Month: December 2009

Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, December 08 2009 @ 07:00 AM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-three

November 23 (Monday, Day 26, Cruising the West Coast of South Africa) –

Filbert woke up not feeling 100%. He was gassy and “full” most of the day. We blamed it on the fish and chips we had off the ship. Snookums’s Caffeine Free Diet Coke finally arrived and our stewardess left a 12-pack in our cabin. Later in the day the Food and Beverage Manager phoned to apologize many, many times for the Prime 7 problems as well as the warm champagne mess. He offered us another dinner at Prime 7 (you are guaranteed one meal per cruise segment) but we said “no thanks” since we already have one scheduled for the next cruise segment. It’s an okay steakhouse, but we actually like Compass Rose, the normal restaurant, better. But, Prime 7 is a nice change of pace every 15 days or so.

It was formal night and we stayed casual and went to La Veranda for dinner. It was a different South African menu. Phil still wasn’t feeling too well and had a few bites of spicy lobster and Janet really enjoyed the side dishes (pumpkin stew, sweet potatoes, African spinach with peanuts, and rice with raisins and spices). It was an early night for both of us.

November 24 (Tuesday, Day 27, Walvis Bay, Namibia) –

We woke up and Filbert didn’t feel well enough to go on the seal and dolphin cruise so Snookums went alone. It was a typical foggy, cool morning. We had been told that Walvis Bay only gets about .5” of rain per year. It’s part of the Namib Desert and the vegetation survives by sucking out the moisture in the air that is produced most mornings in the fog. Since Filbert didn’t go, this meant that Snookums had be the photographer so she got a quick camera lesson. There were 9 of us on a small boat and as soon as we left the dock, 3 or 4 pelicans flew to our boat to get the fish that the captain was offering them. Pelicans have a wing span of 6.5 feet and only weigh 6.5 pounds. Snookums was able to touch the wings of one of them as they flew overhead. They were CLOSE and there was no need to use any kind of telephoto lens! Gulls were flying around us, too. Even after the fish food was all gone the pelicans and gulls still followed our little boat. We motored around and saw some bottlenose dolphins. Our captain was very excited about this since there are only 80 bottlenose in this area and they aren’t always seen. Then we saw a small sunfish which is a very rare sight (although Filbert took a picture of one from our balcony a few days before this). We also saw heavyside dolphins which are the second smallest dolphin in the world and have very white sides. Seals were in the water, but most were on a beach. Sometimes a seal will actually come into the boat, but it’s mating season and most of them were on the beach. After we saw all of the wildlife it was time for the captain to put out the food – various finger sandwiches and Walvis Bay oysters. The water is perfect for oyster farming since it’s cold and very oxygenated. As a result, it takes an oyster 9 months to fully mature in Walvis Bay whereas in other parts of the world it takes 3 years. Snookums had a raw oyster and was surprised at its total lack of fishiness or even saltiness. One was enough for her, though.

Pelican flyby

Pelican formation flyby

Pelican closeup

Desert at water’s edge

Dolphin

Gull, offended at all the attention the pelicans are getting

Almost a great picture of a dolphin

Snacks, anyone?

Pelican wants a snack . . .

Snookums got back to the ship and took the free shuttle into town. Walvis Bay is NOT a tourist town and the town was fine for people that lived there but had nothing at all for a tourist. She found a postcard at one of the 3 grocery stores. The stores were fully stocked, and priced, as if we were still in South Africa. Walvis Bay doesn’t have an unemployment problem since it has the huge dock and salt flats for jobs.

Dinner was a special event hosted by Regent for everyone on the ship. It was “Dinner Under the Desert Stars”. We took buses (probably every bus and van in western Namibia!) about 40 minutes to the middle of the desert and we were completely surrounded by huge, towering dunes. Filbert and Snookums did something similar two years ago in Dubai, but the Dubai dunes were wimpy compared to the Namib Desert dunes. Luminaries were placed on the sand to indicate the “road” for the drivers since we really were in the middle of nowhere. There were huge banquet tents with wooden floors set up for the 400 guests. A youth choir and marimba band played throughout the evening. Camel rides were available, too, even though camels aren’t used in Namibia. A very nice buffet was served with several kinds of South African wines and beers. Meat dishes included oxtail, kudu, lamb and chicken. Monica and Joel found us and said that they saved 2 spots for us so we joined them at their table and we had a nice time. In fact, the cruise director had to come to our table and tell the 4 of us it was time to go! It was a nice night but Filbert was very disappointed that it was cloudy so he couldn’t see any stars.

Next: Birds, seals, and jackals!

Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, December 08 2009 @ 06:35 AM CST

Sunfish

Apropos of our encounter with sunfish off Africa, this story via Jungle Trader[*1] from Germany’s Der Spiegel:[*2]

A total of four ocean sunfish have been spotted along Germany’s Baltic coast over the last week, far away from their habitat in tropical and temperate waters. Biologists say the awkward, slow-moving and friendly giants are likely to have been swept in by storms.

