Watching ships go by

You would think that I had enough to do without finding time to look up the names of all the ships passing Kommetjie. I recently discovered Marine Traffic, a website that tracks all ships at sea. You can select an area of the world to view, and it will show you the position of all the ships in that area. The search can be refined to just passenger boats and yachts, or tugs and pilot boats, or fishing boats, tankers, in fact anything that floats. It gets a bit cluttered if you look at all the marine traffic, so I tend to follow passenger ships, yachts and fishing boats. It can be quite entertaining to track their course, seeing how busy the shipping lanes really are around the Cape. There can be no time for dozing on deck, that's for sure!

The reason why I got involved with tracking marine traffic is because our friend is an observer on fishing boats from China and Japan, keeping track of what they catch in the nets that do not form part of their target fishing and also recording how this aspect is handled. In other words, checking that no shark-finning and other illegal activities are taking place. Not the most popular man on board! The accommodation is a far cry from a cruise ship and the food is monotonous and not exactly appetising - mainly cabbage and steamed fish.
He goes to sea for about 6 weeks, ending up in a port such as Singapore, flying home for a few weeks before going off on a new boat. He said I should track this one on the web and sure enough, as they sailed past the lighthouse, I called him on his cell phone to say goodbye, having spotted him on the map. I asked him what his cabin was like and whether he had tried the food yet and he was over the moon! A cabin with a toilet! and crab for lunch! This is a Japanese boat, the first time he's sailed with them, so his rudimentary Chinese is going to be no good and it's going to be another lonely trip with little or no means of communication with the rest of the crew. But it's work and the pay is good. Being top of the popularity polls doesn't go with the job! The picture below is of the boat - hard to spot even though it's about 160ft - a mere speck in the ocean, with a massive tanker making an imperceptible bump on the far horizon right above the bow.

 The best use for this website is to identify interesting ships that I see passing through The Gap, track friends' fishing boats and knowing when to go down to the rocks to enjoy the graceful lines of the cruise ships which are starting to arrive for the summer season.

I've just had a look now to see what's out there and the RMS St Helena has just left Cape Town and is off Kommetjie, but too far out to be able to see, and she is on her way to Tristan da Cunha. I had no idea she did that route as well. How wonderful it would be to do that trip!