Cape Town
Cape Town, 5 January 2016
Christmas meal in Mosselbaai with Myrah, Porrick and Paul from Sail Eila and Thankful.
Our time in Africa is nearing to and end. We plan to leave before the 20th of January and will pass through Luderitz and Walvisbaai on our way to St Helena and Brazil. Africa will be the continent where Stamper has stayed the shortest period of our circumnavigation. In part due to visa limitations and in part caused by navigational planning.
We met many friends and family here flying over from Europe which only intensified my desire to return home after 10 years of sailing. Not to stop this way of life, but to show the wonders of it to my grandchildren. Europe will become the base of my nomadic life and the ter Burg family home will get a refit to make it a stable base for many years to come. I am grateful for Mieke to have shared my adventures up to 2013 and the return of Stamper to the Netherlands will finalize a process of assimilating her memory into my being. I feel my age not as a burden but with a better understanding of my role in this world. Relationships are the fabric of what makes us human. I have seen a lot of suffering with very limited influence to ease it, gotten frustrated that societies behave quite selfish and deny a decent living to so many persons even when that could be possible. On an individual level though resilience and persistence and good humour have humbled me and made me realize that these persons all deserve our respect, deep respect even. I will oppose systems being used to the benefit of only a few and believe that as a planet we are all pushed in a direction where sensible sharing of resources is the only way for life to be sustained.
The Knysna heads, seen from the lagoon.
OK, feet on the ground. What a wonderful ocean wildlife is around us on the South African coast! Literally groups of a thousand dolphins around us at the Cape Aghulas and further on a group of large tuna, 1,5 m long! lots of seals frolicking between the dolphins, many birds and some sharks. All of these are fed by a food chain of unseen smaller fish and plankton that spring to life in the meeting of the cold Atlantic waters (13 degrees C, brrr) and the warm Aghulas current (23 degrees). The garden route of South Africa honours its name, full of small nature reserves, nice settlements and a lot of wealth that creates jobs and also supports safety. We could use the trains going around Cape Town as long as there was daylight. Infrastructure is excellent and wine area is glorious. Still as Julie pointed out in her December newsletter the social divide between black and whites is still huge. Only a few blacks have managed to reach a similar level of wealth. Maybe much of that can be attributed to a large difference in education levels or even funding for education. Change may require many years and is slow.
Simonstown
False Bay
A penguin sheltering in the gutter of a road in Simonstown.
A seagull has stolen a penguin egg. Death of a new life.
Obe, the spouse of my niece Nanine, had arranged an invitation for us for a 350 year commemoration ceremony at the Good Hope Castle in Cape Town. Appeasement ceremonies were held before a very select group of invitees to settle old wrongs in the 350 year old history of the castle built by the VOC (the Dutch East Indie Company). I found it disturbing to witness that even after so many generations appeasement was still highly needed.
