Learn something new 3rd September

Yesterday I learned the The Phoenix, after being stranded off the East Coast of South Africa since July has finally been freed and will be sunk off the coast about 70kms out. The good news is that there were no environmental disasters which was a big thing since at one stage she was thought to be leaking oil. This ship sitting just about on the beach has been a source of much discussion and speculation as to how to get her off and what to do with her if they cant, even from people who know nothing about ships or the sea,lol.

The Phoenix stranded

Last week we had some awful weather here in Kwazulu Natal. Lots of snow in the midlands and mountainous areas and driving rain along the coast for about 3 days. We were basically cut off with lots of chaos around. Things were not any better out to sea where conditions were apparently awful. Last week Monday a ship which was on its way to India to be scrapped broke its anchor and was driven onto the rocks near Salt Rock about 45 minutes from here. We went up to sea it this Monday, but unfortunately we couldn't get very close to it since they were preparing to attempt to move it. If you go to this site you will sea how close by the shore it actually was.
We did however get to see it and actually saw it start to move as the tide was coming in, however they never managed to refloat it so she is stull stuck there.

This is as close as we managed to get:

The two tugboats Amandla and Siyanda who were involved in attempting to refloat her.

She did move a bit.

The sea was a beautiful turquoisey blue and looked very calm at times.

But it was actually quite rough!

It was lovely to get out there, since I haven't been around there for years. We did have quite a walk through thick mud to get there! Luckily nobody slipped, lol.