Aloha meets Ubuntu

photo: Jason Patterson

I first started following the voyage of the Hokule'a last year at the suggestion of a friend who knew how much Vince and I enjoy the sport of sailing. At the time, the Hokule'a had just embarked on a historic leg of their worldwide journey, namely from Hawaii to Cape Town.

Their voyage is significant on many levels, but perhaps most notable is the fact that this particular leg signified the youngest culture (Polynesian) arriving at the cradle of humanity where the oldest cultures of mankind originated. This "reverse-migration" story with people returning to their roots piqued my interest even more than the sailing. I have been tracking the voyage ever since!

The crew of Hokule'a made landfall on the African continent in mid-October arriving in Maputo, Mozambique. From there, they made their way to Richards Bay in South Africa before stopping in Mossel Bay where they visited Pinnacle Point, an archaeological site where some of the oldest known hominin fossils have been unearthed. From there, Hokule'a rounded Cape Agulhas, the southern most point on the continent of Africa.

photo from TEC FB page

Along the way they picked up National Geographic photographer and The Explorers Club Fellow Dan Lin (right) who is from Simons Town, South Africa. Lin and TEC Fellow Nainoa Thompson (left) sailed across the southern tip of Africa and into the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Hokule'a with #ECFlag 124. This marks the first time in known history that a vessel from the Pacific Islands has ever reached the Atlantic.

Hokule'a finally reached Cape Town more than a month after landing in Africa where they were greeted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the spirit of Ubuntu for which he is a proponent. I had hoped to be in Cape Town to welcome them too when they arrived in port, but a little thing like moving to Asia at the end of November put the kibosh on that plan. 

However Vince was in Cape Town last week for work (and a stop over at the Royal Cape Yacht Club for a farewell drink in order to watch a friend's son race). He managed at least to make it over to the V&A where the Hokule'a is docked during its stay in Cape Town. The crew was not in to say Aloha to, but Vince kindly took a few pictures of the vessel for me to see. Amazing!



 

"Aloha" is a Hawaiian greeting and farewell that conveys affection, peace, mercy and compassion. "Ubuntu" is a Nguni Bantu term roughly translating to "human kindness." It is an idea from the Southern African region which means literally "human-ness", and is often translated as "humanity towards others", but is often used in a more philosophical sense to mean "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity. 

I would have loved to have been there to see Aloha meet Ubuntu in person, but unfortunately the timing was just not on my side. I am encouraged though to know that at least it did happen.

 





To read more about the voyage of the Hokule'a check out these articles in:
The New York Times
and
National Geographic.

To track the voyage in real time, visit their website tracker, 

(Please note that the Polynesian Voyaging Society owns the trademark for the image of the voyaging canoe Hōkūle‘a™)

Hooray for Harties!

the view of Hartbeespoort Dam

Hartbeespoort, nicknamed "Harties", is a small resort town in the North West Province on the slopes of the Magaliesberg mountains and the banks of the Hartbeespoort Dam.

It is a popular place for holiday homes as well as day visitors from nearby Gauteng. Less than an hour (but a world) away from Joburg and even closer to Pretoria, Hartbeespoort offers a wide variety of activities and attractions including animal sanctuaries and outdoor craft markets.

Amazingly though my friend Ros, a lifelong Joburg resident who has been to some of the remotest places on the planet, had never been to Harties! (Isn't that typical?) So we took a drive out on a beautiful spring day for lunch and a little explore to rectify the omission.

I had not been to Hartbeespoort in a while myself. Vince and I would go out there often on weekends when we first moved to Joburg. The landscape is spectacular, there is lots to see and do and it is home to the Transvaal Yacht Club where we once belonged. But after we joined the Royal Cape Yacht Club in Cape Town, we ditched sailing on the dam lake for the more exciting two oceans of the Cape and said good-bye to Harties.

my ticket to ride

First stop, the Harties Cableway Experience, a gondola ride to the top of the Magaliesberg. On the weekends it can be a tough ticket to get but during the week, we just hopped on the next car up.

up, up and away!

overlooking the Transvaal Yacht Club

The view is gorgeous. It was a just a little too hazy to really claim to have seen Joburg way off in the distance, but I think we could make out some of the Sandton skyline on the horizon.

Back down on solid ground, we took a scenic drive through a carved out tunnel and over the dam bridge before heading to lunch at French Toast.

Hooray for Hartiwood!

French Toast is a cute little French bistro located on the former movie set of the 2015 Afrikaans film, French Toast. Rather than film all of the Paris scenes in France where much of the movie is set, producer and director Paul Kruger, shot them right here in Hartbeespoort on a recreated Parisian street.

The French Toast set and bistro have been open to the public for about a year. Ros was reminded of its existence by an ad she saw for the Hartiwood Food & Film Show last weekend. Ros had worked at Television SABC with the director Paul Kruger when he was a studio camera man and she was an editor there.

if you use a little imagination, you can almost hear the accordion music ...

the Eiffel Tower

love locks!

the Alexandre Cafe

The film French Toast opened in April of this year and as such is long gone from the theater. But they were selling DVDs of it at the little gift shop so I bought a copy for Vince and I to watch at home. It is an Afrikaans language film with English subtitles.

