Friday, February 13, 2009

Wrecked!

Still in the bay overlooking Cape Recife, a telephoto lens will pick up the distant lighthouse on the point.


(If you have really sharp eyes, you will see, through the mist, the yacht that featured in a recent post, with surfers in the foreground. That was taken from the other side of Cape Recife)


This bay is also home to some famous shipwrecks, because there is a dangerous reef here and over the years many vessels have come to grief on it. The reef is named after 'HMS Thunderbolt' a wooden paddle-wheeled sloop which struck it on 3 Feb 1847, and sank in Algoa Bay. The most popular wrecks are 'The Itzehoe', 1911, 'The Sabina', 1842, 'The Fidela', 1873, 'Elizabeth', 1821, 'Lady Leith', 1848, 'William Foster', 1851 and 'Cuba', 1853.




At the time we used to frequent the beach, in the mid 80s, a ship called the Kapodistrias, a Greek Bulk Carrier had run aground in calm weather, and the huge engine block has been there ever since. It is much reduced now, but in those days the waves pounding against it were spectacular, and it is still visible at low tide.

8 comments:

  1. I think the lighthouse photo is a very unusual photo from the pics you would normally see of it. And the yachs in the back looks like some kind of ghost ship from days gone by.

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  2. Great and unusual view of the lighthouse! These days I mostly see it from the air as the plane flies into PE airport :) And I rememebr when the Kapodistrias ran aground and how everybody went to see it - scary that it's over twenty years now...

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  3. Whew! The sea was rough yesterday - awesome pic!

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  4. When I was a kid (back in the 50s), my folks used to drive out on Marine Drive to show us the monkeys - are they still there?

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    1. Yip, still plenty of monkeys about on Marine.

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  5. hi Arnio, yes they are, we sometimes see them tightrope walking along the few remaining telephone lines

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  6. Firefly, ya it does look ghostly! Sort of gives a good idea of why the lighthouse is so vital at that particular spot, considering this was quite a clear day!

    Jeanne, it is very scary, 23 years to be exact, where did the time go?

    CJ, ya it was great, and how was that lightning across the sea last night, we were having dinner at the Mediterranean and enjoying the view as the rain swept in across the bay, it was fab.

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  7. I like these shots. You've captured living by the ocean very well!

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