First Visit to Cape Town....

First Visit to Cape Town....

....and hopefully not the last! After a rainy day at sea, we despaired that we would be able to see anything at all in our Cape Town sail in, with arrival scheduled for 7 p.m., never mind the apparently spectacular views of Table Mountain. But, in true Crystal fashion, the rain stopped and the skies cleared around 5 o'clock, just in time for the best scenery. And having a few clouds hanging in until the last moment just made the view more impressive:

Our final docking for this cruise, always bittersweet, but we will be back on Serenity next year.

The Sunset Bar team for this segment, Barkeeps Jose and Kasia, and their great
team of servers

During the previous day, our last full day at sea, along with finalizing our packing we couldn't miss the Odyssey Art at Sea exhibition. Given the number of people in the art classes and the number of pieces everyone produced, it was going to be quite the show. And it was!

We had so much stuff, it overflowed onto the coffee table in
the Crystal Plaza

Only a small portion of the total. The two front right
items are Monica's, too

More watercolours had to go on the ledge in front of the fountain

We were also busy knitting. Monica made 2 sets of hat, mittens
and neck warmers during this segment - one is the red set
at right

As usual, we (Monica, that is) had a lot of fun during the class and learned a lot from our teacher, Linda Perlmutter, who established Odyssey Art at Sea 20 years ago. We look forward to seeing her again next year. Here are a few of Monica's works:

Greeting cards

We had fun stamping colours combinations on
the paper and then seeing what we could find
in the result

Monica's 'masterpiece' for this segment. These watercolours
are based on two photos she took when we did our safari in 2013

Now, back to Cape Town. We stayed on board for dinner, as we would be getting the full tour of Cape Town and the area during the next couple of days from Monica's cousin Juergen and his wife Maria, who is from Cape Town herself.

Tuesday morning dawned a little out of the ordinary for Cape Town at this time of year - everything was fogged in. We couldn't see the smallest hill, never mind Table Mountain right behind us! Apparently this doesn't happen often as there is always a wind that blows any low cloud off very early in the day. We could deal with it, but we felt sorry for those who had booked morning tours that included a visit to Table Mountain, where the cable car might be closed...Wait a minute! If we hadn't arranged with Juergen and Maria, WE would have been doing the morning tour that included Table Mountain!! Thank goodness for the change of plan.

Juergen and Maria picked us up at 9:30, and we set off. The tour plan for the day was to drive down the east side of the Peninsula, which is on the Indian Ocean side (but being the typical German stickler for accuracy, Juergen pointed out is really the western part of False Bay, and not actually the ocean), visiting Cape Point and then driving back along the western coast, on the Atlantic side.

Without looking closely at a map, one thinks that Cape Town and Table Mountain are right there, overlooking the most southerly point in Africa with a view over two oceans, but that's not the case. Cape Point, where you can see where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet, is in a huge National Park that encompasses the whole peninsula, with Cape Town and Table Mountain actually overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Table Bay, a good 50 km away.

Maria will have to forgive us for missing or forgetting a lot of the information she gave us, because she certainly gave us a huge pile of info on the area, the history, the politics and the economics of both Cape Town and South Africa in general. Both she and Juergen have or have had their own companies, and hearing how things are from a businessperson's perspective just brings home some of the real issues facing South Africa going forward. She would make a great tour guide if she wanted a career change.

But let's return to our touring. We started off driving across from Cape Town to False Bay, and stopped at Muizenberg for an overlook. Surfing is obviously as popular here as it is in other parts of the south coast, and we were quite surprised at the huge number of surfers out on a foggy morning, risking life and limb - there are great white sharks in the bay, and although they don't happen often, shark attacks are not unheard of.

Then we drove on to Fish Hoek, which was the original fishermans' village on Kalk Bay. Fishing has always been a big part of the economy of the area, and there's still some being done, though only on a small scale. The big commercial fishing is done out on the ocean, and even that is being affected by global warming. The cold ocean current that used to run up the west coast of Africa is now moving up the east coast, so the fish that feed on the nutrients from that current have all migrated to follow it. Commercial fishing is no longer part of the local economy of this area.

But there's enough fish to supply Kalky's, which, according to Maria, has been a fixture in Fish Hoek for many, many years, and a must-do for any fish lover. If we'd had enough time, we would have had lunch there, but we had 'so much to see and so little time'. For sure next time!

One of the fishing boats at Fish Hoek

Another kind of local fisherman, having a snooze on one of the
tires that serve as bumpers near the fish market

Boats in the harbour. It was still foggy around 10:30 in the
morning

Juergen at right looking over the offerings from the last
vendor.

