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| << May09, 2005 - Turtle Essays Edition no 132 dated 9th May 2005 |
May23, 2005 - Turtle Essays edition no 134 dated 23.5.2005 >> |
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Turtle Essays Edition No 133 dated 16th May 2005 ** Turn your dog into the best behaved pooch on the park with Secrets of a Professional Dog Trainer Guide Book Get your copy here Http://www.turtlesa.com/dt.html ** In this edition: Editor's Blurb Crayfish Are South Africans becoming prisoners in their own homes? A Tragic Death ** Editor's Blurb Hi there folks! Welcome to all my new and regular readers. Last week I told you that I had had a burglary. This week after doing some investigating I tracked down some of my missing items to a local dealer who buys and sells second hand goods. On Monday I will visit her with the police and my insurance assessor to lay claim to my goods as well as to find out from whom she purchased them. Second hand dealers are obliged to keep records of names and addresses of people from whom they but things. With a bit of luck we will catch the culprit. Included in this ezine is an article about how South Africans are becoming prisoners in their own homes due to the petty and violent crimes that occur. Next week hopefully I will be off my hobby horse when this saga will hopefully end. See you all then. Geoff Fairman. ** Crayfish Cape Town and the West coast of the Cape Province are well known for their crayfish industry. Crayfish are found on the rocky seabeds and kelp beds along our coastline. Some live close inshore in cracks in rocks and in old jetties such as the one at Yzerfontein. The West coast crayfish has an interesting life-cycle and it takes from 7 to 10 years for a male crayfish to attain a catchable size of 65mm. Female crayfish may take up to 20 years to reach this size. In days gone by the resource was plentiful but these days due to commercial exploitation it has become relatively scarce. There are reports that back in the times of Van Riebeeck that Hout Bay took on a red tinge because its bottom was carpeted with crayfish. If that is to be believed it is certainly not the case today. In the 1800's crayfish were regarded as pests and when caught in the fishermen's nets they would simply toss them overboard again. Dead crayfish often washed up on the shores and wagon loads of them were collected and sold to farmers as fertiliser. Back in the 1960's I can remember my late father selling a hundred crayfish for R10.00 to a wholesaler. That same catch would be worth in excess of R5000.00 today if prices in the local restaurants are anything to go by. There are a number of ways to catch crayfish. The most popular for the recreational fisherman is to dive for them. Swimming around in the kelp beds and looking under submerged rocks to see a feeler sticking out is the way it is done. When spotted the diver must pin the crayfish from behind around its carapace to prevent himself from being injured by the sharp spines of the crayfish or getting his fingers caught under the flapping tail. A crayfish walks forwards when on the seabed but when alarmed swims backward at speed by flapping its tail. An escaping cayfish is impossible to catch by hand. Other methods and the one I used when a youngster was to have long pole with a two or three metres of nylon attached to it. At the end would be a piece of wire attached to the nylon with a number of limpets which had been chopped off the rocks threaded onto it and weighted with a sinker. You would then lower the limpets into a hole in the kelp standing on a rock as close as you could get to the kelp beds. Every now and again you lifted the limpets to see if a crayfish had taken the bait. If there was a crayfish on the end of the line you would feel its weight and sometimes even its tug as it wrestled to get a limpet off your line. The trick to catch it was to lift the pole slowly bringing the crayfish to the surface so that it would not notice what was happening and then to slide your scoop net with its long handle under the crayfish and drop it into the net. Once in the net you simply lifted the net out of the water and you had your crayfish. An old aunt of mine who was a real expert used a similar method except that she did away with the long pole. A longer piece of line was used and thrown out deeper into the kelp beds. When she felt a crayfish on her line she would wait for an incoming swell and pull the crayfish in a couple of metres with the swell. After two or three swells the crayfish was at her feet still clinging to the bait and she would simply lift the bait and catch it and the crayfish in her short handled scoop net. These days the knack of catching crayfish has been lost and most people use ringnets with fish heads as bait to catch them. The big problem with this method is that the nets often get stuck under rocks and become difficult to retrieve. Unfortunately due to the big commercial demand for crayfish the recreational fisherman has had his fun severely restricted. Commercial fishermen get quotas and land thousands of seven to ten year old crayfish daily. The recreational fishermen is allowed a catch of four crayfish per day during a season of about four months. During the first two months he is allowed to catch crayfish daily and after the initial two months only on weekends and public holidays till the season ends and then only if he is in possession of a crayfish licence. It's a crying shame. What once used to be a staple meal for fishing communities along the west coast has now been taken from them as they are also classed as recreational fishermen unless thay have been granted a small quota. The bulk of the crayfish catch is granted to fishing companies who export most of it to the USA and Japan. Restaurants purchase what is not exported at what appears to be export prices. Due to the above prices in restaurants are