On the 1st of March our two German YEP's Kertisn Dorner and Manuel Löffler were invited by Mercedez-Benz head office in Stuttgart to discover the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell.

Kerstin and Manuel had an exciting day and participated in the test driving of this remarkable car. Travelling from Stuttgart to Kirchheim our YEP's reported this car as one which takes ingenuity and advancement to the limits.

Manuel reports "Mercedez-Benz have created a truely amazing 'state-of-the-art' car – a must to have for all future young drivers who care about todays envirnonment."

To find out more click here

Kerstin's Blog

See the MB Clip here

After two long days of traveling our YEP's finally arrive home to their respective homes around the world.

"Quiet is once again installed on Pangaea and her crew," says Mike." The Indian YEP was amazing! Our Young Explorers were able to EXPLORE-LEARN-ACT amongst the most prestine surroundings of the Andaman Islands and the Indian mainland."

"We explored some of the most amazing reefs and saw abundant, colourful marine life, better than aything we have seen before. Nevertheless, signs of human disregard is apparent with litter very obvious on even the most deserted and isolated beaches. There were countless opportunities for us to ACT with beach clean-ups. Our enthusiastic team of Young Explorers relished each clean-up, totally enriched by the experience and the feeling of well-doing."

"The youths also had the opportunity to discover the Wildlife Sanctuary of the Sunderbans, home to the endangered Bengal Tiger andto visit children from a large state school as well as a school for children whose parents suffer from leprosy. Interaction with the local people was just another highlight for our Young Explorers who were eager to discover more about the cutures and tradition of the Indian people."

Pangaea is now back to her 4 person crew who are currently in Thailand , preparing for her trip to Langkawi, Malaysia tomorrow.

Another mission accomplished and another starting very shortly on the shores of Malaysia. Watch this space and discover what's happening next.

This morning, we visited a special school which welcomes children who have suffered from Leprosy. These children are all cured but need some rehabilitation. This privately run school is giving these underprivileged kids education and some work. Even though Leprosy can be easily cured nowadays, it still has a very bad image in India. We were all very impressed and full of respect for these children who have  suffered from and overcome this disease and now need to struggle to get back to normal life.

In the afternoon, thanks to Mike’s friends, we got tickets for the cricket game India vs South Africa at Eden Gardens, the oldest cricket ground in India! How lucky to have such an opportunity! Cricket is a national sport in India and this game against South Africa was very special for us, having Paridhi supporting her country and Reuben, Mike, Martin and our cameraman Moose supporting South Africa , excitement was very high!!!

Today was already the last day of the Expedition, time goes by so quickly… We spent this last evening having a nice dinner together and discussing with Mike our future projects. The expedition is about to end but our mission to conserve our planet is just starting now!!
 

Today's challenge was to return to Calcutta by our own means. Departure Point : Sunderban National Park. It took us 2 hours by bus to come here from Calcutta. How long are we going to take without organized transport?

We first took a boat along the river to reach the first village. We continued on foot to the next village. A few hours later, we rented a few bicycles to carry our heavy bags. We continued by tchuk -tchuk and then on foot again. We finally took a pirogue to cross a river and reach a train station.

People were giving us very questioning looks… they had never seen such adventurers! We reached Calcutta by train and as we were very tired, took a taxi to our hotel. It took us 9 hours to get to  Calcutta but what a great day!! After having discovered the organized chaos on the Indian roads travelling by bus, this challenge was an excellent way to visit the countryside of India.

14th of Feb, day 14,

Today we woke up at 8:00 and had a breakfast in our camp before going back on our small boat. We started to navigate down the channel at 9:00.

We were all excited to find some animals. and hopefully a tiger. But realistically we all knew that we would be really lucky to see one!

The first animals we saw were some monkeys. As usual they were playing around next to the water and were not afraid at all from our boat.

We went further down the channels, trying to spot anything on the shore. Suddenly, we saw a big crocodile laying next to the water. Apparently he was sleeping and we could approach relatively close from it. He finally woke up and disappeared into the water.

During the afternoon, Mike took some time to make some interviews with the Young Explorers and see what were their impressions and memories about the Indian expedition.

At the end of the day, while we were coming back to the main channel that conducted us to the camp, we saw some deers. These animals are very alert and as soon as they heard our boat they run into the mangroves.

We crossed a few local boats in an amazing sunset. We arrived back to our camp by night. Unfortunately, we didn't sea any tigers but in any case it was a great experience to navigate in the Sunderbans and realize how wide this area is, but also how fragile it is.

