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You can contact us at the COP17 in Durban on our Sat phone 00870 76 25 68 933 or Mobile phone 1: +27 (0)71 3484 971 or Mobile phone 2: +27 (0)73 8818 760.

Pre COP 17 awareness walk Richards Bay (by Dario Eberhard)
Together with the office of KZE Agriculture, Environmental Affairs and Rural Development, The EKZN Wildlife, the Wild lands trust and Utungulu, TOPtoTOP organized an awareness walk on the 18th November 2011 to start the 10 days count down towards the COP 17 climate conference in Durban.
At 10 o’clock AM on the 18th November 2011 around 200 people showed up with t-shirts, posters, flyers, vuvuzzelas and whistles for this walk. The African people expressed themselves with a lot of noise and nice African songs about protecting the environment. After half an hour walking we reached the uMhlathuze Civic Center were the mayors of Richards Bay and the uThungulu district plant two trees. After this symbolic act the mayor and Dario gave a speech about how important protecting the environment is. At the end everyone was very happy having a nice free meal and some water somewhere in the shadow.

Honorary Consul Hanspeter Graber (left) dining on Pachamama

Warm welcome in Durban
On the 19th we used a short good weather window and left Richards Bay and our lovely neighbor Dean behind and set sails down to Durban. If you like surfing and adventures holidays go and check Dean’s website. We arrived safely in Durban on the morning of the 20th November.
We managed to bring down our mainsail just some hours before the weather changed to 45 knots SW. This weather conditions are here well known and can produce up to 20 meter high freak waves. Thanks to Clyde (phone 08 257 234 08) we are looking forward to a fully repaired mainsail to continue towards Cape Town after the COP17.
In the evening Alison, our TOPtoTOP coordinator in Durban with her 2 kids joined us and later also Swiss Honorary Consul Hanspeter Graber. The next day Sharvin delivered us a new navigation laptop from Morne from SGS in Johannesburg. – Even the weather is bad, we had a very warm welcome!