https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/szewfyyeth
For some people this might be daily business. Wild running in the wild and you just randomly walking by and just being wondered about everything that is just there.

Sure when you live on the countryside this could be your backyard setting on the daily. But for me here this was something special.

While walking the dog and the sun was starting to set, that is when I saw a little head in the bushes peeping out. I decided to take a moment and see what was happening. As always...the dog had zero idea what was going and he thought most likely that I was just taking a chill pill.

The most interesting here is that I wasn't aware that there were any deer hanging around here. In general you can see them a lot later in the year when the leaves are already falling a bit, and that is when you can see them through the trees.

But since all trees are full in the leaves at the moment, I haven't spotted any around there.

I really love these kinds of gifts of nature just popping around. That is when you see when there is so much beauty when you here the birds on the background and it feels like the world stops.

And this little deer was minding his own business. Zero and zero knowledge of that me and my dog were standing over there. I don't really know what he was doing there. I guess just having a drink and looking if there was something to eat somewhere.

Yeah I also tagging a bit of pobphotocontest in here, even though this is a video. Not for the contest, but I guess there are more people who appreciate nature stuff a bit more. Let's hope this threespeak video will work, because it is less than 15 seconds. But then the deer was walking again, so no 15 seconds of this ;)

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/hvbnegabhb
Recently for some reason my feed has shifted over to sailing stuff again. And with shifted over, I mean more like flooded. That is always the deal, if you watch one kind of video, the next one is already next in line.

I guess my feed has a valid point, because since Spring has started the idea of heading over towards the water is pulling on me again. The funny thing is with the weather shifting to better stuff, the wind has also died. I have already thought on hitting the (ice cold) water here in the Netherlands, but with hardly any wind and water below the 10 degrees Celsius also lets that idea disappear with lightspeed again.

So the only thing to do now is look back at the previous year of sailing when we slept in a bay on Kefalonia Greece somewhere. I love sleeping on the water which is not really attached to land, as it gives something special. In the night the boat is just rocking around a with the little waves which makes you fall asleep in an instant.

In the morning the first thing you do is just jump out out of the boat to wake up with a little bomb on the water. Making coffee on the back of the deck with the morning sunshine on the water, ow man....this is just the dream.

This anchoring in this small bay was not the easiest if you ask me. As a beginning sailor I am not the best at anchoring at all. So putting up an anchor from the bow on the far distance at 5 times the depth of the water seems logical.

But on the aft side swimming two land lines to shore to tie them up to big rocks on land was new to me. Helping each other a bit with a dinghy and running around on land to tie them up was a multi person task. With also makes you realize again that being on the boat with just two people can bring a lot of challenges on there.

I have noticed it a couple of times already with docking in marinas as well. With more people it just makes it a lot easier with tossing lines and having the option to compensate something when there is a quick task that needs to be done. After all, boating is dealing with the current circumstances, and they just change a lot very fast all the time.

This video was afer all of that was done though. Chillmode was there and there was time and place to just have some fun and fool around in that beautiful bay. The place here is called Foki bay and it is located near to the fishing town of Fiskardo on the island of Kefalonia in Greece. There are so many islands here to discover and learn about!

I'm really looking forward to boating around again this year, hopefully there will be tons of boating moments to find again this year!

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/nbtcahmzou
It has been centuries ago sinced I have taken the time to learn how the piano again. First there was summer and summers are for hanging outdoors. Then when autumn came the next and still there was no playing option. This was because some home renovations and the piano needing to be somewhere else. I can tell you, moving a piano is not so easy and you need a couple of people with you to get this job done.

The next part is then getting the piano back out of storage into place which took even longer. All this time I didn't play. You know what happens when you don't give something the attention that it needs. It makes your skills drop exponentially. And since I was still a beginner in my piano journey, that means my skills are about back to zero again.

Now that is when my 'Simply Piano' app comes back into play. I think one the most important things on learning how to play an instrument is that you need to have fun while doing it. I remember being a kid that my friends had to go to music lessons and they hated it. That will surely not help your progress.

For me now the motivation is intrinsic because I want to learn how to play and also I enjoy whil playing so. Every time when I start I play until my hands are soar or I don't understand the sheet music any more. This is also the moment when you realize that doing something like this actually makes the body heat go up. I'm always warm after playing and it wasn't even because of exercizing.

