Sunshine on the rocks…

CHRIS BENNETT spent much of the past weekend enjoying the sights and sounds of ski-boats.

SUNSHINE was the greatest blessing for the ski-boat festival at Port Edward last weekend.

This oddly quartered village, it has four centres, last year celebrated the 85^th anniversary of its founding in 1924.

The farmer who worked the land established a village there, named, rather immodestly, after himself, Kennington; his first name was Ken (Pringle). After the visit of the Prince of Wales it was renamed Port Edward, in honour of the man who enjoyed, if that is the word, the briefest of reigns as Edward VIII. His monarchy unravelled after his declaration of love for the benighted Boston socialite Wallis Warfield Simpson. She it was who allegedly once said, “You can’t be too rich or too thin”.

The milling crowds were in no danger of being too thin, judging from appearances on the promenade; neither were they all that poor, gauging from the astonishing line of boat trailers in the shade of Execution Hill (another story). I am told that something like 150 ski-boats from all over KwaZulu-Natal, and other parts less familiar, were launched at Silver Beach.

The memorial, in a rather sorry state last time I looked, tells the story of the wreck of the St John (in Portuguese São João), a merchantman considered the largest vessel afloat in its day. I can’t help wondering if the Chinese didn’t perhaps build bigger sailing ships, the great junks of oceanic capabilities.

Lack of maintenance and overcrowding, caused very likely by the greed of the owners, are considered to be the main causes of the unfortunate vessel, along with a violent storm that caused her to land on stricken rocks at Silver Beach in 1552, a hundred years before the Dutch established the all-important victualling station at the Cape. Diligent hunters are still finding fragments of her huge cargo of china (vases, plates and such) which she was carrying from the orient to Europe.

Last week for three days the rocks were once more stricken; this time by picnic hampers and swimmers, mums and dads, aunties and uncles of all appearances. They had a wonderful time. Well most of them did anyway. I heard tell of one man who missed the beach and hit the rocks with his ski-boat. It broke, of course.

The organisers of this great three-day festival deserve credit for considerable work they all put in. Not only did the occasion benefit the serious fishermen; their families and countless fun seekers attested to the success of the venture, which we shall no doubt enjoy again next year.

The town and its people will be the main beneficiaries, of course. There will be those Mother Grundys who will doubtless bemoan the exposure of the town to the harsh glare of publicity. That harsh glare also bounces from the shiny surface the coins of the realm. Let us not forget that without mo0ney there is no progress, and without progress there is no life.