Monday, March 7th 2011

So this morning we got up as usual. Loaded up the boat with the clients and headed out to sea, before being brought to a standstill by a broken motor. Apparently one of the spark plugs had exploded wreaking havoc inside the engine. Because we can’t disappoint the tourists we sidled up to another boat tied the two together and loaded all of our tourists on their boat. Alex, me and Jillian went along too. Turns out they had no need for volunteers so we ended up hanging out on the front of the boat and watching the sharks. It was awesome. After a few hours we headed back into shore.

We got home and as it turns out, because the motor was broken we couldn’t go on the boat in the afternoon, so Andy decided to take us to see the penguin colony at Betty’s Bay. He drove us an hour to the bay and then we each paid R10 or a dollar and fifty cents to get onto the boardwalk through the penguin colony. The penguins were so cute! A few were very bold and would walk right up to the boardwalk but a few were shy and hid underneath of it when we came near. We spotted penguins sitting on their nests and even a few penguin eggs.

I was really excited when we saw the rock hyrax or rock dassies. They are basically Africa’s version of the guinea pig and they live in the rocky areas like the coastlines and mountains. I don’t know how they get up there, but they often hang out way high in the rocks. We had a great time and I took wayyy too many pictures. Then we drove the hour back to Gansbaai.

We didn’t really feel like cooking, so we headed up to the Great White House for dinner. Me, Dave, Jo, and Tina all split a massive seafood platter. It had line fish (like cod), Hake (another type of fish) crab chowder, calamari, abalone, cheesy mussels and possibly something else I can’t remember. But it was good…And then to finish off the meal a few of us ordered desserts. I got the death by chocolate (chocolate muffin drizzled in hot fudge with a dollop of ice cream) and Jo and Tina each got a slice of the chocolate cake. Needless to say, we were stuffed.