Portaits
of people
and
big ships

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Excerpt: Not so long ago I had a group here from South Prussia – it used to be called Bavaria. And one of the men asked what was going on with the big ships which were in dock. I said: What do you think is going on? They’re being repaired and then they’ll be loaded and then they’ll be off over the Atlantic again. But he couldn’t believe that such a big ship could actually float. So I asked him if he thought there might be wheels under it. After all it only draws 13 or 14 metres. The North Sea alone is between 20 and 190 metres deep. The Atlantic has trenches that are up to 12 kilometres deep. I asked him how he thought he was going to get over them. He reckoned he just couldn’t imagine it. Mountains were quite normal for him. But he just couldn’t comprehend how a ship could get over the water. But anyway, in the end he went home with the knowledge that ships can float. ...

© Joerg Otto Meier, Portraits of people and big ships