The menu board at Kalky's. Even at this time of the morning there
were lots of people enjoying their fish and chips. It
sure smelled delicious!!

Our next stop was at Boulders Beach in Simons Town to visit the colony of African Penguins that lives there. We did run into a couple of Crystal tours here, but no one we knew. It wasn't too bad when we got there, but by the time we left, quite a few more visitors showed up, some pulling out phones attached to selfie sticks. The park rangers would be busy, since there were signs all over the entrance proclaiming 'No Selfie Sticks'. Good luck, guys!

A juvenile just molting his 'baby feathers' and
and adult

This cute little guy is a dassie. He didn't realize he was the star
of many people's photos as they made their way to
view one of the penguin colonies

After seeing the penguins, we headed into the Cape of Good Hope part of Table Mountain National Park. It is quite a spectacular drive, especially along the Atlantic coast, and even the False Bay side has lots of small bays and beaches.

A Cape Sugarbird. There is a huge variety of species
that only live on this peninsula

Of course, the most spectacular views are from Cape Point itself. You can take the funicular up to the lighthouse at the top, or, if you have the time and the energy, there's a very good walking path up the hill as well. The views from up there are not to be missed! And no, we didn't walk up!! Or down, for that matter!

Looking northward from the Cape Lighthouse. On the left, the mighty
Atlantic Ocean, on the right, False Bay, part of the Indian Ocean

Looking down over Dias Beach. There are walking trails all
over this area, even along these cliffs. This is a hiker's paradise,
as Maria can attest. That stuff out in the water is kelp.

Larry, Maria and Juergen.

Looking out over the water, that very subtle change in the
water colour is where the waters from the two oceans meet

But if somebody needs a really obvious line in the water,
here's one that's close. This is probably related
more to the huge waves hitting the Atlantic side
of the cape

Another view over Dias Beach. You can see the walking path
that leads from the base of the hill to the lighthouse

The clouds can move in very quickly out here.

Next, on to the wild and windy Atlantic coast. Rather than eating somewhere, Maria had packed a small picnic lunch for us. We stopped at the side of the coastal road for a half an hour, making sure to avoid the ostriches. Ostriches, you ask? They are quite common in the national park, and some of them live near the water - and the road. They're not stupid!

The Atlantic Ocean sure shows its might as it crashes
on the rocks here

We headed northward along the coast road, back toward the city and the ship, where we had invited Juergen and Maria to join us for dinner.

A windsurfer braving the howling breeze

More wild waves

The Slangkop Lighthouse

Hout Bay, a quiet community not far from the Cape Town CBD

We had a wonderful evening with Juergen and Maria, who had no trouble suggesting more things to do in Cape Town, along the coast and in the national parks, such as spending some time on a photo safari in the famous Kruger Park. But even though we were saying goodbye to Crystal Serenity in the morning, we were spending one night in Cape Town before flying home.

 Juergen and Maria picked us up from the hotel for an afternoon sightseeing a little further inland, in the Stellenbosch wine region...but then, just about anything outside of Cape Town and inland from the Atlantic coast seems to be a wine region, as most of South Africa's wine industry is centered in Stellenbosch, Paarl and Franschhoek, no more than an hour away.

The area of Bo-Kaap at the foot of Signal Hill. This has
traditionally been the Muslim area of Cape Town, famous for
the brightly coloured homes

The vineyards in Stellenbosch climb part way up the mountains, and there are some beautiful vistas:

We went to a favourite restaurant of theirs, the Hussar Grill, for dinner:

Monica's steak - it was delicious, covered with a mustard sauce

Larry's steak with blue cheese

We had a chance to look around the Mount Nelson Hotel a little the next morning:

Part of the gardens, around the pool

One of the special elevators. It looks like a library inside,
although all the books are really only the spines with an
inch or two of books behind them.

Part of the lobby. It is a beautiful hotel.

You may note that there's no further mention of Table Mountain and no photos from the top. That's because for the second day in a row, there was a heavy fog over the city in the morning. So that is one more thing on our to-do list for the next time we visit this very interesting city. Of course, on the morning we were heading to the airport at 10 a.m. to fly home, it dawned crystal(!) clear with not a cloud to be seen. Even the weather wants us to come back to continue our sightseeing.

So, here ends another journey to parts previously unknown to us. Although some of our port stops leave us wondering 'Why are we here?', we always learn something new about places we've never been before, and in some cases, like that of Cape Town, find out there's much more to them than we had ever thought. We discovered that in both Australia and South Africa there are things we'd like to do (that don't involve a cruise!) and we'll try to plan for them in the near future.