A Wish for the West Coast

When you have been away for a month, you will always look anew at your home turf. In Pretoria, I was charmed by the very positive outlook of people, the lovely climate, the lush parks and gardens. Something that is almost a phenomena is the ability of people up there to create! The markets, whether they are permanent, or held weekly or annually, just have so much that is beautiful and of a high quality.

Back home, I need to make a few fast sketches of some boats at Velddrif. There is a large hall, quite spacious at the little harbour and it is divided into market stalls, but the spark is not there and the visitors are scarce. Seeing that the West Coast is rather poor, it would have been lovely if the same quality home bakes and crafts that we see a few kilometers further in Paternoster could be offered here. This prettiest and most historical of harbours just do not see the visitors it could receive.

Lately, we have seen far too many impersonal malls appear on the West Coast, it would be lovely to see this great space at Velddrif become something much more craft-friendly.

Here, once again, I have painted a colourful little boat in the mouth of the Berg River at Velddrif. As you can see it is not seriously realistic! I preferred to play around with some designs, like those repetitive rings!

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A Folksong for the Berg River

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As I walk along the Berg River I always wonder why so few people do that...is it really nicer to walk through a busy touristy type of place in preference to experiencing this pure, honest earthy national treasure called Bokkom Lane ? The boats have two-stroke engines nowadays, but I am happy to report that even though some of them really "cowboy" it over the estuary, the birds are totally unperturbed. The pelicans, flamingoes and waders go about their business, while the gulls would optimistically follow...hoping for a morsel of fish.

I want to take you back in time when a little sailing cutter called "Die Alibama" would hitch a ride on a gentle breeze upriver to collect cut reeds which were used for roofing and for matting of beds. In our colourfully expressive Afrikaans language, in which some words are derived from the Malay culture and language, it would be called dekriet and matjiesgoed. The boat would return to Cape Town and feed the busy industry where a new bed was made for every Malay bride to be presented to her all made up, shiny, frilly and lacy, on her wedding day.

And here is where the famous song "Daar kom die Alibama" finds its origin. It refers to the cutter which brought in the bedding material to make the rietkooi (reed bed). This song is the main song on festivals like "Tweede Nuwejaar". (I tell all about the Minstrel Carnival on Tweede Nuwejaar in an earlier blog). No Minstrel Carnival will pass without the Alibama and the beds being remembered in song. I wonder if the thousands of singers pouring down Adderley Street in Cape Town know the role of the Berg River in their favourite song?

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The Beauty of Silence

The appeal of the West Coast lies in the great expanses of the landscape, the stark simplicity that is so easy to find around here. Follow our coast and you will see long stretches of pristine and lonely beaches. Sometimes there might be a man and his dog, a solitary angler, a backpacker!

Because it is winter here, I make use of photos taken by guest photographers. Today you meet the vibrant and well-known Yzerfontein personality, Mary Ann Bosch. She is an elegant and charismatic lady, darting around chatting, cooking and serving diners in their restaurant, Kaijaiki! She runs a B&B too. Because of her deep empathy with the human condition, she studies hard to be a life coach and will soon graduate in her course in Counselling and Communication. Her plan is open her own clinic in her peaceful seaside home near Yzerfontein. Also, with her first professional assignment as photographer, a Saldanha Bay wedding within a few months, she will once again have her hands full!

Busy, busy!!But to bring her whole being into balance , Mary Ann steps out on the beach with her camera, loving the early mornings and the time of dusk. She replenishes her soul in line with her motto: "I cannot give when I am empty." I thank her for the inspiration for this painting, from her photo of Langebaan lagoon that speaks so well of the "beauty of silence".

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Boat Planter

6 x 8

Acrylic on canvas board.

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I am still captivated by the detail that makes up the brilliant white, postcard pretty Paternoster! So, what is in fact happening here is that another set of paintings is developing.

The town's historical role of fishing village is nowadays also echoed in the newer homes. Here we see an old boat painted, anchored with some rocks from the ocean and turned into an attractive planter. This is not a one-off idea! I love the fact that there are street upon street of these boats in front of the cottages. In my painting, the flowers are once again orange, the complimentary colour for the blue shutters.

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To Lunch, over the water!

There are many beautiful boats and lots of activities to admire in the harbour of Saldanha. Part of a visit along the West Coast is finding a super place to have lunch. While I fidgeted, my husband's "dining experience antennae" discovered The Slipway Restaurant. Inside the restaurant it is light and wide and pleasantly open to the views. Nothing could beat the front corner table we were shown to and soon we had cool wine, and calamari and mussels fresh from the ocean served simply with flavored rice and lots of lemon.

I was fascinated by the small boats arriving from the sailing yachts, which fastened right here on a jetty leading into the restaurant. To break away from the symmetry of two boats and two people, I imagined a little girl showing off her skills in walking off the jetty and over the little plank bridge. Stylistically, of course, she leads the eye in the right direction and shows the way.

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Velddrif

Say the word "ocean" and my little car goes into motion, you can say it is her homing instinct! So down the mountain we rushed, leaving Piketberg behind. After that the road took us past Aurora and then straight down to Velddrif and the sea. It was not long before we spotted patches of the lovely Berg River that has its mouth at Velddrif. Calm blue water with wading birds, boats and cottages along the river shores lead us into a tranquil fishing village.

