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!

Parallel parking - or not!

There is no disputing that the standard of driving on our roads is so abysmal as to be laughable if it didn't cause so many accidents. A large proportion of the driving population are unlicensed because it is so easy to bribe those who do the tests to pass you. In fact, you are likely to be failed at least three times if you don't offer a bribe just to swell the legitimate coffers through additional application fees. Sometimes, it is easier to buy a completely fake licence so you don't have to go to all the inconvenience of turning up for a fake driving test!

For the small percentage of the population that actually understands the purpose of a driving test, it is hard to tolerate the arrogance and lack of consideration displayed by a person who can start a vehicle and steer it in the general direction the road is taking, without understanding a single road sign, or what road markings mean, let alone the basics of the colours on a traffic light. A speed limit is just a number (although I must admit that there are occasions when I can agree with that - case in point, Chapman's Peak Drive, where some Charlie decided 40kmh was a suitable speed to negotiate a road that is subject to unanticipated rockfalls which cannot always be contained by their safety nets. But I digress again...)

But for me, there is one aspect of incompetent driving that never fails to amuse. The inability to parallel park. For many years, our local traffic cop was someone to be feared for his uncanny ability to spot every single traffic offender in Fish Hoek, and no-one was ever able to escape the long arm of the law when he was around. Nobody would dare park under a No Parking sign, or attempt a U-turn in any road and most definitely never park facing the wrong direction. But since he retired and a whole new dynamic took over our traffic policing (or rather, lack of it), daredevil deeds are the order of the day. No effort is made to even adhere to the guidelines painted on the road for parking places.

 Today this gem presented itself in Fish Hoek Main Road and I joined a small crowd who shook their heads in disbelief. To make it even more ridiculous, this must be one of the smallest cars you can buy!

Pigeon saga

There has been an ongoing saga of the baby pigeons in the nest on the roof, which cat Felix and the neighbouring interloper have been trying to nab for a while. This morning Felix caught one and disembowelled it on the kitchen counter while I was in the shower. So that was a delightful scene. Of course it was left to me to clean it up, and I had the opportunity of seeing that its crop was filled with small grains which the parents had fed it earlier after I had fed them.

A while later, the dog was chasing something in the undergrowth, which turned out to be the other half of the pigeon pair. It must have scuttled off the roof. It is about the size of my hand and has wing feathers but is not fledged, although there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with its legs! I rescued it and put it on the ground where the pigeons feed. I threw some grain around it and in no time the parents arrived. They pecked up every seed and took absolutely no notice of their remaining offspring. So I put it in a box with seed and water and left it at the side of the house, hoping they would come and look for it.

Later, I found the box empty. Hooray! It must have flown off - there was no sign of it anywhere. For reasons of expediency, I decided not to tell He Who Can Fix Anything about the dead bird or the live bird. He would do his nut to hear that Felix had killed Hoppy and Poppy's baby. Unfortunately, when he came home and opened the garage, the baby bird was inside on the floor - don't ask me how. Into action mode - I must hard boil an egg and feed it to the bird. I ask you. Anyway, I had to admit that I had come across the bird already today, but left out the bit about the dead one and the dog chasing this one and just told him about the box and thinking it had flown away.

I retrieved the box from the dustbin where I had hidden it and went through the whole thing again - putting the bird in with food and water - and then we sat down to feed it the egg. It's amazing how sticky an egg yolk is while you try to use your fingernails to prise the beak open of a rather feisty little pigeon. Soon he was covered in bits of yellow, mushed up with water. I added a few tiny grains and those went in easily and after about 10 minutes we thought he'd had enough. Then I had to drip a few drops of water into his beak and it was time for bed. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I couldn't tell HWCFA that I knew what he'd eaten already today because I saw what came out of his dead sister, and had to pretend that I knew it could handle a few small grains!

Interlude with a butterfly

As I left the house this morning for my Tai Chi class and pulled the gate open, I suddenly noticed that there was a large butterfly on the gatepost. I had barely missed knocking it off and then saw that its wings were hanging limply and blowing in the wind. It must have just emerged from its chrysalis and was waiting in the early morning sunshine for the veins in its wings to fill before setting off on its short but no doubt joyous life.

Of course, I was then trapped at the gate, because I couldn't close it without squashing the butterfly, which had moved slightly. A strong wind blew its wings, folding and flapping them with the butterfly clinging to the post, wondering what this strange new world was all about. I put my finger in front of it and straight away it climbed aboard and started to walk all over and around my hand. It's not often you get a chance to do that with a butterfly. Still its wings flipped and flopped, so I put it in a safe place where the animals couldn't disturb it and eventually set off for the class - I had to apologise for being late, but the teacher understood completely when I told her I was waylaid by a butterfly.

No doubt this butterfly will lay hundreds of eggs which will hatch into caterpillars that will grow gigantic and devour my plants. But perhaps it will remember me and lay them in the neighbour's garden!

