Darling, there's a trawler blocking the view

Japanese-registered trawler Eihatsu Maru ran aground on 1st beach Clifton over the weekend. 1st beach is prime territory in Cape Town, with apartments along the shore selling for the most of any properties in the city. The water at Clifton is cold but all four main beaches have good body surfing. You go in, catch a wave and then bake in the sun for a minute - fantastically invigorating. Luck was on the sailors' side as the boat ran aground on a sand-bank, avoiding the many scatterings of rocks located along that part of the coastline. Most of the crew were evacuated although the captain remained on board with his dog. I guess the dog went along with the plan, as dogs usually do! Local rescue teams sprung into action with NSRI boats from Table Bay and Bakoven quickly on the scene. Later a tug from my village of Simonstown, on the other side of the Cape Peninsula, arrived to attempt to move the trawler off. Many boats have come a cropper along that side of the coast, often pushed onshore by the strong north-westers that create such good surfing conditions for land-lubbers like me. The Eihatsu Maru is fairly old, first registered in 1985. Its engines are apparently in running order so it seems it lost its way in fog. It's amazing with modern nautical navigation systems that this can happen. Here's a link to the tug Smit Amandla pulling Eihatsu Maru off the beach http://sawdis1.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/eihatsu-maru-pulled-off-clifton.html The QSL is from two Japanese AM stations, JOGO 1485 and JOGR 1233, heard on a business trip to Seoul, Korea in 2000, with a sweet letter from Reiko Sasaki, who worked at the station.

Message from the Dutch bottle

Political drama every day in Europe. We are about to see a new president in France, while in Greece the traditional parties have shrivelled in the polls as austerity bites. The Dutch government of Mark Rutte was taken down by Geert Wilders. Here in the UK the Conservative-LibDem alliance was pummelled in local elections. Blond politicians to the fore, with Boris Johnson of the scruffy blond locks edging home to another win as London mayor. I vote for Bozza just because he's entertaining, although I think he's actually been quite effective, after a chaotic start to his first term. Wilders' blondness comes out of a bottle and although he's an attention-grabber he's a bit too off the wall for me. Both Wilders and Rutte are youngsters, still in their 40s. With 'fringe parties' on the rise in many parts of Europe, ongoing negative market buzz is never far away. The latest wheeze is to implement growth strategies to offset the austerity fatigue. Europe is chipping away at the edges. What we need to see is still greater shrinkage of the state. Governments the size of Europe's are simply unaffordable. The public sector is not suited to the creative destruction necessary for a dynamic economy. I've been saying that we'll look back in five years and be surprised how Eurozone has progressed. But a little flutter inside worries me: that too little is being done to reduce the bureaucracy and free up economies. The QSL is from Radio 10 Gold, the AM hits station in Holland, heard in London in 1995 but also audible in South Africa at the time.

Elasticity of a drought

On April 5 they announced the hosepipe ban in England. On April 6 it started to rain .... and rain, and rain. April showers as they say and so it has been with records likely to be broken in the month. The big Bewl water reservoir in Kent dropped to only 35% full but the way things are going it will be filling up soon. Every now and again there is a tremendous clap of thunder with attendant lightning. Not like the gigantic rolling thunderstorms you get in Joburg; rather these isolated and rather shocking one-offs that seem to come from nowhere. As if to say: I'm just cheeky, not bad. Walking down to the village this morning to exchange library books I had the brolly up and eyes on the pavement ahead. This is the best way to spot elastic bands. London is a city of elastic bands, they are everywhere. If you are looking you will seldom walk more than a couple of hundred metres and you'll see one. It took me a while to work this out and then I realised: it's the postmen. They jettison them as they make their rounds. The QSL is from Enigma 846, Trans Kent Radio, a pirate that used to operate on AM on Sundays and heard in Otford, Kent in 2002.

