Zach Alexander Hulsman

October 3rd, 1901 HMS Discovery docked in Cape Town.  This was the ship that Captain Robert Scott commanded on his epic journey to reach the South Pole.  Very heavily laden was the Discovery with all manner of delicious non perishable foods such as roast partridge and turkey, 27 gallons of whiskey and 28 cases of champagne.

On the same day one hundred and ten years later Zach was born in Cape Town.  Welcome to the world Zach!

Here is Captain Scott with some of his crew on the Poop deck of the Discovery.  In Roman times, the stern of a ship was called the puppis.  In modern times a Poop deck is at the stern and forms the roof of a cabin built at the back of a ship.

Puppis is also a constellation located in the heart of the Milky way.  It is visible from the Southern Hemisphere and is slightly west of the constellation Canis major.  In the 3rd century Claudius Ptolemy labelled 48 constellations, including Argo Navis - the mythological ship of Jason and the Argonauts.  More recently and in 1752, Puppis was identified as a distinct constellation within Argo Navis.

Red shark day

Not a flag seen everyday.  The red flag tells us that a shark has recently been spotted or that there is activity in the water that might attract sharks such as the presence of seals, shoals of fish, dolphins, a beached whale.

Earliest report of a shark fatality in Cape Town was recorded in 1920.  Details are sketchy.  A student from the University of Cape Town was apparently attacked whilst swimming off the Cape Town Pier.

The pier was built in 1913 and demolished in 1940.

Good bye Mr Hand

1975 was a very good year, for a teacher of history and boys of independent means.  School master Ernest Hand is seated for the Form III photo of the same year.

Shortly after Victory day and somewhere in London, Mr Hand was awarded a Diploma in Education.  Twenty odd years later he joined the staff of WWPS.

A career teacher, Mr Hand took rooms at the school for 22 years.  Well liked and respected Mr Hand was a teacher who accessed respect with his kindness and gravelly voice.  Form III class and history teacher, extra-mural cine club facilitator and long standing Akela of the 4th Claremont Boy Scouts.

Good bye Mr Hand, gentle man and author of many fond memories.  (Ernest Hand died in August 2011)

Anton Piek

Four years before Architect Anton de Witt started work on the renovation of St Johns Anglican church in Wynberg, fellow Dutchman and namesake Anton Piek was born in den Helder, Netherlands. Timeline is 1894.  Den Helder is in the North West, northern most point of the Holland peninsula.

Unbeknownst to many, Anton Piek enjoyed a good innings.  He outlived John Lennon and missed the fall of the Berlin wall by merely two years.

Church parade on Sunday (Part I)

Lots of colour in this stained glass window.  At shoulder height is the label of St John.  With his back facing North, this window is besieged by mid day light.  Augustus Pugin might be the clue to the origins of this beautifully detailed image.  Augustus is acknowledged as the reviver of Gothic styles in the English church.  Our time line is not so long ago - early 19th century.  The proud owner of the stained glass window is the St Johns Church of Wynberg.  Built in the 1830's, it is very likely that architects of the time were in some way influenced by the work and designs of Augustus Pugin.  Architect Pugin reintroduced a Gothic style to the English Church.  He was instrumental in the reconstruction of the houses of parliament after the devastating fire of 1834.  But back to St John.  History is sketchy and facts are mostly heresay.  Old thinking is that St John was one of the 12 apostles, apparently a favourite of the carpenters son.  After much drama St John fled Eretz Israel to the Greek Isle of Patmos, where in a cave, he composed much of what we know to be the book of revelations.  Over the subsequent many years St John, known in various churches as St John the evangelist, was seen to be reading a book, holding an ornate cup and often pictured with an eagle close at hand. Patmos was not the end of the road as St John lived a long life that ended in Sulcek in modern day Turkey.

St John at Patmos as seen through the paint brush of artist Jean Fouquet.  This work was commissioned in the mid 1400's by French royal treasurer, Ettienne Chevalier.  The work is part of a collection of miniature paintings bound together in a small volume known as a book of hours.  A habit long since dropped, the book of hours was a devotional book comprising a collection of biblical texts, prayers and psalms.  The book of hours was usually a personalized manuscript assembled for wealthy patrons.

Fiscal discipline

Our very own Dutch East India Company brought along an important officer - the Fiscal.  Founded in 1602, the Dutch East India Company was a state outside the state.  By mid-17th century it's maritime fleet numbered some six thousand ships.  The Cape of Good Hope, as Cape Town was known at the time was initially established as a by-product of Dutch merchant enterprise.  Wielding more than a big stick was the Company Official known as the Fiscal.  In many ways the Fiscal could be likened to a modern day Attorney General with extra rights to prosecute, judge, try and pass judgement.  To make the position even more appealing, the Fiscal was entitled to a portion of all fines levied.

In 1990, South African sculptor Buks van Staden produced a larger than life replica of the Fiscal to the general public.  The replica has been fashioned in Bronze and stands at the SAPS Museum in Muizenberg.  Interesting that this subject was chosen.  Looking back, 1990 was an important time in South African History.  The transition from white only to multi-party rule was proceeding inexorably.  Perhaps commemoration of the Fiscal was intended to remind us that we have come a long way in 300 hundred years.

