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Celebrate - Happy Thanksgiving



The original plan was to 'celebrate' Thanksgiving in a restaurant on the waterfront, unfortunately Cathy is a little poorly so we decided to move the festivities on board. Peter roasted chicken all the way from Mauritius and with the vegetables on board we cooked up a good meal, added to this a bottle of South African sparkling wine from Hubert on Chika Lu and a chocolate bear from Sandra and Tom on Sweet Pearl (Swiss chocolate of course) it turned out to be a fun and festive meal.

Life in the Victoria and Alfred Marina continues to be entertaining with more yachts arriving, and seals swimming around us. The dock is home to a number of dragon boats training for a regatta. The boats normally found in Chinese harbors are large paddle driven vessels with a crew of around 16; a helmsman at the stern and a drummer at the bow to keep the paddlers in time. There can be as many as four racing around the dock at any one time with drums and crew making quite a sound. The name of the dock is not a mistake; it was originally named after Prince Alfred who laid the foundation stone for the first dock then later it was extended in the presence of Queen Victoria and re-named- Albert had nothing to do with it!

Peter has done some exploring around the Cape, first walking around the coast to Green Point, through a new park and past the World Cup football stadium then bussing around. One of the highlights was a walk around the historic Cape Malay settlement on the slopes of Signal Hill where freed slaves once lived. All the houses are brightly colored apparently to celebrate the resident's freedom and now home to many South Africans of Malaysian and Indonesian origin. A second walking tour took Peter to Imizamo Yethu a township on the outskirts of Hout Bay. We were taken around by Ken a resident the trip was very moving, considerable work has been done to raise the living standards of the 4000 families from one room sheds with no sanitation to 2 and 3 bed bungalows with kitchens and bathrooms. Much of the support has come from an Irish developer and Sir Bob Geldof has been to see it and taken an interest. There are lots of emerging local crafts and enterprises, new schools being built but it is clear that much more is needed to raise the standards still further.

Charlie,Cathy and Peter

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