18 February 2006

Sea Scouts

by Mike, onboard the Esperanza

As the sun set behind Signal Hill, The Sea Scouts of Hout Bay, wearing full uniform and led by my son Kai, embarked the Esperanza. I put out my wrong right hand to greet them. They had arrived in time for the duty mate, that was me, to strike the flags and turn on the deck lights. "Why do you fly the French flag?" A question from the troop as we did rounds of the ship. “Ah. It can be easily mistaken for the Dutch flag; the colours are the same. The Esperanza is registered in the Netherlands and fly’s the red, white and blue horizontally-striped Dutch flag. Whilst in Cape Town, out of courtesy, we also fly the South African flag from the fore-mast halyard. It’s a maritime tradition to fly flags only in daylight - both flags came down at sunset.

Around the ship we travelled, and on the way we stopped at the bow, to slack on the head-lines, just a little - the ship was bowsed in (the bow pulled toward the quay and the stern a way off). I warned them to stand clear of the old-man (a vertical bit with roller that guides the rope from the winch-drum to the fairlead). They watched and for a moment under the fore-deck floodlights, as I manipulated the large mooring lines, I felt that I was a sailor on stage. We have three headlines holding us in position against the strong SE’ly wind that comes out of no-where - a local anomaly.

Before the scouts disembarked an hour and a half after sunset I presented Bronwyn Glass, her brother and parents with green Greenpeace sweat-shirts. To each sea scout I gave a flag, 'Defending Our Ocean'. Then, following the right left-hand hand shake (as scouts do), down the gangway, waving their flags, they left the ship.

   

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