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.
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