Day 51, Year 6 A Walk to the Point
Date: Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Weather: Sunny with Building Winds
Location: Mossel Bay, Western Cape, South Africa
Every day is an adventure. It was another sunny day and we took off with Pieter and Carla of Odulphus and Duncan and Irene of Moose at 10 am and headed for the Point. The Point is actually Cape St. Blaize which is located at the western-most part of town. This end of town is definitely tourist country with a huge tent and trailer camping park and lots of restaurants and hotels. It is a rocky point with huge waves rolling in and lots of very talented surfers in the water. On around the Point you come to the Cape St. Blaize Cave. It was named in 1497 by Vasco da Gama when he arrived here on the day of Saint Blaize. Recent excavations by the Institute of Human Origins at the University of Arizona find evidence of human occupation here going back 160,000 years. We stopped at the base of the rocky outcrop where the cave is located and watched and played with the rock dassies. These were the animals that we had come to see. They are quite tame because tourists have fed them and if you hold your hand out they will come right to you. They are fat-bodied like a beaver, have chipmunk cheeks, and no tail. They are cute, but somehow not endearing. But we photographed them and then climbed up to the cave and then on up the trail leading above the cave. Above the cave we were face to face with the St. Blaize Lighthouse which is the last remaining lighthouse in South Africa that is manned 24 hours a day. After climbing down, we had lunch in one of the restaurants and then headed back to the harbor to Windbird.
Mark and I went back out to Windbird where I did a little more online Christmas shopping and Mark did some serious resting. We checked into the Peri Peri weather net at 5 pm to get their take on a possible time for leaving here. It is looking like our best bet is to leave here on Thursday when it is still very windy, but by the time we reach Cape Agulhas the next day, the winds should have subsided somewhat and by the time we get to False Bay on Saturday there should be light and variable winds. We will keep a close watch on all weather sources tomorrow and check in with the other boats, but if things still look the same, we will all be leaving here mid-day on Thursday and hoping for a mid-day Saturday arrival at the False Bay Yacht Club in Simons Town. After the weather net we went back to shore to the yacht club to have dinner with the folks from Moose and Adriatica. The forecast calls for extremely high winds here tomorrow, so when we returned to Windbird we raised the dinghy motor and put the dinghy on the foredeck to be ready for a mid-day take-off on Thursday. Tomorrow we will stay on the boat. I’ll continue to work on photo editing and Mark will watch the weather. We are both still recovering from colds we got while still in Richards Bay, so a day of rest before taking off on this next passage is probably a good idea. Now we just have to sit and watch and hope this weather window doesn’t close on us.
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| 101214 Day 51 South Africa–Walk to the Point (Cape St. Blaize) |
