Category: this is south africa

50 years ago today…

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As a powerful cold front with gale force northwesterly winds hits Cape Town again, here’s a flashback to 50 years ago when the same thing happened and the 156m long, 8100 tonne SS Seafarer, en route from Glasgow to Beira, ran aground at Mouille Point in Cape Town.

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Yes, just like that.

Seafarer was carrying a cargo of highly dangerous tetra-ethyl-lead and 12 passengers. She was advised to stay outside but decided to enter Cape Town Harbour in rough weather and ran aground off Green Point.

“Oops”

Fortunately, all the crew and passengers were rescued by helicopter after attempts to get a rocket line from the shore failed.

She broke her back and became a constructive total loss. She was broken up in situ.

As I have previously mentioned, my mother-in-law, living in Mouille Point at the time, was one of the crowd which gathered to watch the developments and is likely one of the people you can see in the photo above.

History, hey? It’s closer than you think.

Cape Town Firewood Advice

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I like it when local businesses do well. I especially like when they do well because they offer really good service.

Getwine springs immediately to mind. I ordered from them again today, as it happens, and I have enthused about them before on here several times.

And now, step forward The Fireman:

Superior quality DRY firewood and braaiwood delivery in Cape Town.

They were very good when I ordered from them pre-winter, and now I find myself requiring a refill, they’ve been very good again. Here’s the email I got this morning:

Dear 6000
Thank you for your order.

We have been so incredibly busy that demand is currently exceeding supply and despite working around the clock, our farmers are struggling to keep up at the moment.  We have the dry wood stock at the farms so supply will not be a problem, and have just mobilised two more camps of staff to increase our logging production levels. We hope we will have caught up to have a surplus stock level at the depot by early next week. At the moment, every single bag of the stock that arrives has already been allocated by previously booked appointments so goes straight out to someone’s house! We thought we had projected a sufficient chopped supply for this season but we think because of our commitment to only providing dry wood, on time and with a smile, we have been a lot busier than expected.

We can offer you a delivery on [date] at [time] if this is convenient for you?

It turns out that [date] and [time] is very convenient for me, and – despite their apparent struggles – is really not ever so far away. What’s more, I’m confident that they will turn up when they say they will, with a truckload of dry wood and a smile. Delivery is included and they’ll stack the wood for free.

So, if you are after firewood in Cape Town, please go to their site and support them some more.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. Remember, I tell you about sponsored posts:

Occasionally, people get in touch wanting paid links or sponsored posts. I can choose to be very selective with these, because I know that the blog isn’t my source of income, and I’ll always tell you if I am endorsing a product in exchange for cold, hard cash of course.

So when I say something is good, you’ll know that you can believe what I am saying.
And, looking around at other Cape Town blogs, doesn’t that make a refreshing change?

Brace! Brace!

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NUUSFLITS/NEWSFLASH! It’s winter in the Cape and here comes another big cold front to remind us of that fact:

An intense cold front is expected to affect the Western Cape from Thursday night into Friday. The public and small stock farmers are advised that very cold conditions, gale force coastal winds and strong interior winds, heavy rain leading to localised flooding and very rough sea conditions can be expected.

Sounds like fun.

Windguru is predicting swells of up to 9.1m for both Cape Town and Cape Agulhas. Might be time to batten down your beagle, make sure you’ve got enough firewood in and charge up those camera batteries in anticipation. Stormchasing.co.za describes it as:

a powerful cold front… there has never been any doubt that it would be a significant weather event.

And hints at the chance of a light dusting of snow on Table Mountain early on Friday morning.
And I think we can all remember what happened here the last time that happened!

No Lily

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After a million* broken promises and several (or more) independent warnings of doom and, indeed, gloom, I have finally run out of patience and goodwill and cancelled my Lily order. Their “support” team’s pathetic reply to my email on the shipping fiasco was the final straw.

Essentially, what has happened is that I have given the Lily developers a 13-month long interest-free loan. That would suck a huge, huge amount, were it not for the fact that I paid in US dollars and, thanks to JZ’s ridiculous shenanigans in the intervening period, I will have made a healthy profit in Rand terms.

Everyone wins then, save for the developers (who lose a sale), me (who gets no Lily) and the South African economy, which is up Kak Creek with no paddle in sight.

I’m now saving up for a DJI Phantom 4. It may take some time**.

 

* conservative estimate
** conservative estimate