Tag: Cape Town

There is no diesel in Cape Town

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I don’t want to alarm anyone, but there is no diesel in Cape Town.

I went to a filling station earlier this afternoon and they didn’t have any diesel, and then I did some rudimentary extrapolation, and now apparently, there is no diesel anywhere in Cape Town.

That’s 1/1 or 100% of filling stations which did not have diesel.

And if you think that’s not quite comprehensive enough a study, then add to that the fact that every extrapolation that I have done today has proven that there is no diesel in Cape Town.

That’s 1/1 or 100% of the extrapolations that I have done which have proven that there is no diesel in Cape Town.

Worrying times.

CAPE TOWN: Don’t miss the eclipse tonight!

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There’s a total lunar eclipse visible over Cape Town (and much of South Africa) this evening, and it’s at a perfectly reasonable time to see, and then still get to bed ahead of your upcoming work week.

tl;dr (how lazy are you?!?)
Basically, to see it, you need to look at the moon (dur!) from 7:30pm.
And basically, the moon will be in the East.

A total lunar eclipse happens when the moon is in the shadow of the earth:

Here’s all the information you need for the timings of the various stages of the phenomenon from the Mother City:

Step 2 “, Rising, Moonrise, Rising” seems a bit repetitive, but I promise that I’ve checked and the timings are all accurate – and it could be spectacular. You don’t need any eye protection – it’s just moonlight – and it will be perfectly visible without any binoculars or similar (although take some along if you want to).

Last night would have been absolutely perfect, but it’s a bit cloudy and windy out today (I’m writing this at lunchtime). Still, as we know, weather stuff can and does change very quickly here, so it might all be ok, or it might be just rather frustrating. Remember that if it is the latter, you’re not alone…

So hold thumbs, cross fingers, pray to your given deity or just wrap up warmly, pop out at half seven and have a look.

Have fun out there! And please share this post so no-one misses out.

Barcelona closes two cruise ship terminals

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Obviously, they’ve been reading 6000 miles…, and have decided that action is required.

Ostensibly, this is – as you can see – a plan to fight the city’s overtourism problem. And we’ve heard a lot about the clashes between tourists and locals recently. Must be equally nice and awful to have that sort of problem. But I’m not sure that Barcelona needs the money quite as much as Cape Town does. So shutting down two of your seven!!!!! cruise terminals might be a viable option to cut tourist numbers to some degree.

But then look down at that last paragraph: green power supplied to cruise ships while they are berthed. And while that doesn’t remove the tourists (the two closing cruise terminals do that) or the visual distractions, it might at least reduce the amount of pollution that these ships add to the ports in which they are staying.

Perhaps, since Cape Town is seemingly (and reasonably) anxious to grow our local cruise ship business, we should be looking at providing a similar green energy policy and hook-ups for the cruise ships visiting the Mother City? We have wind, we have sunshine, and we could place something right down in the port area without the need for extensive infrastructure like power lines.
Given how much money the cruise ships bring into the city, surely some it invested in making them a greener way of accessing Cape Town – and protecting the health of the local population – would be no bad thing.

And when I say wet…

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It has been raining a lot. And it is still raining. And there’s more rain in the forecast.

But just how much has it been raining?

This much:

367.8mm in the last few days just down the road from us about an hour ago. And I’m only saying “about an hour ago” because it’s almost certainly more than that now.

The rain has only really been falling for the last 4 days, so we’re looking at almost 100mm a day. And our local ground really isn’t set up for that. Hence all the flooding.

We might have a couple of dry days (T&Cs apply) before the next wave(s) of rain head in.

Right now, I’m going to watch the mud-wrestling rugby from the stadium in town.

The short of it

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Short stuff news: Today is the shortest day of the year here in the Southern Hemisphere. It also marks the Astronomical beginning of winter. Meteorologists have been here for three weeks already – please do try to keep up!).

Anyway, Cape Town will manage with just 9h53m31s of daylight today, but wow – all of that has been wall-to-wall sunshine. It’s been a stunner.

Let’s fill you in with some facts to impress your family and friends, and to annoy your enemies:

Sunrise was 7:51am this morning; sunset will be at 5:44pm this evening.

And tomorrow’s daylight will be whole 2 seconds longer than today’s.
That’s because of the sunset moving later, because the sunrise also moves later until the beginning of July. This is because the way we humans measure time and the way that the sun measures time are ever so slightly different. But because the sunset moves later faster than the sunrise moves later (still with me here?), the days do get longer.

You can see that pattern in the distance of the sun away from our little corner of Africa, as well. It reaches its furthest distance away on the 3rd July, at 152,088,000km away.

The sun was closest to Cape Town on 4th January at “just” 147,104,000km away. That means that the light from our big yellow ball takes 18 seconds more to reach us in winter than in summer.

And, to complete the comparisons, on the longest day of the year (that’s Dec 21st here):

Sunrise will be at 5:31am in the morning – 2 hours and 20 minutes earlier than today; sunset will be at 7:57pm in the evening – 2 hours and 13 minutes later than today.
That will mean 14h25m06s of daylight: fully 4h31m35s more than today.

We do have A LOT of winter to get through before those halcyon summer days (starting with Wednesday, which looks horrific), but the long journey back starts tomorrow!