East London Harbour and the fish market

08 Aug. 13

When we woke up yesterday the dock across the water from us was half filled with Mercedes cars and more of them kept on arriving until late afternoon. I tried counting how many there was but could only manage an estimate of over a thousand and they just kept on coming and even parked some of them down the road that leads to the docks. Around lunch time an Autoliner arrived in the harbour and started unloading more cars and trucks. We sat watching them offload until we eventually went to bed and they were still busy. We don’t know what time they finished but this morning when we woke up a different autoliner had arrived and the cars are slowly driving into its belly. The entire dock and about a mile down the road is filled with parked cars and trucks and I am wondering how they will fit all these into the ship.   

 

09 Aug. 13

I don’t know what time they finished loading that ship last night but they were still busy when I went to sleep and only left this morning after I got up. We did a brief calculation and they loaded ten cars every four minutes with a short break of about ten minutes to fetch the drivers in the ship and take them to the next ten.

 

There was another ship wreck yesterday, this time it was a big cargo ship off the coast near Knysna. Fortunately sea rescue managed to rescue all the crew but it adds some more to our trepidation regarding this coastline. We had a big south westerly wind through here yesterday and the harbour was quite bouncy. I had to check our lines a few times and our fenders really took a beating against the steel yacht next to us. We decided we need more fenders and added this to our list.

 

10 Aug. 13

Yesterday was national woman’s day and I decided to take Lola out for lunch. I looked up the buffalo river and one of the buildings not far from us looked like a restaurant. We got off the boat and took a walk down the road across the railway lines towards the restaurant. When we got there we discovered it wasn’t a restaurant but a fish market so we bought some seafood mix and a fresh carpenter fish. We are expecting some visitors tomorrow for lunch so we decided we would use the fish to make Paella. When we got back the security guard stopped me and informed me I wasn’t allowed to take any photo’s in the harbour. I never asked her why and just thought about the video’s and pictures already on my blog. Hopefully she doesn’t go on the internet very often.  

 

12 Aug. 13

We had Lola’s aunt Max and the whole family come over for lunch. We got off the boat and met them on the landing where I briefed them how to get onto the boat. They all followed me gingerly across the rotten deck took one look at how we had to climb down the rusted ladder across the steel boat and onto Yrumoar and said no. I walked them back to their car and we went over to plan B. They would drive around to the yacht club on the other side of the river and we would go over with the dingy to fetch them. The wind was howling at 20 knots and the harbour was quite choppy so rowing across to the yacht club was not going to happen as the wind would blow us up the Buffalo river and we would only be able to come back once the wind changed direction and blew us back so Rauen fetched the dingy motor and we put in on the dingy. We haven’t used it for a while and had to fill it with petrol, quite a task in the bumpy conditions. After we got it filled I pulled and pulled and pulled the start rope. Just when I was about to give up it fired into life and we motored across the choppy harbour. It was a bouncy wet ride but we made it to the walk-on to fetch our visitors. Another bouncy wet ride later we were back at Yrumoar. Getting the people off the dingy was quite an experience since it was jumping up and down sometimes above and other times below the dive platform but once everyone was on the boat things returned to normal. Living on the boat has made us unaware of its movements and it was interesting to watch as the visitors tried to find their sea legs and stand still on the boat without holding onto something.

While they visited I made Paella with the fish we bought at the fish market and boerewors rolls for those who don’t like fish. After lunch we took them on another wet bumpy ride back to the yacht club. It was a great visit and we hope to see them again before we leave.