No more doughnuts for Monty

In Stranveld Private Investigators Monty, one of the two protagonists, likes coming to Pearly Beach in his old Beemer to do doughnuts in the carpark.

They turned off Charlie van Breda onto the track down to the sea.

“Yippee, yippee, yip!” Monty sang out on sighting the deserted parking area overlooking Silversands.

“Gravel! Glorious gravel! Every last parking area in Gansbaai is now under tar. Boring old lifeless tar.

This is God’s own gift to a doughnut specialist. Yippee, yippee, yip!”

He stopped dead in the middle of God’s own expanse of gravel, wrenched the steering wheel as far

over to the right as it would go, engaged second gear, got the Beemer’s six cylinders screaming for

blood, and let the clutch loose. They did three revolutions, and he reined the clutch in. It was time to

yank the wheel all the way left, get the revs up, and then spin the car in the other direction. When

they came to a halt facing the sea again, Monty cut the engine and sighed with satisfaction. “Ah,

that’s better!” he said, as if he was buckling his belt on emerging from a brothel, or a toilet. “I really

needed to do that.”

Unfortunately for Monty, the Municipality is busy destroying every last expanse of gravel in Pearly Beach by covering it in a layer of tar.

Stranveld Private Investigators is available from Smashwords.

Prince Philip on Gough Island

I took this photograph of Gordon McIntyre sitting at the dining table in Gough House in 1981. As Radio Operator it was Gordon’s duty to send six-hourly weather reports to the South African Weather Service HQ in Pretoria. Above his head is the portrait of Prince Philip that commemorates his brief visit to the island in 1957.

Gough is part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and South Africa operates its strategic weather station with the permission of the United Kingdom. That explains why the portrait was still on display in spite of the strained relations that existed between Britain and the Apartheid government. To the right of His Highness there was a framed picture of the State President of South Africa, the Rt. Hon. Marais Viljoen. A patriotic Afrikaner from a previous team had placed a toilet seat over Philip’s picture as a gesture of resentful disrespect. Loathing the Christian Nationalists as I did, I had no compunction in moving the piece of sanitaryware over for the President to stare through. I was then able to look up at his repugnant features without feeling an urge to spit or throw something.

This reminiscence was prompted by Prince Philip’s death on 11 April 2021 at the age of 99.

Here is a link to an article recording the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit to Gough Island in 1957.

https://www.facebook.com/GoughIsland/posts/it-has-been-one-year-since-the-duke-of-edinburghs-final-official-royal-engagemen/758196274615167/

To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.

On the Beach: A False Killer Whale

On Thursday 8 April at about 1:30 I was walking on the beach with my dog. The tide had just turned and was on its way out after leaving behind what I mistook to be a dead dolphin. 

 It lay face down on the white sand that bore no trace of footprints. I was the first person to witness was the sea had brought ashore and I felt elated on that count. This was a natural event that no other human had defiled with their presence. 

 The dorsal fin was coated in sand, but otherwise the rest of the body was entirely clean. The skin was uniformly black and without blemish, drawn tightly over blubber and muscle bulging with the firmness of youth. I ran my fingers over the silky surface that was so smooth and non-porous it felt like the synthetic rubber of a balloon. It reminded me of the Southern Right Whale calf that had been washed up on Silversands beach a few kilometres to the east in 2008. Both animals were freshly dead and showed no signs of injury or decomposition.

I contacted Xolani Lawo of the African Penguin and Seabird Sanctuary and notified him of the unusual creature that had been beached. He later informed me that this was no dolphin but a young False Killer Whale. 

 When I returned to the site with my wife that evening the sand was heavily trampled and the animal lay on its side. Two small squares of skin had been removed and biopsies had been performed. 

Three days later Xolani sent the following link that provide interesting visuals and information:

https://dict.org.za/blog/false-killer-whale-stranding-in-pearly-beach/

To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.