Maritime experts and beachcombers have been puzzled by the appearance of several sunfish — strange, disk-shaped creatures that can reach a length of up to 3.30 meters and a weight of over two tonnes — along Germany’s Baltic Sea coast in recent days, thousands of miles away from their normal habitat in tropical and temperate waters around the world.

A fisherman said on Saturday he had caught a 10-kilo, 60-centimeter-long sunfish out of the water near the island of Rügen. Last Wednesday, walkers found two sunfish, one 80 centimetres long and the other a full meter, lying dead on a beach east of the city of Kiel. A day before, passersby had spotted a smaller sunfish that still showed signs of life, and had pushed it back in the water.

Contributed by: filbert Monday, December 07 2009 @ 07:00 AM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-two

November 22 (Sunday, Day 25, Cape Town, South Africa) –

The Voyager, from Table Mountain

Our shore excursion this morning was to Table Mountain which gets its name from the flat-topped central massif of the mountain. We’ve been very fortunate from a weather standpoint since it has been clear and sunny since we docked. Sometimes Table Mountain is surrounded by clouds. We took the bus to the cable car station and then rode 3,477 feet up the rest of the way. We walked around the entire top of the mountain and saw Cape Town, the Cape Peninsula and really a 360° view of everything below.

The Table Mountain cable car–it’s a long way up

Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain

Rocks. Lots of rocks.

Yellow flowers

White Flowers

Pretty little bird

Another white flower

Our adventurers over Cape Town

Cape Town is proud to be one of the hosts of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Semi-finals and a helicopter was pulling a banner saying that it was 200 days from now. A new 68,000-seat stadium is being built in the middle of the city, too, that our guide said wouldn’t really ever be filled after the World Cup games since there aren’t that many people in Cape Town interested in an event.

The Stadium (upper left), the Voyager (top just right of center) and the Mount Nelson Hotel (pink building, just below and to the right of the center of the picture)

We returned to the ship and decided to walk around V&A Waterfront and to eat on the economy. We paid $18 for a “fish and chips for 2” meal that consisted of linefish, the catch of the day, prawns, mussels, rice and chips. Then we purchased our travel wall painting that we found on Friday but didn’t buy in case we found something better. It’s of Table Mountain. We also bought two lightweight high-tech material travel shirts from a safari outfitter company.

The Golden Seal–actually a sea lion

We got back to the ship a few minutes before “all aboard” and from our balcony watched two Cape seals (really sea lions) court each other for around 20 minutes. It was as if they were putting on a private ballet just for us! Filbert ordered champagne for his own sail away party and after 1.5 hours (and a second phone call) a warm bottle was delivered. We ended up going to the public sail away party on deck 11 and ran into Monica and Joel. As soon as the ship started moving, 3 hats went flying and Snookums was able to save them for their owners. The party pretty much broke up at that point due to the high winds.

We had dinner at Prime 7 to celebrate our 5th anniversary. Not only did they screw up 3 of the 5 side dishes that were ordered, they served milk in a dripping wet glass and said “It must have just come out of the dishwasher”. The “freshly grated horseradish” that came with Filbert’s prime rib was a pile of dry white twigs. And, they never recognized our anniversary. Snookums wrote her second letter to the Food and Beverage Manager about these issues as well as the warm champagne that was delivered this afternoon. She also wanted to know where her Caffeine Free Diet Coke was that she special ordered 6 months ago. (In response to her first letter earlier in the cruise, she was told that the cans that were delivered to the ship were outdated and they were not allowed to serve them. The Food and Beverage Manager said he was trying to order more as soon as possible but the remoteness of our ports might mean they don’t arrive until Cape Town.)

Courting seals (actually sea lions)

Next:PeliCANS!!!!!

Contributed by: filbert Sunday, December 06 2009 @ 07:00 AM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Twenty-one

Breaking the format a bit, we start this post with the end of the last one . . . the actual sunset at Signal Hill, Cape Town, South Africa:

More after the jump . . . November 21 (Saturday, Day 24, Cape Town, South Africa) –

Seal on the dock at the V&A

Clock Tower, where we waited for the ferry to Robben Island

We joined the tour to Robben Island which started with a 30-minute ferry ride to the island, kind of like Alcatraz. It has been a prison and insane asylum for over four centuries. Since 1960 political prisoners were kept there and the last one was released in 1991. Past political prisoners are now the tour guides which has to bring that horror back to them on a daily basis, but with unemployment in South Africa around 40%, any job is considered a good job. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 17 years and we saw his cell (and bucket that he had to use as a toilet) that he lived in for his last 8 years. He was also made to work for 6 hours a day in the limestone quarry. Nothing was done with the lime and each day the prisoners had to just move it to different parts of the quarry. The dust and glare from the lime damaged their eyes and today no one is allowed to use flash when photographing Nelson Mandela for this reason. The weather was gorgeous and we were told that during the prior two weeks, most of the ferries to Robben Island were canceled due to bad weather. We are lucking out, that’s for sure!

Robben Island Prison

The limestone quarry

Mandela’s cell

Mount Nelson Hotel

High Tea–savories

High Tea–sweets

Fog spilling over the top of Table Mountain

Our second sunset in Cape Town, from our balcony

Cape Town at night

Next: On top of Table Mountain . . .