For World Maritime Day, a ship docked at night in the Port of Cape Town, South Africa

© Zero Creatives/Science Photo Librar

Connecting to the sea. High seas commerce

On South Africa’s western coast, the Port of Cape Town moves thousands of ships and millions of tons of cargo into and out of Cape Town every year. Unless you work in shipping, most of us don’t think about how much it affects our daily lives. A lot of the consumer goods you buy travelled across an ocean on a massive container ship. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) estimates that 80 per cent of global trade relies on ships. The IMO created World Maritime Day to call attention to the hard work they do finding the most efficient and safest shipping routes around the globe, making their work, and our lives, easier.