This morning breakfast was at 8.30am. Before heading to the Sunderbans National Park, we quickly went in the city to buy some essential insect repellent !! Once well furnished, we left Calcutta by bus. The 2 hour drive through the Indian country side was an adventure on itself ! What a good real taste of the Indian culture. Rules and regulations don't seem to be followed, our driver slalomed inbetween bicycles, cars, trucks and cows!! Despite the feeling of being in a big chaos, the Indians are finally well organised and accidents never happen.

After this epic trip, we took a boat and reached the entrance of theSunderbans Tiger reserve to get all the necessary permissions for our visit. This Tiger reserve is the largest in India. Everyone is very excited and hope to have the chance to observe a few tigers soon!

We headed further into the labyrinth of channels and stopped next at an observation tower. We saw 2 deers and monkeys but unfortunately no tigers yet. The day ended with a beautiful sunset on the mangroves forest.

We are spending the night in a lodge and can't wait for tomorrow, hoping to be more lucky and see some tigers!

Today, the alarm clock was set up at 5.00am. Everyone was ready, everything was packed and it was time to say Good Bye to the Pangaea crew. For Paridhi, Valentina, Florence, Lucie, Catherine, Elena, Mark, Manu and Reuben, it was quite a special moment to leave Pangaea after the 12 amazing days spent onboard this great sailing vessel.

At the airport we got through all the security checks but not without some administrative challenges! During our stop over in Chennai, we tested some local take away food and enjoyed excellent sweets.

And we finally were ready to fly to our final destination : Calcutta. Everyone was very excited and curious to discover the city and no one was disappointed. What a huge contrast!!

Calcutta is a very chaotic city, dusty and polluted. The day ended with a dinner in a local restaurant where we enjoyed some very spicy Indian food! The Young Explorers went in bed quite early to get some sleep before the next adventure tomorrow.

11th of February, day 11

Awake at 7am this morning, our Young Explorers have had an extremely long night! The programme today was quite relaxed as we were now moored in the harbor of Port Blair. The team started the day with cleaning, not only on the deck but also in the garage, cabins and in the galley. Today was our last day on Pangaea and we had to leave it as clean as we found it!

In the afternoon we went on shore and spent a couple of hours exploring Port Blair, the port of entry for the Andaman Islands. Even If it's a relatively small town, it's very busy and crowded. As often in India, goats and cows are part of the city life and it's not unusual to cross a few of these animals on the road. The taxis and tchuk-tchuk are also part of the traditional images we have from India. The main streets were full of small shops, most of them offering the same products for sale. It's extremely difficult to find any specific articles. Our Young Explorers bought some presents for their families back home and tested the local traditional food. We arrived back on Pangaea at sunset and had a traditional India dinner brought from a local take away shop. We all sat outside to eat and Mike told some stories about his past expeditions.

Everyone listened carefully, in awe of his experiences in adventure and exploration of the world. We finished the evening with videos filmed and edited by our Young Explorers. Our cameraman Moose, had also prepared some amazing images for us, fantastic memories of everything we have done here in the Andaman Islands.

Tomorrow morning we will say 'Goodbye' to Pangaea as we fly to Calcutta. After an amazing 10 days in the prestine nature of the Andaman Islands we will encounter the huge contrast of this bustling city. It saddens us to leave the Andamans but we are also excited to carry on the adventure and discover new horizons.

10th of February, day 10

As the decision was taken not to stop to sleep, the Young Explorers had now to find the right channel to continue their journey down to the Andaman Strait. The Young Explorers showed some confusion as to the correct path to take and some areas of very shallow water made the progression very slow. Mike decided finally to help our Young Explorers and show them the right way to follow. The Andaman strait was very calm and a light current helped us to navigate down south.

A last section of the river also confused our Young Explorers and Mike had to show them the way once again. On the Young Explorers 'dingy everyone was very silent and one after the other, they started to nod off to sleep for short periods of time. The most constraining part for everyone was surely the couple of hours just before the sunrise. At 5am we started to distinguish the light of the sun and at 6am we could enjoy an amazing sunrise on a beautiful mangrove forest. A light fog on the river gave a mystic ambiance to the scenery.

We passed a couple of small fishing boats and saw our first village on the shore. Local people seemed to be quite curious, watching us motoring down the river with our two dingys. Just before reaching the end of the Andaman Strait, we saw on the side of the channel a small tunnel inside the mangroves. We decided to go and explore it. It was a nice path through the forest, driving us to an old jetty were we found a local fishing boat. Not a sole was around.