Stille waters

Sturdy concrete is the material of choice for monuments.  In 1975, the Taal Monument near Paarl was opened to the General Public.  Celebrating 100 years of the Afrikaans language, the Taal monument was designed to withstand the vagaries of the Cape Winter storms.  It was a good design as it still stands proud and at the moment our Department of Public Works is upgrading and replacing the restaurant and visitors facilities.

Below the tall spire is a round table suspended above water.  It is a timeless design, with anthroposophic curves and cold war symbolism.


Simonstown, in a backroom tucked behind a store of oddments, is a collection of books.  Here we see the shelf of Cape Town.  Books describing life in the Cape of the 1800's.  Frank Wightman is wedged between Lawrence Green and Herman Charles Bosman.  William Duncan Baxter might have met Frank, either on the book shelf or perhaps at the Royal Cape Yacht Club.  When Mr Baxter was mayor of Cape Town, Frank was barely 11 years old.  They must have met after the war.

Water pump

Die een se dood is die ander se brood.  A lovely catch-all phrase that offers cheer when life deals a crumpled card.  Road works on the Vissershok road in Durbanville re-directs traffic through convoluting avenues in landscaped suburbia.  And here the crumpled card triumphed.  Amidst the trees and barely noticeable stands a windmill.  Known today as Onze Molen, this once working windmill is surrounded by modest homes and tidy roads.

Usual sources don't reveal an exact date of construction, but based on limited fact, it is most likely that the mill was built sometime between 1810 and 1840.  In the scheme of things, this is not a terribly ancient mill.  Certainly younger than the more famous Mostert's mill which was built in 1796.

Windmill technology was brought to South Africa by the Dutch.  In the Dutch Zaandam district of 1800, there were approximately 600 windmills in operation.  Figures vary and some sources quote many more windmills in operation at that time.  The windmills fulfilled a multitude of functions such as pumping water, milling wheat and slicing Scandinavian timber.  The life of a Miller was sometimes dangerous.  In high winds the noise would have been frightening.  Gearing from the wind turbine to mill drive was mostly fashioned in wood.  Friction in the gearing mechanisms would sometimes build up enough heat to spark a flame.  The cap at the top of the mill was designed to rotate, thereby optimizing wind power.  For practical reasons that cap was covered in thatch. A light rotating and flammable cap.  It is reported that 1 in 20 working windmills caught fire each year.

An American in Paris.  Here we have an American in Holland.  Zaandam to be more specific.  This is a drawing penned by none other than James McNeill Whistler.  Although born in the United States, Whistler spent some childhood time with his family and engineer father in Russia.  He was educated in America, but returned to live an adult life in Paris and London.  In 1877, a few short years before William Duncan Baxter set sail for South Africa, Whistler engaged John Ruskin in a financially devastating court room brawl.

Turning the clock back a few short years, Monet spent time in Zaandam.  At the time of the Franco-Prussian war, Monet moved north on an urgent painting quest.  So prolific was his output that today some 24 of his Zaandam paintings still hang from sturdy hooks.

Vleeschfontein

SA National Parks headquarters in Madikwe is housed at Vleeschfontein.  Sometime before 1879, Pope Pius the ninth let it be known that the peoples of the Zambezi needed to know all about Catholic Christianity.  In zealous adherence to this request, Jesuits from Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape trekked North via Kimberley, Marico and the eastern side of present day Botswana.  This is not the most direct route, but at the time this was the beaten path north.

After several successful migrations to the Zambezi, the Jesuits bought the farm Kalfontein, known to local hunters as Vleeschfontein. It was to serve as a resting and recovery spot for travelers on a mission.  Before long a small chapel was built and here is a picture of this very small chapel as it is today.  The railway line from Kimberly to Bulawayo via Zeerust diminished the importance of Vleeschfontein for the Jesuits.  In 1894 the Jesuits handed the farm and chapel to the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.  On the scale of Christian charity, chastity and missionary zeal, the Oblates cannot be described as lean.

In 1925 a Lourdes Grotto was stacked using local stones and in 1926 a school was built.  Today this building houses the SAN Parks Headquarters in Madikwe.  For a variety of reasons, the mission at Vleeschfontein fizzled out in 1950.  In recent years there has been a resurgent revival of pilgrim activity.  Apparently thousands of pilgrims visit the chapel and Lourdes Grotto, most likely on February the 11th - a sort of early Valentines date with a Tswana twist.

Breakwater

Arthur Worthington was educated at the famous school in Rugby to which the popular game owes it's name.  In later life he trained students of Naval Engineering at Devonport.  This was in the 1880's, roughly the time when William Duncan Baxter sailed to Cape Town.  During his lecturing days, Arthur Worthington experimented with photography.  In those days photography was very much a novelty and not always well received in polite circles.   The research was primarily for naval purposes and one can guess that impact and trajectory of cannon shot would have been of particular interest.  Combining the two disciplines, Arthur Worthington used the early camera to observe the splash of small objects crashing into water.  Incredible as it seems, the picture shown here was taken before the Boer War.

