We’re on a passage from Durban to Port Elisabeth. And boy, do we have current, at least a good three knots of it, sometimes even more. Great wind to boot, and we are hitting nine knots regularly and, on occasion, ten or more. Pretty exciting.
We left Durban yesterday evening, and now I’m in the cockpit on the early watch of the day until half past midnight. It’s nine-thirty now, it’s dark, and it’s the thirty-first of December.
And what a sight! Sailing down the African coast, and just that by itself, gives me goosebumps, with dark clouds in the sky and a very vibrant moon peaking from behind, lighting up the ocean and the sky in all shades of gray, and not a star is out. In the distance, I can see the lights on the tall buildings lining the shore.
We were in Durban for three nights. After obtaining permission from the Port Authorities, we sailed into the harbor. First thing we saw was the Norwegian Jade cruise ship tied to the dock by the Nelson Mandela Cruise Terminal. We got acquainted with her last night when she came up directly behind us, lit up like a Christmas tree, and passed us on our left. One of those ‘I hope they’re seeing us’ moments.
We followed the channel all the way to the marina, which is right at the edge of downtown. As it was a national holiday, the marina office had already closed. This is two in the afternoon, so we just moored on the new arrival dock for the night.
Once we had parked the boat, we crossed the once-grand boulevard along the waterfront and walked right into town, two blocks to the old city hall. Easy to see that this was once a beautiful city, but I’m afraid this part of town, is no longer so. Dilapidated buildings line the streets, many chained-up and apartment buildings in bad states of repair, with mostly old sheets hanging in the windows for curtains. Once majestic hotels and lodges, now reduced to their empty skeletons, surrounded by chainlink fences, awaiting better times that are not likely to come. And although we made numerous trips into town for supplies and repairs, it is not a safe place to walk. Steve found out the hard way, as some opportunists relieved him of his cell phone while he was checking where to go on Google maps.
So, by no means do I have an opinion on the city as I saw no more than the downtown core. However, from what I have seen of South Africa so far, and obviously not taking anything away from the absolute beauty of the country, this very much looks like a poorly managed western nation. There are daily power outages, called load shedding, to keep up with daily demands. In Richards Bay, coal was transported to the port by trucks as the railway had fallen behind in maintenance and had stopped running altogether. People tell me that these situations exist solely because of corruption. The money for the power stations gets siphoned off, the trucking industry is in the hands of the people in power, and slowly the country spirals downward. All local people I have talked to are quite aware of that and seem okay with it, or rather, are reluctantly at peace with it. They also tell me that the other side of the country, for example, the Cape Province, is much better managed with a more prosperous economy. A lot of hearsay, of course, so I’d rather try to observe than form opinions.
A happy new year to everyone. It is here on the water in South Africa 10:50 in the morning. Western Canada’s pacific time zone passed the midnight mark fifty minutes ago.