A Trip to Robben Island

The Guesthouse is still in good repair

The old chapel on the Island

A general state of dilapidation and dereliction

(This is an excerpt from a much longer story, but deserves to be published here.)

Less than one week later found us on another trip which had taken some organisation and to which we all looked forward considerably. We hurtled down the highway towards Cape Town, where we parked the car at The Waterfront and sat in the shade of one of the large hotels and had a late breakfast. I went off and collected the tickets for the boat, which I had reserved some time earlier, and shortly after twelve midday found us waiting eagerly in a large room which was somewhat redolent of the arrivals hall of the international airport.

Clumps of tourists of all colours and nationalities milled around aimlessly looking at a barrage of photographs of political prisoners and their families, most of whom were now members of parliament and, to boot amazingly rich, as they stared back from the walls, defiant of an old order which had long-since passed away. Many of the names were utterly unfamiliar to the onlookers, but that of Nelson Mandela stood out; everyone knew who he was, and most of the sightseers knew his history.

Soon after twelve-thirty a whistle blew and a queue formed at the door to the jetty. One by one we handed over our tickets and walked slowly out into the sunshine and up the gangplank. For some reason, the large tri-maran which was supposed to be in service on this trip, had failed to materialise, and so we were herded onto a rather lovely old boat with lots of wood and brass, but which had to have been built sometime in the 1940s. Unlike the tri-maran, though, it was fairly small.

Ian and Heather took their seats inside the cabin and looked, somewhat fearfully, out at the sunshine on the afterdeck. Ron had climbed up on top of the cabin where she had found a seat quite easily, and I stood on the stern, camera in hand, eagerly waiting for the boat to pull away from the quay. We chugged easily out across the harbour over sluggish waters and watched with amusement how the seals basked in whatever sunshine they could find. Some were lying on the tyres surrounding the quays, some on rocks, and some could be seen proudly slipping beneath the tranquil surface of the green water. We ran smoothly through the harbour mouth and were soon riding long, gentle swells as we headed out to sea. The chatter ebbed and flowed over the sound of the diesel engines and there was a mood of eager anticipation amongst most of the passengers.

However, the swells, which at first had been long and lazy, gradually became larger and more urgent and the boat began to crest each one with a labouring sound of engines and then to corkscrew interestingly into the trough which followed. Those of us who had decided to stand in the stern soon had to hold on to whatever solid fixtures we could find in order to keep our footing and maintain our balance. This was all rather fun as far as I was concerned because I had never suffered from sea-sickness, but for some of the passengers it must have been a bit of an ordeal. However, it ceased to be quite so funny when one or two large swells actually washed over the stern, soaking our feet and legs right up to the knees. The boat was now pitching around to such an extent that it would have been impossible to move to a drier spot, so we had no choice but to stand and grin rather sheepishly as our feet were washed again and again with the boiling green waters of the Atlantic.

Just short of one hour later, we arrived, somewhat wetter, certainly wiser, in the small harbour of Robben Island, where we disembarked and were herded without further delay into a waiting bus. I had made this trip in 1994 when the island was first opened to the public and so felt I knew what to expect. It had been a pristinely clean and brilliantly white place, the chalk of its land reflecting the brightness of the day, its small houses all neatly painted, its gardens tended, and its ancient cars, most of which had never returned to the mainland, rotting away in silence by the side of the road. It was with some dismay, then, that I noticed that the same bus which we had used in 1994 and which had been in pristine condition, was still in use, if somewhat scuffed and elderly by now. Ron and I took our seats near the back.

The tour guide clambered aboard and the engine started. The guide turned out to be a rather squat black lady in a sort of uniform who barked at us through a microphone in a gabble of English that even the English would have found hard to follow. She seemed blissfully unaware that many of the tourists on board could only manage the most simple phrases in that language, and since there was no interpreter, she soon lost the attention of many people on the bus. Whereas we had had, in 1994, one of the prison guards who regaled us with some interesting stories about the island and his charges, she was obviously an employee of the company which now ran the island as a museum, and it soon became apparent that she was highly politicised. Even worse, she seemed to lack even the smallest vestiges of a sense of humour. For ten minutes, while the engine ticked over and we looked around the empty harbour area, she rattled away about Robert Sobukhwe and I was quite sure that most people on the bus had never heard of him.

‘Who was Sobukhwe?’ Ron asked me, at sea, like the rest of the bus.

I had to think hard before I gave her an answer.

‘I think he was head of the Pan Africanist Congress, but I’m not sure.’

‘What about Nelson Mandela?’ she asked.

But there was little or no mention of this icon; indeed for our learned tour guide, he seemed never to have existed. It seemed in some ways to be redolent of the re-naming of Johannesburg International Airport: instead of naming it after someone or something which would have meaning for the foreigner, the government had decided to call it O.R.Tambo – again a name which had little meaning for most people.

The bus lurched forward and drove slowly through the village, stopping for us to take photos of the old leper colony and the two churches and grumbling past the local village street which was now very dilapidated, its houses badly in need of paint, washing waving from lines, and deer nuzzling around the dry grasses of its verges. The only building so far which was in good condition was the guesthouse, which, unlike 1994, was now off-bounds to us as it was used by members of the government. We stopped for a few minutes to admire a large hole in the quarry in which Mandela and so many others had spent so much of their time, but once again, his name was scarcely mentioned by our guide, who rattled away, oblivious of the fact that few of us understood a word she said, about several people whose existence even I had forgotten. She seemed to be totally out of touch with the mood of her audience and utterly unaware of what interested them. The significance of the quarry was lost to most of the people on the bus. One tended to be reminded of the kind of propaganda to which the white population had been exposed for so many years under Nationalist rule.

