Welcome to Nicky's Page

I am Nicky and I am the little guy on Namani. I like to play Lego which I have five boxes of, and I like macaroni. I also like big boats (that “big” is over 100 ft). But I also like racing sailboats and snorkeling.

Life on a Boat

This is a video I put together from a bunch of short video clips my parents took aboard Namani. I tried to cover most of the aspects of living aboard a small sailboat as a family. ...

Namani goes 3D

Below you can see an animated 3D model of our Dufour 35, Namani. The model is very accurate since I modeled the boat from some blueprints, but the blueprints are hand-drawn. This made it a bit tricky because every drawing was slightly different! ...

Taveuni Time Travelin'

Nicky at one of the waterfalls on Taveuni

Below you will find Nicky's report about our recent visit to the island of Taveuni in the north-east of Fiji. As an experiment, after he was done with the report, he highlighted the most descriptive words and deleted everything else. Then he edited what was left into this cool poem: ...

Opua School Visit Report

Because I went to Opua School recently, I decided to write an essay comparing it to MIS (Munich International School). I got to go to Opua School because we had to stop sailing in the Bay Of Islands, New Zealand, while we made repairs and got hauled out. I get there by walking up a hill near Burnsco Marine (close to the marina). ...

Auckland Museum Report

This is a short essay about my favorite carving in the Pacific cultures section of the Auckland museum: a pointy figurehead of a shark from the Solomon Islands (part of my art & inquiry POI study). ...

Boat life - the kid's perspective

While we were in Tauranga (NZ North Island) for some boat work, Nicky made friends with Katie and William from the sailing vessel "Alouette". We gave them a little assignment to create a documentary film about "what it is like to live on a sailboat". We got them started, but they did everything else: agreeing on a script, shooting the video clips with a little compact camera, editiing them and putting them together, and adding transitions, text and music. They spent a total of four days working on this together, and we think the result is well worth watching. There is also a little write-up by Nicky below the video.

How to Clear Out of Tonga

To clear out of Tonga successfully, you have to go three different offices: Immigration, Port Captain, and Customs. First, we took a white taxi to Immigration. It was very funny because there were many locals waiting patiently at the front door but we just went through the free back door! Then, we took a different van-cab to the Port Captain and paid 30 Paanga. Next, we walked to the small, white Customs house near the container wharf, but they said we should come back at 1:30. So we wandered to a nearly empty restaurant and ate delicious sashimi. After a while, Papi marched back to Customs while Mami and I bought some fruit and rested. ...

Mapping Anchorage Island in the Suwarrow Atoll

We are anchored at Suwarrow, an atoll in the South Pacific, that has some small islands sticking out inside its lagoon. The biggest of these islands is is called "Anchorage Island" (because the visiting boats anchor here). A few days ago I did a little project for math class: I created a map of the island and of the anchorage. It was a cool project and I want to write about how I did it.

Dots, Stripes, Swirls: I Paint Like the Post-Impressionists

In this art assignment, I painted a boat sailing in the style of Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Rousseau, the Post-Impressionists. They worked after the Impressionists. The Post-Impressionists painted in a blurry but interesting way. Because we are in French Polynesia, we mainly focused on Gauguin, who lived and painted in Tahiti and Hiva Oa for some time.

Galapagos Islands: Hot Spot in the Tropics

The Galapagos are a volcanic archipelago in the east part of the south Pacific.The four inhabited islands are: Santa Cruz, Cristobal, Floreana, and Isabela, but there are many uninhabited islands where you can find many other animals. The diverse animals in the Galapagos are protected and have evolved to what they are today. Small penguins and lots of big fish live here because the Humboldt Current brings cold, nutritious water from the south.

It Gets You Across: The Panama Canal

s/v Wilhelm en route to Miraflores Lock

The Panama Canal connects two oceans: the Alantic and Pacific. Big ships cross the the canal constantly because it is much, much less hazardous and shorter than going around Cape Horn. Small ships like our boat Namani do the same for the identical reason. We went through the Panama Canal and found it very interesting. The Panama Canal is impressive for many reasons.

Visit Jupiter!

Jupiter

It's cheap! It's great! It's out of this world! Visit Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun. And no problem about getting power: just bring a wind generator, winds here blow at 260 miles per hour! Just don't step on Jupiter, or you will be smushed by the dense hydrogen and helium! ...

Portobelo, Panama

In 1502, Columbus „discovered“ and named Portobelo, Panama. Here in Portobelo, the Spaniards made many buildings and forts because it was an important gold place: they stole the gold from the Incas in Peru, transported it by ship to the Pacific side of the isthmus, and then overland to Portobelo, on the Caribbean side. Then the Spaniards would transport the precious metal by ship to Spain. But in Portobelo, where they counted the gold, the English would attack. Today we saw the ruins of the forts in Portobelo.

Kuna Island Camp

Nicky studies Kuna camp

Here in the Lemon Cays (Panama), we found a Kuna island camp. It was nothing like my home in Germany. How do they build their homes? The Kunas take posts and cover the house in bamboo strips. The roof is thatched with palm fronds pointing down at 45° so that the rain falls off the roof. ...