Why Do your Training in South Africa

Why do your STCW training in South Africa?

I guess the picture above says it all really!

Cape Town, is on the Southern tip of South Africa and is one of the most beautiful locations in the world.

Sailing in the shadow of Table Mountain by day or night is an experience not to be missed.

Table Bay has seen some of the worlds best known yacht races and yachtsman and is a great bay to sail in.

One can set out in a fickle breeze looking for the slightest puff and a few hours later be fighting a 25kt SE on the nose back to your berth. Cape Town is home to the Royal Cape Yacht Club. And one must not miss the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront.

Just 60 nautical miles north of Cape Town is the beautiful Langebaan lagoon.

On the left we have Langebaan Lagoon looking north towards Saldanha Bay. If you can find the book 'The Wind is Free' by Frank Wightman add it to your library, you wont be disappointed. Saldanha Bay and Langebaan Lagoon are great sailing waters and are home to Atlantic Yachting and two yacht clubs, Saldanha Bay Yacht Club and Langebaan Yacht Club.

At the southern tip of the lagoon is Kraal Bay the perfect anchorage for swimming, windsurfing or just relaxing. The lagoon itself has many sandbars making sailing tricky for keel boats but the northern end end beyond the island in the picture has excellent sailing
waters.

Club Mykonos is a great holiday resort as well as a marina.

Midway between Cape Town and Langebaan is one of my favourite spots - Dassen Island with its perfectly sheltered anchorage at House Bay. Dassen is an easy day sail from either Cape Town and if the trip is done between November and March you can be sure to have an exciting sail down wind with the local South Easter.

House Bay makes a perfect spot to overnight before leaving for Langebaan the following morning.

North of Saldhana is Port Owen and St Helena Bay (not to be mistaken for the island). This area is roughly 60nm from Saldanha and it too has great sailing waters. Don't forget that with the current exchange rate South Africa is a great place to do your training. If you want to know anything more about sailing in this area please drop me an email.
There is one last thing that needs to be mentioned. With an exchange rate around 14:1 you cant go wrong spending your £'s or $'s to learn the ropes in South Africa. And as I said earlier the sailing is soooo good.

Please add your comments and experiences sailing in South Africa or let us know if you have trained in or around Cape Town.

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Introduction

Welcome to CrewTraders

Ever had the feeling of 'Hey, Eureka!!
That's exactly what I am looking for!'
Only to find it's 4000 miles away?

Well that is what we had in mind when we developed our map based site.

There you are, you have a great CV and all the skills and qualifications for that great career and you want folk to see it and then contact you. And since this work is definitely of the mobile sort you need to carry it with you so to speak. If you are working from Antibes and move to Fort Lauderdale or the Cook Islands for that matter you can show the 'world', literally , exactly where you are.

Owners, captains, skippers and even crew agents can navigate to anywhere on the map and find suitably qualified crew to fill positions. And the self same folk can add their vacancies on the map too. You, the crew, can see at a glance what jobs are available and where.

As we like to say:
Where crew can find jobs and jobs can find crew.

So how does this all work? Simply and easily in fact.

Once you have registered by clicking 'sign up' - adding your details - clicking 'Click to Register' you can add your job marker.

Simply click 'Add a map marker to CrewTraders'....then

Click one of the 'add a....' links. In this example we will follow 'add a crew job and vacancy'
Now add your marker name. You have to be clever here. Dont just say 'Harry' or 'Jane' or 'Popeye'. Add your job request as well. So use something like 'Samantha - Stewardess' or 'Peter - Captain'. The map markers have tooltips and your 'marker name' will pop up when your (or anyone's) mouse is near your marker your 'name - job' pops up. So captains looking for deckhands for example can simply hover over the marker to see what each entry details.

Next we have a start and end date. Suppose you are doing your STCW'95 and only available at a particular date. Set your start date to the date you will be available. You can choose any date as an end date but you can only set a maximum of 1 year ahead of your start date.

Now the fun part; your map marker coordinates.

Click the underlined link (you can see it in the clip above). A map page will load and all you do is find your location on the map. Either type in your 'town,country' in the search box or drag the map until you find your spot.

Very important! The location you choose is where you are based for work or will be based. Dont use your home address for example.

When you click on the map a pop up opens with coordinates that look like this: 17.978733,9.84375
Copy this into the coordinates box. 'if you are south of the equator there will be a minus sign in the coordinates...dont miss it when you copy.

Now you need to choose your job category. You can pick a primary category; the round check box and any two other square check boxes as sub-categories. Unless you are offering a job dont pick the 'vacancy' marker. This one is reserved for folk who have jobs available.

Next you enter your keywords. These are used in the search box so think carefully about what you add here.

The next two boxes are for a summary of what you are looking for, what you are qualified to do and that sort of thing. Watch your spelling....it's a yacht you want to work on not a yatch. Dont shout.....LIKE THIS ITS RUDE, either.

Next comes your contact info and there is place for your own website or you can put your FaceBook profile URL in here.

The very last box is for your own personal notes; not visible on the map. If you decide you would like to have your own linked web page for your full CV then paste your CV in this box. When we are notified that you have paid the small annual charge we will create your own dedicated webpage linked to your marker.

Right at the bottom you 'click to proceed' and you are done.

Dont go looking for your Map Marker, it wont be the map until we have approved your entry..so dont do your entry all over again. We dont accept job applications for plumbers, dental assistants, hotel porters etc. It's only for jobs on yatchs :-).

That's it folks......next article will be coming soon.
Cheers and please let us know how you find adding a marker and the site in general. Be kind though.....it's the best way to make a better world.

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