed Chai Latte...... and it was the best i have had in the USA so far. We then went to a town called St Augustine which is the oldest town in the USA. We had dinner and then strolled around town for a while....... St Augustine is definately my favourite place in the US so far.......

We arrived in Miami last week and set up for the Miami Boat Show. I was walking some stuff down the pontoon to the boat and in the corner of my eye, in the sea, I saw a couple of huge brown things drifting up towards the surface of the water. The first thought that pooped into my head (haha) was "they are whale turds!" because I really did'nt know what they were...... and then i realised that it was a female Manatee and its son, daughter, foul, calf, kitten, pup, puppy, cub......... I dunno, lets just say baby! So i was pretty happy for a few hours after that...... Check out this photo of the whal...... Manatees.





Jiye came down from Houston for 6 days during the boat show. Was great to see her again..... Most of the time we spent at the boat show. We only had half a day to ourselves and ended up walking down the beach a long way, climbing palm trees, shopping and holding a wicked python! Check out some of these photos:


- Jiye chases the seagulls


- Miami beach has stunning water


- Trying to get coconuts


- The coolest snake in the world!

We went out to a couple of bars for a couple of nights and had some cocktails. The music was wicked and I absolutely love the metal drums everywhere! One crazy thing i noticed i have been doing since in Miami is humming the theme tune to Police Academy 5!! Crazy i know but that movie pretty much was all i knew about Miami.

Earthrace left for Puerto Rico a couple of days ago... so now the ground crew is completely official. Me, Devann, John, Scott and Alison all stayed in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale which is just north or Miami. Devann left us yesturday which was sad but we will see her in San Diego. Devann and I also went for a swim in the ocean the other night which was wicked! Want to keep doing that from now on as every place we go to during the race is on or near the equator.

We are looking at leaving for Panama city soon which i am very excited about!!!!!!!

Here is a couple of random photos i have taken during the last couple of weeks......... enjoy:


- Earthrace cruises Chareston


- Beautiful sunset


- Miami city at night


- Guy thinks im a freak as i put a little too much sun block on


- Charleston port


- Devann and I keep warm on top of Earthrace


- Earthrace sits peacefully at the Miami boat show


- Jiye took this stunning photo of some random handsom man


- Team Earthrace!!!

Starlight

In a bit of a daze and could'nt think of a good title to call this blog so I just wrote down the name of the song I cant stop listening too by Muse....great song!

The samurai sword fighting skills are improving a lot. I look forward to the faceoff when Devann gets back. Especially with this move:



It feels like I have been in the States for at least 1 month but it has only been 2 weeks so far.... Things are going great and the boat is well on its way to getting back in the water on time which is great because we then have a couple of days in Charleston at the Aquarium taking people out on the boat and raising money / awareness of biodiesel. We get to visit the aquarium for free and go to the local Imax which is showing a movie about New Orleans so am looking forward to that....

The other night, Jessie, a local boatbuilder had us over for oysters and beers (good mix) and we stood around the fire in his back yard...



And then last night Phil, Ryan and I went to his house again and he cooked us crab legs and corn.....delicious!
Guy, a local boatbuilder also, brought his guns to work yesturday :) I liked haha. I still find it quite weird to know that almost everyone in this state has guns, and big ones at that! Some time in the next few days we are going to have some target practice.

8 days ago we all had Saturday morning off and played bullrush..... I was being pretty carefull as there is no way I wanted to break my thumb again.... but, instead of hurting my thumb I ended up getting smacked in the jaw pretty hard. I was in quite a bit of pain for around 5 minutes and then the natural morphene the body produce's kicked in haha. A week later now, and I can hardly move my jaw without intense pain shooting from my left ear, all the way around my head and back to my left ear.... so, in a nutshell, it feels like my head is stuck in a vice constantly and it is a pain in the neck to eat haha! I look on the brightside tho because when you feel pain, it makes you feel human, plus it should get better soon.... it has to.

We had a fundraiser the other night and played Ryans documentary in front of around 70 people. The night was really fun and we all met, yet more amazing people. This world is full of em and its inspiring when you actually get to meet them! The doco had a great reception but I found it so funny that a lot of American's cant understand kiwi accents hahaha! I could hear people behind me saying "what is he saying".... And if you look on one of the blogs on the earthrace site there is some pretty funny footage of this lady giving an interview to Pete and continually asking him to "slow" his accent down.

Watched my first Superbowl last night! I have only ever seen little bits of American Football in movies and occasionally the odd clip on the internet of a player either scoring an amazing touchdown or breaking his leg or neck... So I found it a very interesting game to watch, tactically speaking. When you dont know the rules it looks like they are idiots and most of the game you would spend telling them to pass the ball like a rugby ball and also thinking that, if the allblacks played American Football they would kick a@%! But, I had the rules explained to me last night and now realise how the game is played.... and i love it! Still not too sure why they wear such tight pants tho.


Lance

On a bit of a down note..... My stills camera decided to stop working a couple of days ago.....So i may not be posting any artistic photos anymore.....It still works on auto tho....just..... I really do feel like I have lost an arm or something!