Location: Durban, South Africa
A warm welcome to family, friends, and anyone else who reads this blog!
Before I let you know about our latest adventure into the concrete jungle that is Durban I must let you all know that Argo and her entire crew are in brilliant stead. We had a wild experience on our last leg of the trip, but everything is in hand (repairs, etc.), and morale is soaring high!
Now, about our adventure into this concrete jungle
Our ever-pragmatic leader (Allie) pulled another rabbit out of the hat for us today. She arranged for us to visit the KwaZulu Natal Shark Board (KNSB), a shark research agency that seeks to provide safer waters for the bathers of Durban and the greater KwaZulu Natal seaboard. Our visit featured a short tour of the KNSB museum, followed by a dissection of a recently landed tiger shark.
After a delightful breakfast of smoothie bowls with granola, the team headed ashore and boarded a minibus bound for the KNSB facility. Thirty minutes down the coastline, we rolled before coming to the brutalist building housing the shark scientists. Many like myself had presumed that our visit would be private, however this was not the case. Two excessively loud and quite funny school groups of pre-teens filed into the building at the same time as us. Our presence along with a few family groups was used as leverage by their teacher to shut them up. It was a textbook move, and at that moment, I had never been happier to be responsible for compos mentis young adults instead of snot goblins.
After only a short perusal of the museum exhibit, we were ushered to an adjacent conference room to watch a short “educational” video. I put educational in quotation marks because this video started with an animation depicting a fable of a shark evolving out of the jungle and having its legs removed by an omniscient god the school children cheered at the fable that they had clearly learned about before. But, I feel the subsequent information was entirely missed.
Once the video ended, a Lenny Henry lookalike in a white overcoat appeared from behind a velvet curtain. Without speaking, he pulled the great curtains all the way back to reveal a glass wall separating us from a courtyard amphitheater. This might not have been so dramatic had it not been for the dead Tiger Shark lying on a dissection table in the middle of said courtyard. By this point, Meg, Ben, and myself had started sharing looks with one another… each look saying, ‘what the hell is going on right now?’
Mr. Henry didn’t introduce himself; he just confidently led us all toward his surgical theatre with a gleaming smile on his face. Instantly upon arrival, we knew we had to head upwind, for the smell was piercing. The air was lined with a thick scent of formaldehyde, which to the unacclimatised nose is quite the attack. Now came time for the dissection
Understandably, many scientists are not brilliant public speakers. I believe that the stereotype of the awkward brainiac stumbling over their words is a stereotype for a reason. This man, though our Mr. Henry did not fall into this category. This man was an entertainer! Clearly thinking of himself as a Marcus Aurelius of marine science he had three of the snot goblins plus Phillip (yes, ladies and gents, you read that right) opening the shark’s jaw and playing with its fins. For some, this display was too much, and a few of our crew members left the show. After ten minutes of this display, we had lost another three from our troop. Fast forward to the ending scenes of the dissection, and our entire group had unanimously boycotted the vulgar show glorifying the shark’s death.
We sat outside the front of the building as a groupthe atmosphere now as depressing as the building’s architectureand contemplated the morality of the organization we had just paid to visit. Before letting things go too far downhill, Meg and I led the team off to the mega mall up the road while Ben stayed behind to try to speak with someone from the organization.
The mall was everything that the internet had promised it would be and more! Student groups split off for three hours of exploration. This meant a few things for us all, but namely, whatever lunch we want! It was an afternoon for indulgence, and everyone was happy to be able to stretch their legs. On that note when we got to the mall, Meg, Amanda M, and I were still so worked up over the shark incident that we decided we needed to get rid of the energy in some. This is when the highlight of my day came around. The three of us went and played padel (for those unfamiliar this is a game akin to tennis and squash. It takes place on a modified tennis court within a giant Perspex box wherein you can hit the ball off the walls. Consequently, you end up hitting the balls excessively hard).
After our padel outing, the three of us got lunch at a health-food caf, and I ordered a Princess wrap (chicken and avocado). The young lady serving us laughed and said, “Princess for the Princess” (not important, just an anecdote for Kaleigh). For context, the “Prince wrap” was steak and avocado clearly the more macho choice that any hardened South African man would have chosen, obviously.
Once we regrouped at our pre-agreed pickup point, our minibus driver arrived, and we headed back to the marina. We then took three trips to take everyone back to the boat in the dinghy. This was only because we got both of our staysails back from the sail makers, plus a new battery unit plus replacement parts for the oven! (Suffice to say that we’ll have some work cut out for ourselves tomorrow).
We settled back onto the boat with a chicken and kale salad for dinner, followed by a game of post-squeeze hide and seek (Charlie found me under the laundry in the centre-forward bilge compartment.
After dinner and clean-up, Meg and Ben moderated an excellent and mature discussion surrounding the KNSB and its practices. This gave everyone time for reflection. The talk ended up centering on the extent to which human life (i.e., bathers’ safety) should be prioritized over marine conservation.
To close this thing up, I want to say that this goes to show that even when excursions go sideways, there is always an opportunity to learn and almost always a way to turn the day around so that we all finish smiling!