Hi Everyone,
Well here we are back at sea after a very pleasant six day stop in Durban. This section of coast, between Durban and Port Elizabeth is not named the “Wild Coast” for nothing. We have a 3kn. current pushing us along and are doing 7.5kn through the water, so effectively we are travelling at around 10.5kn. over the ground. At one stage we touched 13kn.! There is quite a large, mixed swell out here and when a wave from the north meets one from the south, it becomes quite a large hill for us to climb. I can only imagine what it would be like out here with the wind against the current. We have heard lots of horror stories and have been given lots of tips by the local sailors as to when is the right window (wind-wise) to undertake it. We have a south-westerly coming up the coast (what we do not want) and it will reach us tomorrow evening so we will take shelter and wait in East London, before we continue down the coast. There is absolutely nowhere we can pull in between East London and Port Elizabeth. The south westerly blows for about three days continuously so we will take off again on Sunday to round the Cape.
Durban was a mixed bag. We saw many good things. The blacks appear to be much better off, on the whole, than when we left South Africa. There is definitely an emerging black middle class, the people are self-assured and many small businesses are now run by blacks. We felt very safe walking around and everyone was very helpful and pleasant to us. However, there is a very large police presence and there does appear to be reversed apartheid now, e.g. in the newspapers were two articles – one about empty shops on the beachfront which were only allowed to be rented to blacks (not whites, Indians or Coloureds) and as the rental is understandably high, they remain empty. A second article about charity donations: if charity is given to a black charity, it is tax free. If any other group benefits from it (even one person), tax has to be paid on it. All staff in Customs, Immigration and Quarantine were black, as were all the police we saw except for one elderly policeman. It seems as though it is very difficult (impossible?) to get a job in a government department if one is not black. We did see kids (black and white) sleeping rough and a white tramp searching garbage cans. The city centre has become “third world” with sidewalks in disrepair and shops very much in need of a clean and repair, but on the other hand they have a wonderful tourist complex on the beachfront built in African kraal style, full of lovely shops, restaurants, a seaworld and public swimming pools. We had a pleasant bike ride along the beachfront to the new soccer stadium which is as high as a ten storey building and as wide as six. It dominates the Durban skyline from out at sea and I am sure our Greenies would have something to say about it.
We had a few dolphins escort us out of Durban at 2a.m. this morning. They are always a very welcome sight when they come to play around the boat.
That’s all for now folks. I need to check what is going on upstairs.
Lots of love
Arti and Dimitri
No comments:
Post a Comment