Simply Piano helps with having the fun in there. You have the option to use regular sheet music, or you can use these passing-by screens. I like these a lot because they connect to the midi system on my piano. So whenever you make an error, the tone gets red but you can still continue. While in the sheet music, you have to hit the right note before being able to continue.

On the good note...It is coming back to me quite fast. Not in a day kind of fast, but I am noticing the progress already after fumbling around again for a couple of days.

So I have never really noticed how basic most of the Coldplay songs are built up. Ofcourse they add a lot more notes and chords in there and play it faster, but the basic is truly understandable for a music beginner.

That makes them fun to play as you can easily recognize yourself in the song.

Yes, I am totally back to being a beginner and I am also totally fine with it! At least there is some progression again!

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/dwcizuseii

Over the last couple of months I have been trying to to upload some videos here and there and often it wasn't the biggest of successes. Admittingly, I really suck at editting and also don't always have the time and the patience for it. Fair enough, that might be the bigger issue indeed. But it seems to be working again and that means that I can toss in some videos from other trips, that were also way too cool to ignore.

This is a drone video from my trip in Northern France where I headed out with the camper to nowhere and anywhere at the same time.

For starters where you can see in the thumbnail: These are seals who are chilling on the sand when the tide is low. Every day these guys swim into shallow water to take a rest and a good sunbath and also make a lot of noise with it as well. It is kind of a weird to see from the distance. It looks like all of these seals are in not such good shape as it looks like they have beached....But you can also see them moving and when the tide coming in again, they hop on down. Nothing to worry about!

The coast line was so diverse over there. On the one corner you would have the big cliffs acting as a big guardian over the sea, and around the next corner you would have these lush green fields.

I was surprised about the landscape over there, and all of a sudden I understood a lot more why this place is so often visited in late seasons. The weather is still friendly when you plan your activities for a bit, the food is good and fresh since everything comes out of the sea over there. And the roads also don't make you feel like a rush as you are driving through these small sleepy towns.

Droning was a challenge over here, as there were always some storms lurking around the corner and sometimes the wind would get really gusty really fast. And as you know landing your drone on beaches is not really a winner, so you always need to handcatch it....which is also not fun when it is windy because the chance that it chops into your hand is also there.

Regardless, this region was very surprising to me and I would love to head back again there over the years. The dream of a little camper van.....

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/ercsadwvsp

And I get it! Lesotho feels so totally different. Towns are relatively small, but the cool thing is that towns are very independent and they take care of themselves. All with a little bit of land and people are hurding their cattle around. People looked in good shape and also in good spirit, everyone was super friendly. Honestly, Lesotho was nothing but friendly faces and everyone really seemed to be being quite good in life!

At a certain point we needed a place for an overnight stay and we ended up on this mountain ridge overlooking the river which had formed a nice valley through the erosion over millions of years. A stone house with even a small bathroom attached which even had a small heater running on gas to get some hot water which apparently often had frozen over in the cold winter nights. There is not a lot of infrastructure at this place. The water comes from the rain as said, when it freezes, the pipes which are above ground freeze and pop. No electricity is here, except for when the generator runs 3 hours a day when the sun is setting. The rest is wood fire and candles. I like the idea of this!

At night there was thunder and lightning and the wind was whirling around the little stone cabin which did made me think a bit about being up over 3000 meters altitude and how close by these thunderstorms were. On the other hand, it fitted the setting perfectly.

Getting towards here was not an option without having a 4x4 or at least a car with high clearance. There were no roads towards these houses. And although the entirely road system in Lesotho had been renewed recently to fanastic flat tar (the Chinese government invested in the roadsystem. At first I had no idea why but after driving past a diamond mine, I started to get an idea all of a sudden), once you leave the main road it is all just sand and gravel and crossing rivers.

I just can not stress enough on how sweet everyone here was. These little houses were run by a couple where the girl prepared some fantastic for us with just the little amount of ingredients and options that she had, and the guy helped up making a fire (which was super necessary and is really a skill I would want to work on) and they were just so sweet even though we had a big language barrier.

It all doesnt matter when everyones intentions are right. It was only one night in Lesotho, but surely one that I won't forget very soon

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/rawyvbowmy
When most people think about heading out to South Africa, they think about going towards Kruger National Park which is the biggest national park and located in the North East of the country. The park is in the lowlands after a big mountain ridge, and because of that after rainy season this is a really mosquito prone area where it is a good option to take malaria prophylaxis. Not really fun if you have to take medicine to do your vacation if you ask me.