exhorbitant and only people with large wallets or those with foreign currency in their pockets can afford to pay for them. As for the rest of us the taste of crayfish is a long forgotten memory. ** Are South Africans becoming prisoners in their own homes? Drive along the streets of any residential suburb of Cape Town and you are sure to find many houses hidden away behind steel fences. Those who don't have fences have high walls and those who don't have either have burglar guards on every window and door. It is sad that people have to lock themselves away behind steel bars to feel safe. A few short years ago no house had burglar guards and one could go out and even leave the front door open without fear of being burgled. Things have changed drastically and our streets are awash with dishonest people. Thieving has become big business for some people. Vagrants who have nothing better to do are paid by potential burglars to walk the streets and indentify houses where people are not at home in the day. Recently a man was caught in our area with a notebook where the movements of houseowners in a number of streets were recorded. Its scary stuff as one never knows when someone is watching your house and your movements. Even worse is when your house has been burgled. Who knows what the burglar did while in your house and what message has been sent out to fellow criminals as to the contents of your home. The homeowner never knows whether the burglars will be be back to fetch what they missed the first time. I cannot understand why millions of honest people have to put up with this nonsense. It's time to get together to get our freedom back. These days with the rights of individuals entrenched in the constitution it appears that victims of crimes have no rights whereas the perpetrators have plenty. Over the last few years criminals even got one up the police when police had to wait to be shot at before they could use their firearms against escaping criminals. A number of policemen who used their firearms in the course of their duties were arrested and charged with murder. One such case resulted in the policeman committing suicide. One area in the Cape Peninsula was so crime riddled that police had to hire security guards to protect them in their police station. Have you ever heard of something like that before? Police are there to protect the community and not be protected by the community. Of course with police having their hands tied by red tape with regard to the use of firearms criminals had a field day. Eventually common sense prevailed and police were allowed to use their firearms in certain instances. It appears that law and order is not the top priority of the authorities. Murders, rapes and other serious crimes are seldom punished by the law. Statistics show that only 6% of serious crimes are ever solved and the perpetrators brought to book. It is common place for police dockets to go missing in serious cases and for the arrested persons to be released and get off scot free due to lack of evidence. Every case has a counter case and if that does not work out the race card is often used to undermine the complainant or victim. With all the fun and games on the streets its not all bad news. South Africa is still safe for people to live in and visit. If one takes the necessary precautions and keeps away from places that appear to be dangerous then you can survive here. Our biggest problem is that the prisons are full and to be able to catch and keep the dangerous criminals the petty criminals have to be released to make space. Unfortunately while the petty criminal has been behind bars in the universities of crime they have been trained to become dangerous criminals. When they are released from the prisons they are in most cases not rehabilitated and go straight back out and commit more crime. With this problem I cannot foresee South Africans getting out of their prison homes until the authorities take some drastic action. ** A Tragic Death Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Mr. Common Sense. Mr. Sense had been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, and that life isn't always fair. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge). His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well intentioned--but overbearing--regulations were set in place: Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened Mr. Sense's condition. Mr. Sense declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student, but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Finally, Common Sense lost the will to live as churches became businesses, and criminals were treated better than their victims. Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, she spilled a bit in her lap, and was awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust -- his wife, Discretion -- his daughter, Responsibility -- and his son, Reason. He is survived by two stepbrothers: My Rights and Ima Whiner. Not many attended his funeral, because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on; if not, join the majority and do nothing. With thanks to: http://elfexpressionsezine.com ** Turtle Travels new blog is online now. http://turtleessays.blogspot.com There are some interesting new articles being posted today. Be sure not to miss them. * Like to have your own rose garden. Find out how to do it from an expert. Here is his link: http://hop.clickbank.net/?brerrabbit/mcplants ** For my personal details, contact address, and warnings regarding products advertised in this ezine please read the disclaimers which can be found at: http://www.turtlesa.com/Disclaimer.html Thanks for reading this ezine. Geoff Fairman ** |
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| << May09, 2005 - Turtle Essays Edition no 132 dated 9th May 2005 |
May23, 2005 - Turtle Essays edition no 134 dated 23.5.2005 >> |
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