About thirty minutes into what increasingly began to look like a boring tour, we pulled up in the middle of what was clearly a rubbish dump which boasted, however, two clearly marked toilets. We were told we would stop here for five minutes so that those of us who wanted could use these, and the rest could take photographs of the fine view of Table Mountain. There was indeed a good view but the surroundings were most unappetising; there was no café, no souvenir shop, nowhere for us to spend our Rands, only a derelict and rusty building on the edge of the water, and two toilets.

‘Talk about ‘things ain’t what they used to be’, I said to Ron as we looked around the rubbish dump.

We were once more herded onto the bus and driven fairly fast back towards the jail. In 1994 the tour had lasted some three hours and had taken in the gun emplacements which had been built for the second World War, and had also included a complete trip round the island. We had seen buck and many many penguins, but these were no longer on the itinerary. In those days, however, we had not been able to see inside the prison, because this was still in use.

The bus ground to a halt outside the prison buildings and we were once more herded out onto the hot tarmac. A long line formed and we filed past the cell used by Nelson Mandela for so many years of his imprisonment. What should have been the highpoint of the tour for so many people was no more than a tiny room with a bed, a desk, and a barred window.

‘Ja, well, no, fine,’ I found myself saying, almost under my breath.

‘What did you say?’ Ron asked, looking inquiringly at me.

‘Doesn’t matter.’

We were herded into a long, hot and rather foetid room where someone regaled us of the hardships of being a political prisoner on the island. Since he himself had been imprisoned there for some time, his words had a meaning and a poignance which was not lost on his audience. He also spoke a much clearer and better English and so was easier to follow. For the first time the audience seemed to be taking an interest in what he had to say. However, the heat was oppressive, the lecture was very long, and the room was noticeably devoid of any seating, so many of the group began to look somewhat tired and strained. It was with some relief, therefore, that we were herded once more into the sunlight and told we had less than five minutes in which to visit the seals which nested next to the harbour. To see these in the time allotted was quite impossible, so we shambled along on our way to the waiting ferry.

I had been watching with some alarm, as we made our sluggish way around the island, how the tablecloth on Table Mountain had been growing steadily during the day; I now saw that it looked decidedly ugly, and that meant only one thing: the sea was going to be very rough. Obviously the authorities had taken note of this and instead of our trusty old boat waiting for us, the old Susan Kruger, the ferry that used to make the trip ever day when the island was still a prison, had been pressed into service once more. The Susan Kruger was a fair size – more the size of a small cross-channel ferry in Europe – and she was waiting for us by the quayside. As we filed aboard we were warned not to sit up on deck as we were likely to get wet; we were also asked to remain in our seats once the boat left the harbour and not to leave them until we were safe and sound inside Cape Town harbour again.

Ian and Heather, perhaps afraid of sea-sickness, perhaps deaf, had chosen to sit outside on the upper deck and so we saw nothing of them until we entered the harbour almost an hour later. We left the relative calmness of Robben Island and headed out for the open sea. Ron and I were sitting opposite each other at a table next to one of the large portholes; I think she was somewhat afraid of sea-sickness herself, but even I was not really prepared for the trip that awaited us. As we headed into open water great green waves with white crests battered the superstructure of the boat from all sides; every so often one of them found its way down the steps to wash around our feet. It was something like being inside a washing-machine with the cycle set on ‘high’ – the only thing missing being the soap, but one could imagine even this as the waves foamed past our window, often blotting out the view entirely. The boat heaved and shuddered its way from crest to crest, sometimes tossing badly in the troughs, and conversation was almost impossible as it was totally drowned out by the sound of the diesel engines pounding away at the sea for all they were worth. People on the other side of the lounge seemed to rise and fall in an alarming way, and every so often the bottom seemed to drop out of our world as we crested one wave and crashed into another. This had become a ride worthy of the best funfair but the only thing was that, unlike a funfair which you know is only going to last a few moments, this was good for almost an hour. It was no surprise, therefore, to see stewards urgently running around with paper bags in their hands, which they gave to several of the passengers, who were beginning to look decidedly the worse for wear.

Nothing could have prepared either of us, however, for the sight of Ian and Heather when they appeared on the pier in Cape Town harbour. They were both absolutely wringing wet from head to toe and they both looked frozen. I began to laugh at the sorry sight.

‘What on earth persuaded you to sit outside?’ I asked as we walked slowly up the quay.

‘Nobody told us it would be that bad’, Ian replied, wringing out as much of his clothing as he could decently manage.

‘We sat out there because we felt that we were less likely to feel ill’ Heather remarked, lamely, taking off her shoes and shaking the water out of them.

Ron, although rather shaken, was still quite dry.

‘That was quite an experience,’ she said, somewhat ambiguously.

‘You mean the trip or the boat?’ I asked.

‘The boat mainly. I always wondered what it would feel like to be inside a washing machine, so now I know,’ she laughed.

We stopped off at one of the many restaurants on the Waterfront to have a restorative drink. Ian and Heather dripped quietly over the white plastic seat and onto the floor and the talk was largely made up of the sort of hysteria that people evince when they have been through a rather frightening ordeal and have survived. We all laughed like drains.

(Robben Island, once pristine and glowing, is now in a rather sad state of dereliction and dilapidation. Only two buildings remain in good repair: the guesthouse and the gaol; the rest is really rather sad and the area to which we were taken to take photos of the mainland was actually quite appalling.)