MIKE VERSES BEAR, who would win?

 

Until 2 weeks ago I had never heard of Mike Horn and then we started to watch 'The Island' on French t.v. I had watched snatches of 'The Island' when it was on U.K. t.v. and the 'anchor man' was Bear Grylls who we recently went off in a big way when he decided to say a pray/blessing for Barak Obama whilst he was out trekking with him. So my money is now on Mike.

We were immediately transfixed by Mike as we simultaneously exclaimed - where the hell is that accent from?? - he was born in South Africa and lives in Switzerland.

Having looked at his website, I just love him more and more - because of his quotes -

 

I did not know it was impossible until it was done

Eyes that travel see more

Chose your own way and you will never be misled!

Who needs fancy food, if your chapati is served with a smile

                                                                (were there ever truer words of wisdom)

When you decide to go against the current, prepare yourself to never stop paddling

It’s not cold, it’s just not as warm as somewhere else   (my favourite)

Just keep on walking, life has only one destination    

                            (death? that would be inspiring coming from your exploration team leader!)

We will never really understand what we looking at, until it’s no longer there

 

Can you tell my admiration is somewhat tongue in cheek?

 

Further evidence of this guy's magnitude was when we visited Sete last week, after tall ships and huge swanky catamarans in the port there was a massive, somewhat the worse for wear, ocean going yacht, it had obviously served it's time amongst some gigantic waves in the Atlantic. And whose name was on the front ..... Mike Horn.

 

Detecting French peoples accents is a bit beyond us yet, we call tell if someone is from the north or the south and that's about it, although I believe there aren't the number of regional variations that you would find in the U.K. We're embarrassed that we just can not understand our neighbour here in the Haut Languedoc but then as Husband says, he has difficulty understanding the neighbours in my hometown of Bushmills. The French spoken locally has a strong Spanish influence, very difficult to eavesdrop! And funnily on T.V. it is usually foreigners, like Mike, and the many French Canadians that appear that we can follow 'almost' word perfect.
So listening skills coming along nicely, speaking, now that's another thing altogether.