A turning point?
IS THE age of sea travel about to return? Will the lavender-hulled mailships of the Union Castle line again grace Durban harbour twice a week? Will sports teams touring to East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town again have the fun option of going by sea? Will youngsters taking their gap year again kick it off with a riotous three-week sea voyage to Southampton?
The volcanic eruptions in Iceland suddenly raise huge question marks against air travel. What happens if the dust clouds of volcanic ash continue to hang over Europe for weeks and months to come, closing down air space? Can the airlines financially sustain such a shut-down? What about the mails and airfreight, quite apart from the human cargoes?
Vulcanologists says it's anyone's guess how long the eruptions will continue. They worry that a second far larger volcano might kick in, the way it always has in the past. When that last happened there was no international aviation industry to worry about, clouds of volcanic ash were not much of an issue. Not so today.
Air transport has totally eclipsed the sea in passenger and small freight traffic such as the mails. Has nature forced a change? Is nature telling us to slow down a bit, wag 'n bietjie?
It will be interesting to see how our modern economies and transport systems cope with this wholly unexpected intervention by nature.
Clouds over Europe
MEANWHILE, the eruptions in Iceland continue to pour out over the rest of Europe clouds of strange and unintelligible verbiage. The present eruption is under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, and there is no end in sight, says geologist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson.
Just watch what happens if Mount Katla blows, says his colleague, Pall Einarsson. It comes out through the Myrdasjokull icecap.
Eyjafjallajokull, Myrdasjokull. We have here a threat to international telecommunications. Volcanic ash seemed bad enough!
Taxi marathon
BRITISH comedy actor John Cleese was stranded in Norway by the air space shut-down and spent 3 300 pounds (R34 000) getting back to England in a taxi, via Brussels. Three drivers took spells at the wheel for 15 hours.
Once in Brussels he would presumably have caught the train to Hook of Holland and taken a ferry to Harwich or Folkestone.
But what was he thinking of? There are dozens of overnight ferries from Scandinavia to England. Perhaps Cleese slipped unconsciously into his Basil Fawlty role.
Jy lieg!
THOSE overnight ferries can be great fun. Live band, dance floor, rough weather and you and the girl you're dancing with suddenly go sliding.
Once I was on a Swedish ferry that was bouncing about like a cork in the North Sea. A friend and I ventured out on deck, where we watched the mountainous waves. Then we were confronted by a huge fellow (who turned out to be the bosun) who bellowed at us in Swedish in a very unfriendly way. (It seemed the PA system had warned that passengers weren't allowed on deck - but we couldn't understand).
"Sorry, we don't understand."
"Ah! Englanders?"
"South African."
"South African? Jy lieg, jou donder!"
Yes, he was from Cape Town. He took us below for a dop in his cabin. He hadn't been back in about 20 years – some difficulty about a paternity suit – and had to all intents and purposes become a Swede. A terrific fellow.
You just don't get this kind of thing with air travel.
Veldskoen Castle
DOES anyone have a photograph of the Veldskoen Castle?
This was the floating restaurant moored near Salisbury Island in Durban harbour in the 1950s. It started out as the ticket office and passport control point for the BOAC flying boat service to Britain, which took several days. The flying boats would land on various lakes and the River Nile on the way, passengers overnighting at exotic luxury hotels.
The ticket office/passport control moved to a shore base at the Bayhead and the restaurant opened with the name Veldskoen Castle, diners being brought to it by the Sarie Marais pleasure boat (which still exists).
Mike Laing, of the Military History Society, needs a photograph for a book on the flying boats. He can be contacted at 031-2051951
Tailpiece
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