Dropped out forever - Explora Live Report

He is a rebel, a loner, a legend. His biography includes paradisiacal South Sea islands and ties to primitive peoples as well as pirate attacks, imprisonments, cyclones and near-death experiences. But 40 years of travel through 127 countries leave their mark. Explora presents the crazy (and politically incorrect) life story of the 83-year-old "Gangerl", an extreme dropout who never deviates from his path.

When "Gangerl" speaks, people's mouths are left open – with laughter, amazement and sometimes horror. The story of the non-conformist seafarer begins in 1975 with the construction of his own sailing yacht. He sells all his possessions and plunges into adventure. Downstream of the Danube, it goes through the Balkan countries, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. After the Atlantic passage, he spent a year in the Caribbean and six years in the South Seas, where he shimmied from one dreamlike atoll to the next. On the way to Antarctica, he survived the six-day cyclone "Polly" with 20-metre-high waves and 80 knots of wind. Injured and with severe damage to the ship, he lets himself be taken away by the 46. Drift to the 39th parallel. "I prayed to God to end this inferno and let me survive," he says.

"Gangerl" discovers his love for indigenous peoples and travels through West Papua and Papua New Guinea. Via Indonesia, Borneo and through the Indian Ocean, he reaches his favorite continent Africa. Once there, he hitchhikes with his backpack from Cape Town to Germany for two years, covering 52,000 km. On the way, he fights his way through dense jungle, hikes through barren deserts and climbs the highest mountains. Later he travels to Asia, especially to the countries of the Himalayas: Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, China, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Calculated in kilometres, "Gangerl" has circumnavigated the world nine times in the course of his travelling life. He survived more than 20 robberies, and was particularly seriously injured in an exchange of fire with the Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the Sulu Sea. How can it be that he is still alive? "The Lord is afraid for his angels," he answers with a laugh and is already planning the next big sailing adventure.