THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE is where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic; where the warm water meets the cold. It isn’t actually the most southerly point of Africa. That’s Cape Agulhas, a hundred miles east. But the Cape of Good Hope is where sailors from the Atlantic stop sailing south, and turn east. It is the gateway to India.
The waters are wild here, and the sea floor is a jagged maze of rock, above and below the surface, making it one of the most treacherous coastlines in the world. If there were a ghost for every drowned sailor, then the shores of South Africa would be crowded with ghosts. I wondered if they were.
We sailed into the bay in the late morning. The sun was high and the day was clear, as it always seemed to be in Africa. There were lots of tourists on the sand and on the rocks above the beach. We sailed in on the surface, with the hatch wide open and the Canadian and South African flags flying side by side in the wind. I tossed the anchor a hundred and fifty feet from the beach, inflated our new navy dinghy, climbed in with Hollie, and paddled to the beach. Seaweed was on the sand already.
Several curious people came over to meet us, including a family with a whole bunch of young kids. The kids loved Hollie, and they loved the submarine. They asked me to bring it closer, but I told them I couldn’t. It was too shallow. They asked me where I was from, and where I had been. We talked for quite a while. Then they took pictures with us at the sign that said The Cape of Good Hope. No one tried to steal the sub. No one tried to take the dinghy that I had hauled onto the beach. No one asked for my passport or looked like they were going to report us. There was nothing to report. It was wonderful.
But as I sat on the sand and watched Hollie run around with kids on the beach, I felt a terrible weight in my heart. I had been pulled into the violence that I despised so much. I had made a decision, taken an action, and a young man had drowned. He may have been a pirate, but he was a person all the same.
François said that if he hadn’t died on that day, then he would have died the next, or the day after that, or the day after that. It was a certainty that these pirates all die young, he said. Theirs is an impossible life. They have no life, no future. These boys have no future from the moment they are born.
I watched the kids playing with Hollie, and the kids being carried around by their mothers and fathers up the paths above the beach, and I wondered what kind of future they would have. Then, I remembered the face of the woman on the road, and what she had said to me, even though I hadn’t said a word to her. “Appreciate your life,” she had said. What bittersweet words they seemed right now, here, on this beautiful sand, on this beautiful day, with all these beautiful people around, while out there, somewhere in the choppy waters between the two currents, the body of a young pirate was drifting.
Later in the afternoon, we sailed into Simon’s Town. It was a pretty town, right on the water, and was home to the South African navy. We came in with both flags waving. They knew we were coming. François had called on our behalf. We were given a berth right behind some tugboats. It was crowded. The navy was in port. It was thrilling to see the big ships up so close. Truly, this was one of the proudest moments of my life.
We moored in Simon’s Town for three days and two nights. What a remarkable part of the world. There were more animals here, in the water and on the land, than I had ever seen anywhere. It was almost hard to believe. There were whales, dolphins, sharks, sea lions, seals, sea birds, and penguins in the water; and baboons, ostriches, zebra, deer, and penguins on the land. Hollie and I sat on the rocks and watched the penguins for hours. They lived a risky existence. They waddled around in the sun, jumped in and out of the water, but didn’t swim too far from the rocks. The water was a dangerous place for a bird with no defences. We took a long walk in the hills, then along the water, and sat on the beach and just stared at the sea, because there was always something moving, jumping or gliding by.
There was also a marine museum, with relics from the war, and maps that showed all of the wrecks around the coast of South Africa, including submarines. There were a lot more than I had imagined. The museum was particularly interesting to me, and I could have spent the whole day inside. But Hollie’s patience wore out. He stopped wagging his tail after an hour or two, and stared at every open window with such a longing look that I hurried through the last few exhibits and back out into the sunshine. Visiting Simon’s Town was like visiting a zoo, an aquarium, and a museum all at the same time.
On our second day, Hollie and I took a train ride into Cape Town. It was a big city, but not as big, and not nearly as dangerous, as Johannesburg. We saw a township on the way in. Like Soweto, it had been very clearly planned out, and was separated from the rest of the city. There were wall-to-wall shanties stretching for miles and miles, blending into a dusty brown haze as far as the eye could see. High, chain-link fences surrounded the entire community. I didn’t know if the fences were there to keep people out, or keep them in. The township ended abruptly, as if a line had been drawn in the sand. Beyond the fences was a new, beautiful and wealthy looking metropolis.
We hiked around the streets and waterfront for a few hours, then climbed Table Mountain, right in the centre. It rose high above the city, with a flat plateau on top, from which you could see far across the mountains and out to sea. It was extremely beautiful.
On the way up, we passed the homes of rich people. They were surrounded by high steel fences, with rolls upon rolls of barbed wire on top. Barbed wire surrounded schools, kindergartens and churches, too. Everywhere were signs promising quick-armed response to breaking and entering, and theft. Several of the homes looked like miniature fortresses, or prisons. How different they were from the shanties in the townships. It was hard to believe that people lived in both. When Edgar said that South Africa was a divided country, he wasn’t exaggerating.
From the top of Table Mountain, I spotted an island offshore. I asked another hiker if it was Robben Island.
“Yes. That is it. You must see it. It is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Now it is a museum. You must go see it.”
As I stood and stared at the island, clouds of fog appeared on the horizon. They came out of nowhere, and drifted into the bay with unbelievable speed. Twilight was falling. It was time to go. We climbed back down the mountain, bought a pizza, a bottle of chocolate milk, a bag of candy, and then caught the train back to Simon’s Town. As I got comfortable in my seat, with Hollie on my lap, I stared out the window and smiled. Travelling legally had its advantages.
On our last day in South Africa, I went to a laundromat and washed the Nigerian naira and the rest of the American bills. The naira was equal to seven thousand Canadian dollars. I pressed all of the money in the vise, wrapped the naira in paper, and mailed it in a package to Katharina, with a letter for her, and one for Los. I kept the American money. I could think of no better use for it than to spend it on helping the environment. I then thanked the navy officials for their hospitality, climbed into the sub with my crew, raised both flags, and headed out to sea.