!!!Cape of Good Hope

by Dmitry Moiseenko,
member of the [AirPano Team|Geography/About/Consortium/AirPano,_Team] that is a member of the [global-geography Consortium|Geography/About/Consortium]. \\

1 October 2011

with kind permission of [AirPano|http://www.AirPano.com]

The discovery of Cape of Good Hope — a geographic location with one of
the most romantic names in the world — is due to Portuguese navigator
Bartolomeu Dias. At the end of the 15th century Portugal was literally
obsessed with discovering the seaway to India sending one expedition
after another. In 1487 this task was entrusted to Dias.

His voyage, as well as his predecessors', was filled with adventures,
shooting incidents with local tribes, and threats of mutiny from his
crew. Dias ended up sailing only around Africa thinking that if one
continues to sail forward, he would arrive to India sooner or later.
After coming to this logical conclusion he turned around, and on his way
home in May of 1488 he landed at what he thought was the southernmost
point of Africa.

The debarkation was not easy — the storm almost wrecked their ship on
the cliffs. As a result, Dias named this place "Cape of Storms" and
returned to Portugal with peace of mind. But the King Juan the Second
thought that the name was too shortsighted: who would want to discover
India through such obstacles? So he changed the name to the Cape of Good
Hope envisioning that the sea route to India would be well travelled one
day. The expedition, led by famous Vasco da Gama, became a success. By
the way, he owes his fame to this voyage as it made him the first
European who sailed to India. On July 8th, year 1497 the expedition made
a grand exit out of the Port of Lisbon and by November of the same year
sailed around the Cape of Storms, or to be precise, the Cape of Good
Hope. Needless to say that the storms continuing for days and days made
it very difficult and caused a damage beyond repair to one of the
vessels...

However, the heroic deeds of the explorers were not in vain, as now
humanity possesses not only the sea route from Europe to India but also
an outstanding tourist "attraction". Who wouldn't want to boast about
standing on the most southern point of the African continent gazing at
the vastness of the ocean and knowing that the only closest land is
Antarctica?

Centuries later, with the development of cartography, it became clear
that "the southernmost point in the continent of Africa" was not the
Cape of Good Hope but the Cape Agulhas located 155 km southeast.
However, by that time, tourists already made their way to the "imposter"
discovered by Bartolomeu Dias so the government decided to simply change
the plate to read "The Most South-Western Point of The African
Continent" :)

Even this change didn't go without a trick! After arriving to Cape of
Good Hope by bus tourists first ride the cable cars, then take a long
walk to a high, beautiful, long stretching outbound cape with a
panoramic view of the mirror-like ocean, where they take classic photos
in "Me and The Most South-Western Point of Africa" style. However this
cape, named Cape Point, is not really the most southwestern one.

The real most southwestern point of the African continent is actually
situated several kilometers away — it's an unremarkable place by the
water, with a small parking lot nearby and an official plate that reads
"The Most South-Western Point of The African Continent" (see photo
below). This location is hardly known and is visited by less than 10% of
all tourists that come to the Cape of Good Hope :)

[{Image src='01_Cape of Good Hope - AirPano.ru.jpg' caption='Cape of Good Hope - AirPano.ru' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='675'}]

Visitor of our website has pointed that the official sign says wrong
latitude (23 degrees instead of 33). Photo above with wrong sign was
taken in 2003. We found photo in the web of this sign of 2006, there you
can see that wrong coordinates have already been fixed.

Correct coordinates on the sign

\\ \\
[3 Panoramas of Cape of Good Hope|Geography/Africa/South_Africa/Pictures/Panoramas_of_Cape_of_Good_Hope]










[{SET customtitle='Cape of Good Hope (AP)'}] 

[{Metadata Suchbegriff=' ' Kontrolle='Nein'}]