So I went for the biggest boat first. The composition was made difficult by my closeness to the scene. I refused to paint a great grey expanse of the foreground and thus I landed up with a problem of balance. This is how I solved it: a lighter sky over the little town in the background, so that the eye could be drawn in, two silhoettes of seabirds and two ropes.

For the next few posts you can expect more of the things Velddrif is famous for: salt pans, wading birds, bokkoms (a type of dried mullet hanging in rows at Bokkom Lane) and of course more boats.

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Storm at Langebaan

I have been asked about the storm that I have mentioned in the previous posting. We have a great storm or two on the West Coast virtually every year, and they often make the national news. They are so much worse because they happen in winter. Bartholomeu Dias named this coast Cabo des Tormentos in 1488 and the name Cape of Storms has remained. Many ships on their way to the east have been wrecked along this coast and you will find books and a lot on the internet about these wrecks.

Shortly after we have built our own home next to the sea (and incidentally close to where the British Peer was wrecked in 1896,) there were heavy threatening clouds early one evening and I could see enormous waves that seemed very close. Then it broke loose with thunder and extreme wind. My husband had no visiblility to drive home and had to sit out the storm elsewhere. Then there was a power failure too and it was darker than dark while the heavens just opened and heavy rains pelted down. The water started streaming in underneath previously untested doors, as I suddenly realised that my husband would not know his way through a dark new house. This is how he found me hours later: with doberman Kyla on top of the highest sofa , the floor full of little tea candles to warn against the large dams of water everywhere inside.

Last month the waves were as big as 9 meters high. The storm which battered the coast was caused by spring tide backed by strong winds with the speed of 100kph. Properties in Langebaan took quite a beating and water was seen two streets up from the beach, while roofs were plucked off and barges wrecked. These small boats seem only to have lost their anchors but they are quite a distance from where they should be. Of course, just look at the calm, calm waters, who would say a storm like that can even happen here?

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The Serene and the Restless

Enjoy Langebaan with me for the next few weeks, the tiny town on the banks of the large Langebaan Lagoon, a calm spell of water 17 km long, ± 4 km wide. Langebaan in the early 20th century was mainly a whaling station, until, of course, man belatedly changed his ways. Slowly, but ever so slowly, the whales, now protected and appreciated, are returning and we have spotted a few along the West Coast for the last couple of years, and a great thrill it was!

Langebaan Lagoon is part of the protected area of the West Coast National Park and offers excellent sailing conditions as it is protected from the deep sea!! If you approach it from the reserve side by a roundabout road, you will see small boats, some with a very lived-on look, just hanging there on anchor, quietly absorbing the gentle movement of the water. Hey, who said that there was nowhere to hide? Occasionaly, one of these small boats may rig a sail and glide around for a bit to join the large luxury yachts on the bay, or even go out and brave the wild old ocean.......

That brings us right up to the very popular sporty side of Langebaan! An energetic crowd of wind-surfers and kite-surfers form a beehive of activity on the beach. They unload their magnificent, very expensive and colourful equipment, brissling with logos and brand names. Dressed in head-to-toe diving gear, they take confident strides into those perfect waves, and just go! I have stood here quite a few times to admire the sunset, and can assure you, some of these people will be on their boards until the very last bit of light has disappeared. By then they are possibly ravishingly hungry and ready for the many pleasant informal eateries!

Watching those fearsome waves on a normal day, I can easily imagine what they must have been like during the recent ‘Mother of All Storms’! There lies a lot of seaweed on the beach, having been thrown right up to the line of the first row of houses. Nestling on the pieces of kelp, there are a few forlong-looking boats, heaved there by the waves, heavy anchors and all. I painted this little guy, undamaged but far from where it should be, patiently waiting for an owner to reclaim find it. In this picture the fishing harbour and the lagoon are situated south, to the left , and the open sea is north, to the right.

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West Coast Icons

These little boats, donkey's years old, rest at the entrance of Strandlopertjie in Langebaan. This is a very popular lunch venue where guests sit on large round boulders or underneath a shelter. They help themselves to lots of seafood, homebaked bread, homemade preserves ..... Informal to the extreme.

We are West Coast people and boats have iconic status. Throughout my West Coast Chronicles I will show many different types of boats. These two are probably the oldest I have seen, with not a speck of paint left on them. I will also paint the humble brightly painted fishing boats at Paternoster, the cheeky motorised fishing vessels of Yzerfontein, the peaceful sailing boats at Langebaan and the glamourous yachts alongside them. We will look at the cute tugboats of Saldanha which look like something out of Noddy. At Laaiplek we will find large fishing trawlers and then I will paint the diamond barges at Lambert's Bay. Then there may always be surprises waiting on the beach, like a boat displaced by a storm.... I hope there will be many boats I can paint along the coast!

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The Blue Ladder

These cottages become more difficult to find on the West Coast of South Africa. I have an invitation to visit a lovely family at their farm cottage. Original building, several kids, sheep and chickens! One cannot ask for more in the line of inspiration. For my next painting, I will work on a cottage from a photo where the sky was a light orangy colour.

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A Fisherman mending his Net

The only way to fight this weather is to stay thickly dressed and paint some bright pics. So lay on the tubes of Yellow Ocre and Indian Red!Nothing serious. Everybody cannot aspire to be the next Old Grande Dame of SA Art!

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