Day 58, Year 6 Adorable African Penguins
Date: Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Weather: Same Old, Same Old-Sunny, Beautiful, WINDY PM
Location: Simon’s Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Today was penguin day. We had arranged to meet Pieter and Carla of Odulphus for an early walk to nearby Boulder Beach. It was bright and sunny and for the morning hours there was NO wind, so it was a beautiful walk along the beach. A South African cruiser told us just how to find the penguins, so we followed his advice and within twenty minutes of leaving the boat we were watching adorable African penguins. The walk we were on is part of Table Mountain National Park and they have installed a wooden walkway for people to walk on and a low fence to keep the penguins from venturing into the local neighborhoods. Some penguins were courting, some were mating, some were preening, and a few were sitting on eggs. Originally these little creatures were called Jackass penguins because they make a sound like braying donkeys and we got to hear plenty of braying. They live in the tangle of bush above a long beach strewn with huge boulders. The Park has put in big plastic containers so the penguins can get in out of the weather, but no one was at home in the numbered containers today. The penguins were just nesting under the brush enjoying the rays of sunshine that filtered through the dense growth. The little groupings of containers, each with a street address, looked like little penguin suburbs. We walked past the Park visitor center and eventually came to the entrance to Boulder Beach. It is a Park pay point and we were so happy to find out that our Wild Card paid for our entrance. Pieter and Carla had to pay 40 R each (~$5 US each) to enter and we walked down to the beach which was crowded with families with young children, but only one penguin. We walked through and started climbing over and under the boulders along the beach. We finally reached a place with almost no people and lots of African penguins. They were swimming in the water, walking in lines with one behind another, and just hanging out together. They would let us get very close and when they started to move away, I made a clicking sound that seemed to get their attention and halt their movement. We have seen Galapagos penguins in the wild and Yellow-eyed and Little Blue penguins in New Zealand, and today’s experience just added to our penguin repertoire. Pieter and Carla have never seen penguins in their natural environment, so it was really exciting for them. And we will probably take walks most mornings to revisit our penguin friends. It is wonderful that they are so close by.
For the remainder of the day, I did laundry, laundry, laundry and Mark worked on a few small boat projects. We met with Odulphus, Moose, Adriatica, Kire, and Huarya for Happy Hour and found out from Duncan and Irene on Moose that we really should have checked in with Cape Town authorities while we were in town yesterday. They drove in today (they have a car) and took Adriatica and Huarya with them. We are thinking that we will probably hop on the train tomorrow morning and do the check-in and visit the Brazilian Embassy to see if we can get our Visa. While in town we will also do some grocery shopping. Once home, we hope to be able to sit still for a couple of days and catch up on correspondence and get ready for Christmas.
I emailed our daughter-in-law Jo’s mother, Margaret this morning to see if Justin and Jo had arrived in England, but as suspected based on bits and pieces of news we get, Heathrow in London is totally shut down and it will be Friday before Justin, Jo, and Ziggy might get there. Right now they standing-by in Albuquerque waiting for flights. We sure hope they can get to England for Christmas. Margaret explained that there are hundreds of people just stranded at Heathrow sleeping anywhere they can find a space. She said that she has not seen winter weather like they had last year and this year since she was a little girl. Our daughter Heather and her family are headed to Maine from Cape Cod tomorrow. I sure hope their weather is a little more favorable.
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| 101221 Day 58 South Africa–Adorable African Penguins |
