During my stay on Sri Lanka I got the offer from the shipping company Briese to hire me as a ship’s doctor on the research vessel Sonne as part of the research project “South China Sea – natural laboratory under climatic and anthropogenic stress“, with an ascent in Singapore on 28 July to the descent in Hong Kong on 3 September 2019.
I did not think twice about that! Actually I wanted to go on the Way of St James after the Ayurveda cure. But that has to wait a few weeks now. There has to be so much flexibility. After the flight is the next flight. Hardly unpacked after the Ayurveda cure it started a few days later again in the plane to Southeast Asia. In Singapore I was picked up and immediately taken to the ship, which at the end of its three-week shipyard time in the very north of Singapore in the Sembawang Shipyard was brought back into shape.
A few days later we drove around the island to pick up the 40 German and Chinese scientists with their equipment at the Singapore Harbour Front. On the following day we finally set off through the Singapore Strait into the South China Sea. After a few days we found ourselves in the target area before the delta of the Pearl River, where we took fixed meander lines for weeks and took soil and water samples at defined locations up to 6000 m deep. An exciting and very interesting time. As a ship’s doctor I had to be active regularly, but fortunately there were no serious illnesses or injuries. At the end I had to say goodbye in Hong Kong and collect some tourist experiences before the return flight.
