Kerstin Dörner

1. The most important life lesson I learnt from Mike was …

Never stop dreaming, never stop believing that you CAN make your dreams come true, believe in yourself and don’t be shy in front of anyone, because you are special and your honest voice counts more than a thousand wrong voices. In a team, with the right contacts, you can make your dreams and wishes come true, even if they seem impossible at first.

2. What will change in your life after this expedition

My life changed completely when I got to know this project. And the influence this program has had on my life steadily increased from the application, through the training camp and to the expedition. I will try to see the world with more open eyes, and try to act without prejudice towards people and things. I want to be more critical about environmental projects and not only say: this is good, but try to give ideas on how it could be improved. There is always room for improvement.

3. The best part of this adventure was…

Be specific? Well, that is hard. I actually and honestly can’t say what the best part of the expedition was. Everything was AWESOME. But to be precise I’ll pick one thing. I loved the clean-ups. Actually you can’t say I loved it, but it impressed me the most and changed me and my way of thinking. Seeing these beaches and islands full of rubbish, hearing from Mike about the 8th continent. It turned a switch in my head. Especially this damage, this pollution in contrast to the beautiful islands. The first look on the beach of the island Mantanani Besar made you feel you were in paradise. Palm trees, soft white sand, blue sky, silky water … But then when you actually looked on the beach you saw rubbish, plastic bottles and bags. But there are many other ‘best things’, many many many small things, but also the dives in Sipadan, the first shark, the baby turtles, the orang-utans… As I said before, I wouldn’t want to choose.

4. The worst was…

The meat pie… No, just joking, but actually there was no bad thing. It was really hot, hot, hot in the cabins. Actually, the worst was that I have only a limited time before I get tired. I would love to be awake 24 hours every day to see and experience more and never be tired.

5. What will you miss most when you leave…

Everything. I don’t want to leave. Probably the people, most of all, and the atmosphere, being outside all the time, living a free life without fixed appointments and seeing new things every day. Learning new things I would never ever learn at school every day.

6. What did you learn from …

• Myself - a lot – most of all, I think. I have always struggled to find an identity, to know who I am. I learned a lot about myself, my good and my best sides. There is a lot to work on.
• Michelle - how to be a good dive team. If your dive computer suddenly shows three minutes, that doesn’t mean that you have to shoot to the surface, that is the security stop.
• Eugénie - humour helps in all situations and makes life a lot easier.
• Daniel K - I learned a lot about conservation from Daniel – he always shared his knowledge about the environment with me.
• Dongkyun - From Dongkyun I learned that I must use my one strength to help the others, then the team works better. The weakest members of the team accept help which is offered to them, so don’t be afraid to offer the help to them, you don’t blame them by trying to help them.
• Rodrigo - take a break now and then and don’t forget to drink.
• Simon - I learned indirectly from him that I have to be even more careful than I am about giving constructive criticism. I learned a lot about reptiles from him, about birds and about passion for nature.
• Garrett - I learned a lot about the American culture from Garrett.
• Daniel V - Daniel helped and taught me a lot about sailing. From steering, trimming, setting the sails, to dropping the anchor. But I also learned a lot about life from him, in the long talks we had.

7. As a Pangaea ambassador I would like to

• Spread the message and get more people involved. 
• Ttry to get the clean-up project going – it is spooking around in my head but doesn’t have a concrete shape yet.
• I would like to see more of nature, explore more and learn about our beautiful planet and share all this with as many people as possible to change our world.

8. What is your life philosophy?

It is hard to translate, so here is a paraphrase: What you achieve today will bring you big benefit in the future. Always use the moment, time never comes back. ( Der Fleiss in deinen Jugendtagen, wird spaeter reiche Fruechte tragen. Nutze stets den Augenblick, vergangne Zeit kehrt nie zurueck.)

9. The most useful thing I brought with me on expedition was:

Sunscreen! Plus motivation, passion and enthusiasm.

10. This is what made me laugh the most…

The underwater fun Mike and Christian were having while we were doing the last work on our coral structure.

11. This is what got me through the expedition…

What followed me throughout the expedition was the Kaptein song.

12. The five words that describe me are…

Must the last question always be the hardest? Helpful, happy, caring, critical and highly motivated for almost anything.