Seeing through the clouds...

This is the dockyard in Simon's Town, setting for The Girl from Simon's Bay, on a foggy morning. Appearing through the mist are the SA Navy's state-of-the-art corvettes, and in the background the SAS Protea, a hydrographic survey vessel, some thirty five years older than her sleeker neighbours. I used this photo a while ago to write about the eerie fog that often sweeps in from False Bay but I failed to look closely enough... 

How many corvettes you can see?
There is one on the foreground, moored on the far side of the yacht marina. But take a look at the seemingly four-turreted vessel beyond... it turns out that it consists of two corvettes, one moored inside the dockyard and one against the outer wall. This simple oversight got me thinking about objects and events that are not quite as they first appear... and may obscure what lies beyond.

Take fire, for example, which I wrote about in my previous blog. The damage to the University of Cape Town's buildings and historic collections was tragic. But fire plays a part in the regeneration of the famous indigenous fynbos vegetation of the Cape, like proteas. Flames break down seed pods, smoke encourages germination, and the arrival of seasonal rains starts the circle of life afresh. 

They say it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, so perhaps we should look further than the events that face us every day and which play out so vividly on the news. If we can see through mist, fire, flood - and pandemic - perhaps we can tackle the bigger challenges that await. And avert tragedies that destroy rather than regenerate.