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American Spirit II - Day 310; Mall Day & Haircuts; Tuesday, November 11, 2014



Up at 7:00 AM. Took my coffee and went to Folie a Deux, 2 slips away, to get safari information.

At 8:10 AM Civetta II arrived at our dock. Like Saphir, they had engine problems, also.

Took a shower at 9:00 AM. Communal shower facility. But had hot water.

Breakfast at 9:30 AM. Bacon, eggs, potato left over from the day before, fruit cocktail and bread.

Lyn from the Zululand Yacht Club gave us and Sandra from Sweet Pearl a ride to a giant shopping mall. Unlike malls in the USA, the mall also has a couple of grocery stores in it.

The first order of business in the mall is to get some SIM cards for Sandra and Tim from Folie a Deux. Joel has a cell phone problem that was rectified. After that we go to lunch at a pizza restaurant. We order a Mediterranean pizza and a Hawaiin pizza; plus garlic bread and escargot (snails). During lunch Sandra tells me that her husband, Tom, told her another name for the Indian Ocean or the leg from Reunion to Richards Bay, is the 'washing machine.' Sounds about right.

After lunch Joel, Jeremy and I went to get our hair cut. My barber was 'La La,' a delightful lady who has been cutting hair for 29 years. She was very good. The cost of my haircut was 106 Rand, or $9.45. Joel complains about getting his hair cut. I think he's still living in the 60's where long hair was king. He says he's only cutting it because its too long for the boat. He looks 10 years younger with it cut, but he doesn't care. Says girls like his long hair's curls. Food is also very inexpensive; but clothing prices are higher than in the US.

After lunch Joel buys another cell phone and data to use phone as a 'portable hot spot'; Jeremy buys some clothes; and I buy some books and groceries.

The taxi ride from the mall takes about 15 minutes and costs 60 Rand or $5.35. Inexpensive. In Tahiti the same ride would have cost $25.00.

By 4:40 PM we're back at the boat. There I send out a couple of logs and emails using Joel's hot spot phone.

I finished the book The Covenant, the history about South Africa. Unfortunately, when James Michener wrote the book apartheid wasn't over yet in the RSA. So that pivotal event isn't covered in the book. Too bad. A quote near the end of the book goes like this: 'Those who forgot history are condemned to repeat it.' We've all heard that one. But the next quote is interesting: 'Those who remember it (history) obsessively are poisoned by it.' That quote was meant to represent the Afrikaners who were so consumed with the religious history of South Africa that they could never come to grips with the ending of apartheid. In a sense South Africa was a theocracy based almost exclusively on the Old Testament; not unlike Iran today in its extreme philosophies. Except that the leadership of the country was not made up of religious zealots. They just made extreme laws that were based on their religious beliefs. And the BOSS, Bureau of Secret Service, or secret police, in many ways reminded me of the Stasi in East Germany during the Cold War. Very repressive.

At 6:30 PM we took a cab to the Dros restaurant 7 minutes away. Folie a Deux joins us for dinner. It takes the cab driver two trips to drive us to the restaurant. The cost is 80 Rand, or $7.13. The food is good and inexpensive. The entire dinner for 7 of us, including many drinks and dessert, is 1,400 Rand, or $124.00. That's $17.17 apiece. As I said earlier, food is very inexpensive in the RPA.

We're back at the boat by 10:30 PM, and in bed by 11:40 PM.

Brian Fox




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