Page 242 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - South Africa

240  THE WESTERN AND SOUTHERN C APE

1 Bartolomeu Dias
Museum Complex
(Mossel Bay)

The Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex,
established in 1988, celebrates the 500th
anniversary of Dias’s historic landfall. A full-
sized replica of his ship was built in Portugal in
1987 and set sail for Mossel Bay, arriving on . The Caravel
The intrepid Spanish
3 February 1988. Here, the 130-ton vessel and Portuguese seafarers
was lifted from the water and lowered of the 15th and 16th
into the specially altered museum centuries sailed into the
with its high, angled roof, clerestory unknown in small two-
win dows and sunken floor for the keel. or three-masted
ships like this.

Letter Box
Mail posted in this unusu al post
box in the museum complex is
marked with a special postmark.

Post Office
Tree
The 16th-century
seafarers left
messages for each
other in a shoe
suspended from a
milkwood tree, like
this one next to the
museum building.

KEY
1 Barrels filled with fresh water
were stored in the hold.
2 Rudder
3 Portuguese flag
4 Lateen sails are characteristic
of Mediterranean ships.
5 The pennant flown at the top of
the main mast bore the Portu guese
royal coat of arms (the House of
Braganza).
6 The red cross of the Order of
Christ was emblazoned on the sails
of Portu guese sailing vessels. Crew Cabin
7 Pulleys and ropes enabled Cramped confines
sailors to furl and unfurl the sails in the crew’s
at great speed. quarters left little
room for privacy
8 Anchor on sea voyages
9 Rope ladder that often lasted
many months.
For hotels and restaurants in this region see pp387–8 and pp404–5

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