Run aground
Yet another ship has run around in Cape Town, this time off Clifton’s First Beach. The Japanese fishing boat, which contains 80 tons of fuel and 50 tons of fish ran around on Saturday morning in heavy fog.
According to News 24, there are questions about whether it should be question whether it could have been a “purposeful grounding”, related to an insurance payout.
I just hope that they manage to get the ship off the ground without spilling all that oil.
The cycle tour is just three days away
On Sunday, I will be cycling in my 5th Pick n Pay Cape Argus Cycle Tour, or just the Argus as everybody knows it as. The tour, which is 109 km long, winds itself around Cape Town. Approximately 38000 people will be riding in the race, which to my knowledge is the longest timed cycle event in the world, and probably the only cycling event to span two oceans.
It is an amazing event to be part of, the roads are closed, thousands of people arrive to support us on, and you get to cycle on the most beautiful scenery in the world. These are a few pictures taken over the past few years, some while watching, and some while participating in the event itself. I hope it gives you a feel for the event.
Start line
Main Road (before permanent road-works caused the Boyes Drive detour)
My Friend Zilani, the hand cyclist
A large bunch coming past
The Bar One Girls cheer you on and hand out free chocolates
One of the many refueling stops
There are many physios on duty to help the tired legs
A few extra hills here, thanks to the previously mentioned road works.
If you are in Cape Town, I hope you will either be on a bike, or supporting us as we come past. Good luck to all the cyclists, ride safe and I will see you on the road on Sunday.
Donationware; an experiment
“Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.” Tim O’Reilly
In short
I would rather be pirated and out there, than obscure and not pirated. It is almost impossible to control how and when my photos are used, so go ahead and use them. But it takes a lot of time and money to take and post the pictures, and while comments and traffic are great, they don’t pay the bills.
So please pay me if you like my photos or are making money from them. Just use the Paypal button on the sidebar.
The more you donate, the more I can shoot. The more I shoot, the more photos you get to see. And of course you get to feel great by doing a good thing!
Stop SOPA
On January 18th, 2012 the Internet is going on strike to stop the SOPA web censorship bills in US Congress. Notes from the Cape will be joining the strike (along with Reddit, Wikipedia, Mizilla, Tucows, WordPress and a number of other sites) , and will be down for 12 hours, from 8am to 8pm.
While this bill is a US bill, it will have a profound effect on ALL Internet users, and you can lodge your protest as a US or non-US person.
You can find out more information here: http://sopastrike.com/ or here http://americancensorship.org.
On fire
We have mountain fires in Cape Town every summer. Usually they happen when it is hot and windy, and mostly they are started by cigarette butts being thrown out of car windows.
This year is no exception. On Saturday the mountain just above Boyes Drive was on fire, and the fire-crews were using two helicopters to dump water onto the fire. Because it was so close to my house and I live right next to the vlei, I watched the choppers collecting the water out of the lake before dumping it onto the fire.
It was pretty amazing watching the choppers, incredible skill in dropping down to grab the water, and then dumping it right on the hot-spots. This is in the cross-winds and flying through all the smoke. These are amazing pilots.
Thankfully, they managed to put this one out quite quickly, and there didn’t seem to be any major damage. We have had some pretty major fires in the past.
Here are the rest of the pics.
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