West Coast Icons

These little boats, donkey's years old, rest at the entrance of Strandlopertjie in Langebaan. This is a very popular lunch venue where guests sit on large round boulders or underneath a shelter. They help themselves to lots of seafood, homebaked bread, homemade preserves ..... Informal to the extreme.

We are West Coast people and boats have iconic status. Throughout my West Coast Chronicles I will show many different types of boats. These two are probably the oldest I have seen, with not a speck of paint left on them. I will also paint the humble brightly painted fishing boats at Paternoster, the cheeky motorised fishing vessels of Yzerfontein, the peaceful sailing boats at Langebaan and the glamourous yachts alongside them. We will look at the cute tugboats of Saldanha which look like something out of Noddy. At Laaiplek we will find large fishing trawlers and then I will paint the diamond barges at Lambert's Bay. Then there may always be surprises waiting on the beach, like a boat displaced by a storm.... I hope there will be many boats I can paint along the coast!