All posts by Marco Davids

Gallery in post below.

Turning a set of paper plans into an actual boat takes the kind of patience most people just don’t have. Long before you ever see a finished mould, everything hinges on the "plug"—the …

In the early 1980s, my father—a lifelong seafarer and dedicated merchant navy officer—walked into a museum in Zeebrugge, Belgium, and encountered a masterpiece: a detailed model of the legendary four-masted barque S.V. L’Avenir. Captivated by her sweeping …

This photograph was taken by Allan C. Green (1878–1954), an Australian maritime photographer known for his extensive documentation of ships and sailing vessels. The original physical glass negative is held in the public domain collection of the State Library of …

Third time is, as the saying goes, the charm. As we begin packing our work gear and mapping out our logistics for an upcoming working getaway in December at Rusticana in Brandvlei, there is an unmistakable mix …

If you know anything about South Africa’s climate, you probably already know that the Northern Cape is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to sunshine. It’s big, it’s dry, and it gets drenched in sunlight practically every …

After weeks of sitting, soul-searching, and technically trying to fathom how we are going to restore this old lady and bring her back to life, we’ve come to a crossroads. It has not been easy, to say …

The transition from the shadow of Table Mountain to the sun-drenched plains of the Northern Cape is not merely a change in geography; it is a shift in the very soul of a traveller. For some, a …

There is a specific kind of silence that settles over the Karoo, a stillness that carries both the weight of history and the promise of what is yet to come. For over a year, that silence was …

There are moments in a long-term restoration project where the house itself seems to resist progress, and then there are moments where the world at large simply closes the road. As April 1st approached, we desperately wished …