At 8 am we finally reached the exit of the Andaman Strait where the river extended into the ocean. Far on the horizon we could see Pangaea sailing in our direction. The timing was perfect and we met at the planned anchor spot. Our Young Explorers were more than happy to get back on Pangaea. As usual,
Cathy had prepared an excellent breakfast that they quickly ate. before sleep overcame them once and for all. It was time now to head back to Port Blair. On the way we had a quick diving and snorkelling stop. The marine life was quite dense and we saw lots of sea cucumbers. Most of the corals and fish were standing in between 3 and 5 meters which gave us the possibility to stay for 50 minutes under the water.

We arrived in Port Blair just for the sunset. A final clean-up and rinsing of the diving equipment took most of our time before having dinner. At 10pm all our Young Explorers were sleeping, as usual on their mattresses
on the deck of Pangaea.
 

9th of February, day 9

As usual, the nine Young Explorers slept on the deck as it is the coolest place for the night on the boat! But tonight surprise! A rain of black sand was awaiting our adventurers. At around 2am in the morning, the volcano had a new eruption. The small light thin ash fell directly onto the boat, covering Pangaea with a black sandy dust. It didn't stop our Young Explorers from sleeping on deck, but a new clean-up was going to be necessary!

At 7 am everyone was on the deck with water pipes and brushes, trying to remove this thin light black sand.
It took an hour for all of us to get the boat clean. until the next eruption! After breakfast, our Young Explorers got ready for their first proper exploration dive. Each buddy pair would be accompanied by a team member, but this time, the Young Explorers could decided and manage the dive instead of being lead. Of course, a few basic rules were set up for everyone. Maximum depth, maximum dive time and dive distances from the boat were decided by Mike.

At 9 am everyone was ready to go down and explore the fascinating underwater world next to a live volcano. What impressed us the most was the huge contrast between the colorful fish and corals with the black lava background. As Barren Island is a single mountain in the middle of the Andaman Sea, it was also very impressive to look at the cliffs and to watch this huge long wall disappearing in the darkness of the ocean. This dive was surely the most impressive and most beautiful dive for our Young Explorers!

After 45 minutes being under the water, we came back to the boat and lifted anchor. We set sail to circumnavigate the island and nature offered us a new impressive eruption as a good bye present. With a gentle wind, we sailed back in the direction of Middle Andaman to reach the entrance of Homefray Strait. This strait cuts basically Middle Andaman from South Andaman Island. It is described as navigable in some pilot books but there are no precise and reliable charts. Hence Mike decided to use our two dingys to go and explore this strait. The program was the following: Pangaea would leave us at the entrance of Homefray strait. With one compass, GPS positions and one dingy, our Young Explorers would have to leave Pangaea, find the entrance of Homefray Strait, navigate through it, turn down south to follow the Andaman Strait and finally meet with Pangaea 20 Nm south from the starting point of the adventure. The overall distance of this route was estimated to be 25Nm. A second dingy with Mike and some of the team members would follow and advise the Young Explorers in case of any difficulties.

After a short briefing about equipment and navigation at night, Mike set the departure time of the adventure for 9:30 pm. Most of the navigation was going to be at night, which made the exercise just a bit more interesting! At 10 pm the two dingys left Pangaea and headed to the strait. After a bit of confusion, our nine Young Explorers found the entrance of Homefry Strait. As this area is quite well know to be populated by big saltwater crocodiles, the two dingys spent a bit of time following different channels through the mangroves, hoping to see some of these impressive crocodiles.

We spent about one hour going up and down different channels, through narrow passages in between the mangroves. Looking at these channels in the brightness of our headlamps was amazing. But unfortunately, after one hour without finding any crocodiles, we had to decide to move ahead as the route was still long! Following Homefray Strait was a piece of cake for our Young Explorers, but it was going to be a different story at the end of the strait, when it came to finding the Andaman Strait to continue our journey to the south. Lots of different small islands created confusion amongst our Young Explorers. The night and lack of sleep was only making things more difficult.

All tired, our Young Explorers decided they wanted to stop for a couple of hours sleep before finding the right direction and going further. But a new problem was soon going to come to light. When our Young Explorers tried to approach the shore, they quickly realized that mangroves are only a big net of roots coming directly out of the water. There is no land available and it's absolutely impossible to walk and find a place in between the trees to set up a camp. After a short discussion, it became clear that they would have to navigate all the night through without stopping at all! It was now primordial to find the right route and the entrance of the Andaman Strait for our Young Explorers….