Luckily South Africa has plenty other options throughout the country for visiting wildlife which are not in a mosquito region, but still are very spacious and have a lot to see.

The name doesn't do the park entirely justice, because it is not just elephants who live there, but they do have a gigantic population living there.

Next to these elephants I also saw some buffalo, even two lions, tons of zebras and even a couple of spotted hyenas.

And such beautiful creatures they are!! And so big!!

In Addo Elephant national park you are allowed to drive yourself through the park with your own car. Not only guided tours (which are also to be recommended because these rangers have a lot of love and knowledge for the animals and you will learn a lot about their behavior) but the ability to just drive around and see whatever you want to see.

Sure there are rules to this. Give the animals space (and you want this becase these guys are big!!), when you are closeby you should turn off the engine for the sound for the animals, and naturally no feeding and getting out the car. But again, you don't even want to do that because this is wildlife in their natural habitat, and these guys will always win.

I was really impressed by the size of these animals and fascinated by their behavior. Because let's face it. Elephants are BIG. At a certain point I turned the car around the corner (you are not allowed to drive fast in the park for obvious reasons) and there was a elephant walking over the road towards the car. Not in a malicious way, he was just passing through. But when an elephants passes by the car, you realise he can tip the entire vehicle over in a heartbeat, and you feel the ground trembling because of the weight of the animal....well, then you feel really small again.

Elephants are herbivors and they just eat grass and bushes all day up to 160 kilograms of grass according to Beekse Bergen and drink around 60 liters of water per day. With all of this happening through that small thrunk that means a lot of effort is put in during a day and they are always on the move for food and water

When there is a waterhole around and it is a hot day! Elephants also like to cool themselves off and just swim around but also need some big drinks ofcourse. At these waterholes you can see groups heading towards here and just play around.

Swim (I didn't know elephants could swim with these big bodies) and play, and just squirt water everywhere with the big trunks.

Check out the video below of what I saw at a waterhole on a really hot day (40+celsius) and how the animals behave. You will instantly fall in love!

I have found a new favorite animal and Addo elephant national park showed that it really has a animal friendly way of preservation!

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/fcfrchlerp
I really like the ocean. Boom, nothing else additional to mention about this. I like spending my time there, I like the sound that absorbes everything else. I like to see what other people are doing on the beach. And I like to just close my eyes and see what is happening around me.

But in the evening when the sun was setting and the tide was pulling back I started seeing these little critters on the beach.

It looked like a tiny jellyfish which was washed up ashore and had no options on going back. I dont know about you but I am not the biggest fan of jellyfish at all. Usually while swimming in the ocean at some point you will feel a little sting and it turns out there was some small jellyfish hoovering around you. Thanks but no thanks so I stayed away from them.

And on a beach this empty... It wasnt really a problem at all.

In the distance we had seen humpback whales passing by. With the biggest splashes they would come out of the water almost with their full bodies to again splash back in.

With the weight from 15 to 60 elephants that is no joke at all. Those splashes are serious and you can see them from far away.

But now the focus was on these small creatures in the sand. And all of a sudden the jellyfish started to move as you can see on the video!

But huh! Werent this just jellyfish who were washed up ashore and had not where to go anymore?

This turned out to be small little crab like animals who just took up their little shell house and departed. Every time when a wave would come up and make the sand softer, they would travel and dig themselves into the sand so they would be a bit more protected for when there is no wave coming in.

So this really is a tide thing and how creatures adapt to what is going on at that moment.

And water creatures...damn they are smart!

Maybe the Indian ocean deserves a dip to dive in after all?

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/nrcpejvtri

It had been a damn long while since I had made an outdoor fire in the wild. Sure every now and then I light up the firepit at home. But that isnt the same as making a fire in a total outdoor pit.

The sound of the wood cracking, the sissing of the left over of moist coming out. And in this case...the tjirping of the crickets in the night. A whole lot of them

Staring into fire sometimes just feels like staring into the ocean. It doesnt leave much room for anything else. Because every second it different and it lets the mind drift away.

In the case this was a wood fire which by most South Africans is started to get a 'braai' going, a barbeque. But it was passed dinner time already and the only thing that suited was a bottle of wine.

