Wind, and then some!

We have been having some very hot days lately. Far too hot for me.

It happened very quickly though as a few weeks ago we had several days of the most unbelievable wind, gusting up to 65kph at times, causing tremendous damage both on land and sea. Ships were stranded in Cape Town harbour, unable to leave. One of them was the cruise ship 'MSC Sinfonia' and the passengers spent two days of their cruise, tied up! (Not the passengers, the ship!) Roofs were blown off, trees blown down and at one stage we heard on the radio that the SPCA had warned owners of small dogs not to let them out in case they blew away! Seriously! One lady phoned in to the radio station to say that her large Labrador had been blown sideways into a tree!
Fortunately we were fine here, we walked a little bent into the wind, but Alfie remained firmly on the ground, although his ears flapped a lot! Our roof did a fair amount of creaking and we did wonder if we would wake up to see the stars where the roof once was, but fortunately it held.

The Dry Dock at Saldanha harbour.

We went for a drive to Saldanha harbour, another favourite place of ours, to see what was happening in the dry dock. We were glad to see that two fishing boats were being repaired and painted, they look so different out of the water. Then we had a wander along the wall.

Poor boat.

Sadly we saw that one of the boats had sunk at her moorings, we don't know the story, but it's such a sad ending for a boat somehow. Like a fire engine burning, or a tractor being buried!

Sail on, 'Maggie-May'

I love this photograph of our boat 'MAGGIE-MAY'. Ever since we moved here I have been looking for a boat. Let me stress that I did not want a seaworthy vessel, I have no thoughts of braving the waves and getting wet and cold, no, I wanted an old boat that could end her days happily squatting amongst the greenery of the garden.

Our 'Maggie-May'

Shipwrecks and near misses!

We have had our fair share of shipwrecks in the 5 years that we have been here. We have huge underwater rocks and large rocky islands close to our shore, one is home to a large number of seals and is called 'Seal Island', not very original, but, hey, it works! So, we expect the odd mishap every now and then. The first wreck happened to a little boat called 'Volante' that bobbed happily in the bay and was our mascot, so to speak. Visitors (and locals) took photos of her and she is in many paintings, keyrings and fridge magnets! Sadly one weekend a few years ago, we had a huge storm, she dragged her anchor onto rocks and ended up in several pieces scattered over the shore. A large bit of her hull remains on the beach, people still take photos of her and children climb in her, but it was a sad end to a noble little craft!

'Volante' in the bay.

Then we had a fishing boat that ended up on Seal Island in the middle of the night! I woke up to see a strange orange light in the room, and being me, I just went back to sleep! The next morning we saw the NSRI boat heading towards the island, and a helicopter hovering overhead. The orange lights that I saw were distress flares! Looking through the binoculars we saw a wreck on the rocks and men in orange suits waiting to be rescued. (A friend of ours looked through his binoculars and commented on how many men were wearing brown suits on the island. They turned out to be seals of course! I often wonder what they thought of the invasion!) Happily everybody was rescued safely. The boat had the unfortunate name of 'Silver Reaper' and quickly became known as the 'Grim Reaper'! Now, a few years on, there is nothing left of the fishing boat, the sea has claimed it all.

Buried Treasure!

Three times a week (more or less; less if we can think of an excuse - too wet, too windy, too hot, too cold) a friend and I walk. Briskly I might add, not the usual meandering that occurs when Rob and I walk with Alfie, but an hour long, brisk, arm-swinging, cardio work-out walk that makes me feel really good when I get home and can stop! We usually stick to the same route, along roads that eventually lead to a small group of houses up a fairly steep hill. (Extra cardio workout!) From there the sea view is amazing and the sea breeze always cools us, before we turn and head home again. On the way there is a track that veers away from the road into the grass and disappears into the fynbos, and every time we passed it we'd say 'next time we walk we must follow that and see where it goes.' Well, this morning we did.

Where the track begins......