Surf by night, sail by day, in Itajai

After yesterday's in-port race in Itajai, the Volvo Ocean yachts head off for Miami today. The race was a disaster for Telefonica. After serenely dropping the fleet soon after the start and building an unassailable lead, Telefonica rounded the wrong mark and before anyone realised they were way at the back of the field. This allowed both Grouparama and Camper to narrow Telefonica's overall lead. While the yachting world has its eyes on Itajai, most don't realise that there are two great sufing beaches there: Atalaia and Brava. Atalaia interests me because it uses reflectors for night surfing. How many times have I wondered about the great waves going to waste after dark at Muizenberg Corner? You hang in there till last light but eventually you have to give in. Bondi beach in Australia have neon night surfing where the the boards and wetsuits are illuminated by lights from the shore. As the Volvo Ocean race presses on I still have a big question mark over the marginality of the boats. It's all very well to have leading-edge design technology but too many boats in this small fleet have broken. The QSL is from Radio Clube Paranaense, Curitiba, Brazil. I don't have any from Santa Catarina State where Itajai is located but Curitiba is not far, about 100 miles to the north. I heard them on AM 1430 in 1987 on a DXpedition to remote Copperton in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.

The warmth and coolth of London to Cape Town

In recent months I've had multiple return trips between London and Cape Town, giving me the chance to compare the three mainline carriers servicing the route.  And a lucrative route it is too, with flights usually full. It may seem like hometown bias but South African Airways comes out tops, the other two being British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. At the end it all boils down to service and the SAA staff have worked it out. For one thing, they are genuinely hospitable, South African-style. I usually find the BA staff are rather cool, as if they're doing the job but would rather not be. It's efficient but not friendly or warm. They don't engage and hate criticism. As a customer you feel a bit lucky to be there. The Virgin staff are better - they are selected to meet the Virgin image of being sassy and in tune. They're energetic and the on-flight entertainment is outstanding. However, they take absolutely ages to bring the food. By the time you get to the main course, hours have passed and you'd like to be snoozing off, especially if you have work the next day. Don't dream of complaining, it doesn't go down well. SAA serve the food early and fast and they let you know that your needs are important. The QSL is from the old Virgin Radio in the UK, heard on 1215 AM in Johannesburg in 1993.

The power of cube not enough for some

Just back from another stint in beautiful Cape Town. Over the weekend the northwester arrived with perfect timing and Muizenberg Corner was on the button. On Saturday it was small but nicely shaped and on Sunday the swell really picked up - it was pumping. The power generated by a big wave is stunning. You can feel those extra cubic metres sweeping you up. I just couldn't stop and no need, I had nothing better to do. There was a little incident out back. I caught this ẁave and turned left - the next thing this dude crunched into me from my right. Clearly he thought I had dropped in and maybe I had. But when I took off I just didn't see him. Anyway there were stacks of waves and it really was unnecessary for him to make contact. We glared at each other and he shouted: 'What are you looking at me for, it was your fault!' So I suggested to him that he contact the Cape Town City council and request it to set aside a portion of the beach about 50 metres wide just for his own special self. This was a guy looking for a battle, not a surf. It all fizzled out and an hour later we were both still out there tearing it up. The QSL is from Radio 786, a religious broadcaster on FM in Cape Town. They kindly responded to my letter of reception which I posted from London although I heard them in Cape Town.

Luxembourg rocks, Juncker sulks

Little Luxembourg has a GDP of $55bn, which puts it between Oman and Belarus, in 69th place on the IMF list. But per capita it's by far number 1, ranking well ahead of oil-rich Qatar and Norway, by virtue of its small, one-half million population. The Luxembourg prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup of finance ministers had a hissy-fit on Friday when his thunder was stolen by Maria Fekter, the Austrian finance minister. The group announced that the fiscal firewall for the Eurozone would be boosted to Euro 700bn by allowing the new ESM to run  in parallel with what's left of the EFSF. Juncker wanted to make the announcement but Fekter dropped in on him. This sent him fuming into the car park. The media jumped on this as usual as a sign of dysfunctionality. Indeed the scepticism in the UK about the Eurozone's turmoil is quite deafening, bordering on racism. To me it's actually been quite a surprise how well the Eurozone players have managed one of the most complex problems ever seen in global finance. No doubt Juncker will recover his poise. The QSL is from Radio-Tele-Luxembourg heard in Cape Town on AM in 1968. At the time this was the station that UK teenagers were listening to under the sheets at night because it was playing the great pop music of the day: music which the dinosaur BBC of the time refused to play. And down in distant South Africa we were listening to.