Alexander's 2nd birthday

Another year has passed and it is my great-nephew Alexander's second birthday tomorrow. We had a tea party for the adults while the little cousins created mayhem on the climbing frame, on the push bikes and with a large variety of cars, trucks and other wheeled toys. Four of them under the age of 5 makes for a busy time!

Alex is already a seasoned traveller, having attended his uncle's wedding in Marbella when he was 6 months old, and recently enjoyed a Mauritian holiday. It's not an exaggeration or the bragging of a proud great-aunt, but he has been a model traveller and toddler, always eating his din-dins and placidly surveying the activity around him with wise eyes. A real cutie-pie. But his mother tells me that he is now starting to demonstrate his willpower and I fear she is in for the terrible twos. He has just been absorbing the dynamics and is now going to flex his developing muscles! But I'm sure he will retain his cutie-pie-ness. I mean look at him, butter couldn't possibly melt in that mouth.

When the time came to blow out the candles, big brother Connor was on hand to assist, but it soon became clear that they were both after the cherry. After a little prodding, Alex won the day and put it in his mouth, but it soon came out and he put it carefully back between the candles! I'm not sure if anyone else saw or who actually ate it in the end, but it definitely wasn't me!

The budding garden

The garden is looking quite respectable at the moment, no doubt due to the plentiful rain we have had all winter and up to yesterday even. Or maybe it's because I have at last listened to my mother, a very capable and successful gardener, and given the plants some food! The months rush by so quickly that it is very easy for me to forget to cast a few pellets of slow-release fertiliser around the garden every so often, but this winter I actually did the whole garden twice.

As a result, the small patch of agapanthus in the front garden has 25 buds swiftly rising out of the greenery which will provide a display worthy of Garden & Home in a week or three. The hibiscus that I planted next to them about 30 years ago, and which is embarrassingly stunted through neglect, lack of water and having been driven over by departing guests a number of times, is showing me what can happen if you pay it some attention and has many magnificent golden-yellow blooms. I will feed it again tomorrow!

Even the bougainvillea is bursting its bracts - this one has never 'flowered'! The coprosma trees are now getting very old and losing their leaves in the top branches as they die off. I am training the bougainvillea, jasmine and a very decorative deciduous creeper over these trees as they provide perfect supports and the creepers can really go wild!

The clivias didn't enjoy the cold winter (they aren't happy under 10 degrees Celsius) and the flowers weren't as good as last year, but new plants continue to shoot up and growth from the seeds I throw around under the trees is very successful. Bromeliads are multiplying in ever-thickening growth and I will soon be able to transplant them to fill all the shady parts of the garden. They are very rewarding, needing no care, being basically air plants and can be grown successfully in the branches of trees as well. The different varieties flower in stages and as they are all mixed in together, there is almost always a new and interesting flower to admire from this most interesting species (genus? not all that clued up on the technicalities!).

I've just finished the watering from our free underground water supply (although technically not free, as we have to pay for the electricity we use to pump it out - you can't win), and now it's time to relax as the sun sinks into the sea and enjoy the scent of the buddleia and jasmine which grow below the sundeck. Cheers!

Fish Hoek beach

With the somewhat slow advent of summer in Cape Town this year, it was a real treat to go down to Fish Hoek beach this week for morning coffee. The sand stretched endlessly before us, the mirror-smooth sea providing the perfect surface for the water taxi crossing the bay on its trip to Simon's Town. Although the water appeared to be crystal clear from the shore, the black shark flag was flying, cautioning the handful of bathers that there might be no warning of approaching sharks. A large group of pre-schoolers splashed safely in the shallows, but it would have been an exaggeration to say that it was a good day for swimming, as a cool offshore breeze took the edge off the sun's heat.

A freshly breaking wave wafted that unmistakable scent of salty sea in our direction and I was immediately transported back to a time when kids would stand sandy-footed on the concrete floor of the beach cafe, waiting for a vanilla or chocolate cone or candy floss, while sea water dripped from their costumes and left clumps of damp sand where they stood. The only shoes you saw were red or blue slipslops with embossed fish on the thong. I remember painting my fish with pearly nail polish to make them look pretty. We would write our names on the side of the sole to ensure that we took the right slops home at the end of the day.

Today everyone wears Crocs (or a cheap knock-off) and the cement floor has been replaced by a real carpet. The beach cafe has been turned into a restaurant where cones and candy floss are no more, and an ice cream machine for twirly cones has replaced the old-fashioned scoops in a tiled corner of an enlarged facility. An attempt has been made to grow a lawn, although astroturf has won the day and palm trees provide a little shade without adding to the natural beauty of the area.

But the sea, the beach and the rocks along Jager Walk will most likely remain the same and not succumb to progress and today's and future generations of kids will still have the opportunity to gather cherished memories of carefree days spent in this special corner of paradise.