Lichen look at Brandfontein, South Africa
Imagine thick mists... Two caravels far out at sea, tossed between the icy Antarctic Circumpolar Atlantic and the warm Agulhas currents, each barely 100 tons, one named Sao Pantaleao, under the command of Bartholomeu Diaz. As luck would have it they were not dashed to pieces on these craggy coasts but they missed seeing the shoreline altogether on their outbound trip. Returning from their easternmost anchorage well around the Cape near Mosselbaai, they made landfall on April 23, 1488 at what they called Agualada da Sao Jorge, today Struisbaai. This longest sandy beach in South Africa is only a few miles east off the southernmost point of the African continent named Agulhas in 1502 by sailors who noticed that their compass needles pointed due north here with no variation between the true and magnetic poles. Diaz had not realised that this was indeed an important geographical occasion. He thought the Cape of Good Hope - on the way east he'd missed seeing Table Mountain which had then apparently been thickly covered by clouds - to be the point most southern.
This photo looks east-southeast towards Cape Agulhas, which is only about 10 miles straight across the white dune. My back is towards the remote farm of Aasfontein and I am on the edge of the property of Brandfontein. The rocks are covered by what I think is Xanthoria parietina, common orange lichen.
The Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet here; the water is fiercly cold yet quite energizing. But not enough to want to have been on the Sao Pantaleao!
Lichen look at Brandfontein, South Africa
Imagine thick mists... Two caravels far out at sea, tossed between the icy Antarctic Circumpolar Atlantic and the warm Agulhas currents, each barely 100 tons, one named Sao Pantaleao, under the command of Bartholomeu Diaz. As luck would have it they were not dashed to pieces on these craggy coasts but they missed seeing the shoreline altogether on their outbound trip. Returning from their easternmost anchorage well around the Cape near Mosselbaai, they made landfall on April 23, 1488 at what they called Agualada da Sao Jorge, today Struisbaai. This longest sandy beach in South Africa is only a few miles east off the southernmost point of the African continent named Agulhas in 1502 by sailors who noticed that their compass needles pointed due north here with no variation between the true and magnetic poles. Diaz had not realised that this was indeed an important geographical occasion. He thought the Cape of Good Hope - on the way east he'd missed seeing Table Mountain which had then apparently been thickly covered by clouds - to be the point most southern.
This photo looks east-southeast towards Cape Agulhas, which is only about 10 miles straight across the white dune. My back is towards the remote farm of Aasfontein and I am on the edge of the property of Brandfontein. The rocks are covered by what I think is Xanthoria parietina, common orange lichen.
The Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet here; the water is fiercly cold yet quite energizing. But not enough to want to have been on the Sao Pantaleao!