Excitement at Chinese armada's arrival - and ominous US naval build-up

IN my ageing but wonderful Toyota Yaris — with all its original parts - I hastened to Milnerton last week to see the Chinese armada that had been the subject of numerous calls to radio stations and posts on social media.

- BRIAN INGPEN

THE huge aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford that currently is in the Caribbean Sea as part of the US naval build up off Venezuela. US Navy.

(BRIAN INGPEN COLLECTION)

In the anchorage were eighteen new Chinese stern trawlers en route from Shidau in northeast China to South American waters, and stopping at Cape Town to refuel. Another two of the armada were in port bunkering, victualling and undergoing minor repairs.

On most days, even more foreign fishing craft are in port, transshipping or landing their catch, much of which then is containerised for shipment to Asia.

Some undergo maintenance or repairs, and Waterfront visitors will see foreign long-line tuna catchers or other fishing vessels on the synchrolift or in the Robinson Drydock.

Fuel, stores, repairs, port dues, agency fees, and other costs such as crew changes and catch transshipment costs, including stevedoring, add considerably to local earnings, and these vessels should be welcomed to the harbour.

The arrival of the armada rekindled memories of the whaling fleets that, from November each year, arrived from Europe, bunkered, stored and, joined by several of the fleet that had wintered in Cape Town, left for the killing waters in the Southern Ocean.

In February, the whaling fleets returned, the factory ships down to their marks with frozen whale meat, whale oil, bone meal and other products extracted from those beautiful, graceful creatures.

Happily, that bloody practice stopped in the mid-1960s.