Cape Town Cruise Terminal gainfully employed this morning processing passengers disembarking cruise ship Vasco Da Gama – a grand tour, no doubt, leaving from Luderitz, Namibia on the eve of Halloween, piloted into Cape Town by a 5.45am sunrise to be berthed at 6.06am (“two full nights” later).
The logistics of arranging for a boat weighing close to 60,000t – without the approx. 2,000 humans and all their shit on board – to glide into Cape Town at dawn is some kind of event management.
As is getting any vessel safely to a place at an appointed time, but in Cape Town (at least) boxships move in – with the expertise of pilots/tugs as necessary – and then they sit. Until someone remembers to start the next phase in the implementation plan of getting stuff off a boat, onto a truck, and into a supermarket (or whatever).
Cruise ships carry less patient cargo, so must be gutted sooner. By the time I arrived at Maker’s (8.30am-ish), the parking lot was full of tour buses, and pedestrian crossings clacking with Zimmer frames heading for the places to buy things. Not the prettiest sight, but hopefully a good day for Moses and others trying to make a living in a space that’s just too close to its target market (as the manager of a “fancy” sushi restaurant which re-located to the Cruise Terminal even before the cruise ships started coming back told us, “No one wants to have lunch looking at the boat they just got off”).
We thought to remind him of the whole “location” mantra, but that would have been mean.
Still, the boat has an interesting history (not altogether “above board”), per its Wikipedia page:
Plus, ships have godmothers!
