Home for a month

We arrived in a calm at 1.30 this morning. We woke late to brilliant sunshine, green mountains all around and a harbour full of playful seals.

We plan to stop here until New Year with some time for working on board and plenty of sightseeing.

Cape Town here we come

Tonight we hope to be in Hout Bay on the outskirts of Cape Town. This will be our base for the next month. Just now it is calm, hot and sunny and we are passing Cape Agulhas, the true southern tip of Africa. This evening we should pass the Cape of Good Hope.

Mosselbaai

We are about to arrive after a pleasant 2 day trip. The weather has changed from Durban, no more rain and thunderstorms, but we still need to watch out for the wind.

Lot's of birds at sea, mainly shearwaters and gannets but the occasional albatross as well.

Good sailing

We have a spell of fair winds and are making good progress on a broad reach towards Mossel Bay. Hopefully after a couple of days rest we can continue towards Hout Bay (Cape Town).

East London

We have left Durban after nearly 3 weeks. It is a good city to visit and treated us well. We had a wonderful safari at iMfolozi 3 hours to the north.

Our sail here was hurried, in order to try and make the most of fair winds which can be as little as 24 hours. It was rough and uncomfortable but we arrived without any probelms.

Next stop will probably be Port Elizabeth or Mosselbai.

Almost as soon as we arrived in Durban we hired a car and set off to see the wild animals at Imfolozi/Hluhluwe Park and at the wetlands at Santa Lucia.  Most of the photos need no caption but I have added notes on some.

 This is the Impala, they seemed to be very common.

A Greater Kudu

These parks are famous for bringing the White Rhino back from the border of extinction.

A sea eagle

Weaver bird in the wetlands.

The weavers nest

A spotted hyena, we were lucky to see this, it made getting up before 5am worthwhile

We saw the lion quite close by, it was up a tree, which is very unusual.  The camera shutter stuck so you just have to believe us!  Then it spent the rest of the day with its pack under the tree in the distance.  You can just see the back of its head at the bottom of the trunk.