Born in the Netherlands as son of a ships captain, Geert Sassen followed his father out to sea and joined the Dutch merchant navy in 1980. Thirty-three years later Geert has been sailing on many different types of vessels and visited several hundred ports all over the world. For the past five years he has been captain on the Maersk Kalmar, one of the very big containervessels, presently sailing on a service between Europe and India. When he is not out at sea, Geert lives with his wife and three children in North East Thailand.