Wind Gust Apologises — Continues Anyway
A wind gust that struck the Gordon’s Bay promenade at approximately 11h20 on Saturday morning causing the displacement of a family’s beach umbrella, the horizontal migration of a child’s hat into the sea, the collapse of a braai stand outside a takeaway establishment and the very undignified exit of a paper plate from a pensioner’s hands did, according to witnesses, appear to pause briefly in the immediate aftermath — a two to three second reduction in intensity that several people described as “it seeming like it knew what it had done” — before resuming at full and unrepentant strength for a further two hours.
“It definitely slowed down for a moment,” a woman near the old harbour confirmed. “I looked up. The trees settled. I thought: that’s it, it’s passing. And then it came back harder.”
The umbrella was not recovered. It was last seen moving with purpose in the direction of the naval base, which it did not have clearance to enter. The child’s hat was retrieved from the water by a teenage boy who happened to be in the sea at the time and who was thanked but has since been overtaken by events. The braai stand was righted and has sustained damage described by its owner as “cosmetic but also structural.”
The wind continues. It always continues. This is understood by all parties and changes no one’s plans, which are made with the wind as a given rather than a variable. You simply hold on to things or you don’t bring them.