Even the menu at the bistro has subtitles. The dish names are in French and Afrikaans and the description is in English! Ros and I had a couple of salads and the food was good.

ooh lala!

It was a cute place, a nice little diversion and a good addition to the offerings at Hartbeespoort. I am anxious to see how well Hartiwood translated Paris to the big screen.

It's a wrap on the 2014-2015 Volvo Ocean Race!

cruising past the V&A on our way back to the RCYC after the in-port race

After an initial leg start in Alicante, Spain on October 11, 2014, the around the world Volvo Ocean Race finally finished on June 22, 2015 in Gothenberg, Sweden. Total race distance, 38,739 nm!

 







It was a blast to follow online and a special thrill to visit the Race Village, to see the boats in action and to meet some of the sailors while the race was in port at the V&A in Cape Town last November. 





The results:

Congratulations Abu Dhabi! Great effort Teams Alvimedica and SCA!

Polo @ The Inanda Club

Dogs are welcome!

This week we visited another storied club in Sandton, The Inanda Club. But instead of genteel Lawn Bowling like we played at The Wanderers Club earlier this week, we came to Inanda to watch the faster-paced sport of Polo.

The Inanda Club was founded in 1934 to provide a home for equestrian sports. The club was located in what was then open countryside just north of Rosebank. It is doubtful that the founders imagined that the bucolic area would become what it is today, the commercial CBD of Africa.

view of the Polo field from the club porch

But rather than decamp for wider open spaces completely, The Inanda Club chose instead to become a full service town and country club. The Sandton venue is now a modern city club with a distinct equestrian and country character. It maintains a full scale Polo field right in heart of the Sandton CBD! This town club combined with the Inanda Country Base in Kyalami provides premier equestrian facilities fulfilling the objectives of the founders of Polo and the Rand Hunt.

And I just found out that as full members of the Royal Cape Yacht Club in Cape Town, we have reciprocal members' privileges at The Inanda Club ... which means we have member access to their many dining rooms and events. Oh boy!

First event was the 2015 Inanda Development Cup, a Polo match that is all about creating an opportunity for talented, underprivileged and aspirant Polo players to participate in the sport and help them reach a professional level.

 

Now that we know, we plan to take advantage more often of  our new-found privileges at The Inanda Club. There is the Land Rover Africa Cup there in August and after Polo season ends, The Rand Hunt Club meets at the Inanda Country Base in Kyalami.

Save the dates!

Go Engineers!

... and go IT / MBAs!

A RCYC Memorial Day weekend Regatta ... just like Mantoloking Yacht Club (NJ, USA)!

MYC-RCYC Burgee Exchange

exchanging burgees after a sail in Ile de Re

Our family loves to sail. And we love to do it when we travel too. Vince and I always carry a yacht club burgee in our luggage in case we have an opportunity to exchange it for the burgee of any yacht club we visit while in port.

We have exchanged burgees both near (Nantucket, Edgartown, the Royal BVI and the St. Francis Yacht Clubs to name a few) and far (like yacht clubs in Marseille, Portofino, Zurich, Cowes and Rio de Janeiro.)  For the last 20+ years, the burgee in our suitcase has been the red and white letter M of the Mantoloking Yacht Club on Barnegat Bay in New Jersey.

our last Mantoloking burgee hanging in the clubhouse at RCYC

But now that we belong to the Royal Cape Yacht Club too - and more importantly, now that we have run out of Manto burgees - we will be bringing along a RCYC burgee with us in the future.

HNY2015 from CT

New Year's Eve in Cape Town!

We started out at the Royal Cape Yacht Club ...

... where there was a Bring and Braai party with a band and dancing. The restaurant was closed but the bar was open.

So first we had sundowners on the dock ...

... with a moonrise over the harbor.

Then dinner. The club had set up and started dozens and dozens of braais along the waterfront.

Pick one and go ...

He caught and cleaned those fish today! What a great dinner for a catch and braai at the yacht club.

After dinner and a twirl on the dance floor, we drove back to the apartment rooftop just in time ...










... to catch the International Space Station passing overhead!





Happy New Year space explorers from the folks in Cape Town.

We joined our neighbors with some bubbly and snacks in anticipation of midnight and the fabulous fireworks over the V&A below.

The streets were wild!

Parties on the roof tops.

Parties in the plazas and piazzas all over the Cape Quarter.











Finally, the countdown to midnight and fireworks at the V&A!

Auld Lang Syne

We Skyped, conference called and Facetimed with our family back home in the USA. A family tradition. Then out into the street for the Malay choirs parade through the City Bowl and Bo-Kaap.

The parade started at Keizersgracht, proceeded along Darling Street, turning left into Adderley Street. Then a right into Wale Street, cross Buitengragt Street, and turn right into Rose Street before it finished at the corner of Castle Street and Rose Street at approximately 05:00! That was okay with us. There would be no sleeping anyway with the party going on down below our windows.

Time to go home.













This scene reminds me of the 4th of July NJ gridlock leaving the beach and boardwalks after the Point Pleasant Beach fireworks. Once again, I am so glad we were not driving and could just walk the two blocks back to our apartment!

HNY2015 from CT!