And now for a mystery.  Russian sailors have been buried in Simonstown.  Very rudimentary research has not unraveled a full story.  Beautifully carved in tomb stone is a cross dedicated to the Russian Sailors.  The tombstone cross is not the typical cross of the Russian Orthodox Church.  It is in fact the cross of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Christian denomination of the majority of middle eastern and Slavic countries.  This is a clue.  The Russian Orthodox Church is a sub-section of the Eastern Orthodox Church.  Inscriptions on the tombstone are scant, a list of names numbering about 17 carved in the Cyrillic alphabet.  Date of departure, 1880's.

Is Arthur Worthington linked to the Russian Sailors of Simonstown?

Water water on the wall

Unspoilt beach in Cape Town.  Is that possible?  Baden Powell drive links Muizenberg to Stellenbosch.  For about four kilometers this road runs along the spring high tide line.  Every so often, kelp is washed right across the painted white traffic lines.  Cemetery Beach is where the sea and road run side by side.  Was Baden Powell somehow linked to Cemetery Beach?  The link is not obvious.  Baden Powell spent very little time in Cape Town and was buried in Kenya.  Perhaps he once went for a swim in the nearby waters..  His pen chance for swimming earned him the nick name Lord Bathing Towel.

And today this stretch of coast is a favourite angling spot, a sometime surf break and a full-time home for the Kelp Gull.  Every so often an oyster catcher can be seen scurrying about, defying its endangered status.  Good news is that the busy beach is generally tidy.  Once again our mother city fathers are dusting away litter treaded footprints.

Water and wind

CS Lewis wrote about his early life in a book titled "Surprised by Joy".  The name of the book was most likely chosen from the first line penned by Wordsworth in his poem of the same name.  "Surprised by joy, impatient as the wind.  But back to CS Lewis.  Here is a small segment from the book.

I number it among my blessings that my father had no car, whilst most of my friends had and sometimes took me for a drive.  This meant that all these distant objects could be visited just enough to clothe them with memories and not impossible desires, while they remained ordinary and as inaccessible as the Moon.  The deadly power of rushing about wherever I pleased had not been given me.  I measured distances by the standard of man, man walking on his two feet, not by the standard of the combustion engine.  I had not been allowed to deflower the very idea of distance; in return I possessed "infinite riches" in what would have been to motorists a "little room".  The truest and most horrible claim made for modern transport is that it "annihilates space".It does.  It annihilates the most glorious gifts we have been given.  It is a vile inflation which lowers the value of distance, so that a modern boy travels one hundred miles with less sense of liberation and pilgrimage and adventure than his grandfather got from travelling ten.  Of course if man hates space and wants it annihilated, that is another matter. Why not creep into his coffin at once?  There is little enough space there.

Shortly after publishing, but sometime after writing "Surprised by Joy", CS Lewis met and later married Joy Gresham.

Water from wine

A well known story celebrating water and wine took place at a wedding feast in Cana, near Nazareth.  Like Alesia in ancient Gaul, the exact location of Cana is not exactly known and there are several contenders.  

Making wine in more modern times requires the use of water.  Mostly for washing and cleaning purposes, water is of great value in a  wine cellar.  Generally water is not added to wine, although some wines are described as watery.  Water is used to clean floors and equipment, rinse pipes and wash down walls.  

Until fairly recently most South African cellars did not accurately measure water usage in the production of wine.  This trend has changed significantly and there is now some pretty accurate data available. 

In general water usage peaks during the harvest season.  Throughout the year there is constantly a demand for water.  

The benchmark water usage is a parameter that provides an indication of annual water demand for the production of wine.

In South Africa, the benchmark water usage is measured as litres of water used to produce one litre of wine per year.  The benchmark value decreases with cellar size.  This makes sense as equipment is cleaned daily, regardless of usage.  Typically the very large cellars (>15 000 annual ton production) use as little as 1 litre of water per litre of wine produced per year.  For very small cellars the benchmark usage is closer to 10.  Note that the benchmark value does not include the water used for irrigation.

A cellar that processes 600 tons of grapes per annum, will typically use 2.5 million litres of water.

Water under the bridge

It is now May and my garden watering days are winding down.  At this time of the year Cape Town is cooler and intermittently wet.  The rain starts to come in ernest in June and with vigour in July.  Water usage at home is recorded almost daily and some interesting trends have come to light.

The well-point irrigation system has worked very of late.  Some modifications had to be made due to the nuisance of sediment.  In the sandy flats of Fish Hoek, ground water can contain significant amounts of sediment.  Enough to block sprinklers and irrigation control valves.  The initial solution was a simple disk filter arrangement. This proved tiresome as the disk filter needed constant cleaning.  The filter arrangement was upgraded to a dual chamber settling tank facility.  The settling tanks work wonderfully.  Of interest is the accumulated oily layers on each the surface of each tank.  Would like to know what causes the oily layers and more of that another time.