Tag: ideas for small business

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What do these people have that others don’t?

Copyright 2016 Chesney Bradshaw

Copyright 2016 Chesney Bradshaw

Lessons from a Kalk Bay fisherman

When I was a schoolboy growing up in Kalk Bay, Cape Town, during the months of August and September the big Cape storms would create great swells with waves crashing against the harbour wall, churning up the water.

In those days Kalk Bay was a real fishing harbour packed with boats. Anything that could float and get a licence to be moored in the harbour would go out catching tons of fish in False Bay.

During the big Cape storms any boat that was unseaworthy would probably sink to the bottom. Sure, there weren’t many them that sank but the heavy seas would put at least one or more down inside the murky depths of the harbour. Continue reading “What do these people have that others don’t?”

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Find your low-cost start-up in your own backyard

sandwich
(Photo credit: roboppy)

With the economy as it is I’ve noticed that the newsstands have ordered more than the usual number of small business opportunity magazines. In some instances they have doubled their orders.

From the cover lines in these magazines, it’s clear that people who want to start a business of their own or who are looking for a ready-made biz-op are keen to find start-ups that are recession proof, allow the owner to work at home, run the business full or part-time and desire businesses that pay off big.

These biz-op  magazines cover ways to make money from pet stores, forex, DVD rental machines, fish and chip outlets, mobile food businesses and renewable energy opportunities.

The articles show people who have lost their jobs and have launched consulting businesses at home, stay-at-home moms who have made it big in on-line auctions and even a business person who is doing great in the sandwich chain business. Continue reading “Find your low-cost start-up in your own backyard”

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When the price of fresh fish stinks smoke them

English: Kalk Bay habour, Cape Peninsula, Sout...
Kalk Bay Harbour, Cape Peninsula, South Africa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After the bad weather the South Easter would drop in the night and we’d go out early in the morning to catch snoek off Buffels Bay near Cape Point. On the first day when the wind had blown itself out in False Bay the fish came on the bite.

Running up to Cape Point from the Millar’s Point slipway before sun rise, arriving at the fishing grounds, I still marvel how my old man had this uncanny sixth sense to put the boat right on top of the fish. He’d grown up fishing the lagoon in East London, fished for big-game tuna and marlin off Mozambique in the early 1960s and later pioneered ski boat fishing in False Bay, bagging record giant bluefin tuna in the bay off his small open boat with two 40 horse-power Johnson outboards.

We’d throw our bait lines out and work our leads, pulling in a silvery piece of metal as long and thick as a medium-sized carrot with a short red rubber skirt and 10/0 Mustard hook. We’d pull the lure with a motion that resembled a small fish the size of a pilchard struggling away from a bigger fish … the size of a snoek.

As we sat there on my old man’s ski boat with the sun coming up over the Cape Hangklip mountains, nothing would happen for a while. But we would keep on trying until at last one of us would go “vas” (strike) with a fish. This would signal that his “mombak” (unlucky curse) had been taken off.

Another fisherman on the boat would hook a snoek and soon we’d all be pulling in fish like crazy, breaking their necks, holding them tight under our arms or between our legs, pulling their jaws forward until we heard their necks crack. They were too frisky alive and their big teeth would cut severely leaving your flesh festering for days. Continue reading “When the price of fresh fish stinks smoke them”