The camping was entirely empty as it is not high season here as yet. Just a lonely motorbiker who turned up late in the dark was the company. A retired old friendly dude who told stories about life and motorbiking through Africa and how he had broken his leg in a trip when his bike fell on top of him and he had to dig out his leg first before he could leave again.

Stories for the next generation. Stories by people who just go sit next to their friendly neighbor and share their stuff. I really like this about South Africa. The kindness of everyone and generosity to share whatever they have with them. Whether if it is an experience or their coffee. Us Dutchies can take a bit more of an example on that.

The woodfire was burning into warm ashes and in that same time the wine was flowing like it should. South Africa is a wine country for a good reason, but there is so much more to see.

It was time to hit the sack as the fire slowly died out.

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/wdkivzbych

In the weekend I took the drone out for a bit to work on the skills again. The trees are in good autumn colour at the moment and with fields being under water there is enough to see.

On thing that I do not pay enough attention to always is the factor of lighting at the end of the day and how much light you loose. Meaning every shot that was made in the weekend was ready for the trashcan instantly. But it did give good inspiration again though.

As it is dark super early by now already it was time to finish some of the last editting of the images in Greece. These are just little movies for myself as vacation memories or something and not anything flashy.

I did inspire me to take a look at some 'how to make a perfect shot' videos that Youtube has. It is funny how these short are snappy videos are the ones that explain stuff best to me. The user 'QuickAssTutorials' is the one that I love following the most with some really decent tips and tricks on what to do, and most importantly what not to do.

It has to become a natural way of working, and what I also noticed over the weekend with this ice cold wind here. When it is cold and you start to shiver, that isn't really that easy to do. Making slow shots, moving to the side, also angleling the drone to the side at the same time, and managing the gimble at the same time. Ow yeah...do this all fluently so it looks like one motion.

Easier said than done I would say and that is stuff that needs time and a decent moment to sit and pay full attention to it. I am considering to take off the joystick handles to get better movement which isn't sudden and radical, but I have to experiment and see if that works.

Stuff to work on! But it give inspiration to fly and take it out again and work for the best shot! Music by Eli Filosov

https://3speak.tv/watch?v=karinxxl/aebflachmg

I went to see Moderat in the venue called 013 in Tilburg Netherlands. Moderat is a collaboration between the producers 'Mode Selektor' and 'Apparat' and they come and go with breaks in their existence every time. This was the second time during this 'More Data' tour that I went to see them and as you can see in my previous blog about the tour, I was super siked last time that I saw them.

Initially I thought it was me. It was a weekday, I was tired, it was raining cats and dogs. Let's say my mood wasn't the best to head towards the venue, but on the other hand...This was the perfect moment to just let it all go and enjoy music and some good vibes as the show about a year ago was just everything fantastic.

And that energy...I wasn't feeling it...But initially I thought it was me. I saw some other people around me moving to songs like A new Error and Rusty Nails but I didn't feel it at all. And what I also noticed was that the sound was not really as I had hoped. But the previous show was in the 'Afas live' venue, formerly known as the Heineken Music Hall, which is known for how good the sound always is. And from what I could always remember after visiting the 013 venue was how much the sound sucked. As it was as well this time.

The looped tunes sounded normal, but the additional synths were way to loud, as the underlying hi-hats were just absent and the bass sounded more like a washing machine so loud that even my pants were moving from the vibration.

To complete the whole distaster the frontman spoke the legendary words 'we have been on the road for a while now and as you can hear we have started experimenting with some different variations.

Translation of this: 'we are fed up with touring so we want to do something to make it fun for ourselves' and that is something you could just feel the whole time. I get it, songs changes over time and often playing a new version of them brings a lot more. But don't change them for the sake of changing them. Or better said...Experimenting so much that even the timing went wrong for instance in the song Reminder

By this point I was already so annoyed and disappointed that the thought of walking off crossed my mind more than once. If this had been on a festival with more people playing, I surely would have done so. But now this solo show which you dedicated visit and then walk off...That feels like a waste of money.

But it was a waste of money actually. The sound was so loud that without earplugs that would have been the end of your hearing and so out of balance. I don't know what was wrong, but it was really wrong.

And that while a year ago this surely was my show of the year. What a contrast!

I guess the conclusion of all of this was...It was not what I had hoped for. And that was just a disappointment. Will I go a next time? I'm not sure honestly.....