Some days, I really feel this way.
This life boat hangs from the deck of the Wharfside Grill Restaurant, located in Hout Bay, just outside of Cape Town, South Africa.
We ate dinner at this restaurant, in Hout Bay, on Christmas night. Are you interested in a restaurant review? Let's put it this way, any restaurant willing to serve us dinner on Christmas evening gets Five Stars in my book.
But, the life boat? Isn't that a bit morbid, you ask? The good news in this story is that the "Antipolis" was a derelict that was being towed (on her way to a scrap yard in the "Far East") when she was wrecked, so no lives were lost when she went down.
The full story is rather interesting, as she was being towed from Greece with the Romelia, and both were wrecked in bad weather:
Durring the afternoon, as the tug approached Robben Island with the gale now blowing harder than ever, the rope between the Antipolis and the tug snagged on the sea bed. All attempts to free it failed, and whilst the crew was busy with that task, the Romelia surged ahead of the tug taking its tow rope underneath the tugs hull.
Fearing for his props, the Tug Master could only watch in horror as the Antipolis finally broke her tow rope and became cast adrift. Meanwhile the tug was still firmly anchored to the bottom and the Captain had to order the crew to cut through the towing hawser with a gas torch so as to release his tug.
Whilst all this was going on, the Romelia then parted her tow rope and happily sped towards the waiting shore. The Antipolis ended up driven ashore by fifty knot winds at Oudekraal on the Cape Peninsula, and the Romelia was cast ashore on Sunset Rocks, in the pretty Llandudno Bay a few hundred yards away.She finally broke her back and sunk in two halves. Antipolis and Romelia
So, interesting story, and while the captain of the tug may well have been out of a job, the lifeboat is an entertaining afterthought, rather than a sobering reminder of the brutality of the sea.
Next: Something from South Africa; what exactly depends on time and internet access
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