Durbin, South Africa to Cape Town, South Africa

April 11 – Today we’re in Durbin, South Africa. It’s the first time for both of us to be on the African continent. The weather is cool and clear with a little breeze. We are headed into the countryside and up into the hills with stops at a Zulu village and a game reserve.

South Africa has a unique and interesting history. The first European settlement was a supply station established in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope. This station quickly evolved into Cape Town and the Khoi-San people were driven out. The settlers developed their own dialect, Afrikanns, and Calvinist sect, the Dutch Reformed Church. Slaves were imported from Madagascar, India, Ceylon, Malaya and Indonesia. Over the next 150 years the colonists spread east, coming into violent contact with the Bantu tribes.

In 1779 the Xhosa in the first Bantu War temporarily halted the eastward expansion by the Boers, the Dutch-Afrikaner farmers. Further Boer expansion was hastened after the British annexed the Cape in 1806. The abolition of slavery in 1834 was regarded by the Boers as an intolerable interference in their affairs, and led to migration, known as the Great Trek) across the Orange River two years later. In 1867 diamonds were discovered in Kimberly. In 1886 gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. As a result the population of South Africa increased 300% by the turn of the last century.

South Africa is divided into provinces. Durban is in the Province of KwaZulu Natal on the Indian Ocean coast. It derives part of its name from the largest Bantu tribe, the Zulu. The British and the Zulu had many battles during the colonial period. We are heading into the mountains to an area called The Valley of a Thousand Hills. Our guide is an Afrikaner lady of French Huguenot descent.

The Zulu village sets on a ridge overlooking the valley carved by the Mgeni River. The valley is filled with small and large hills or all shapes and sizes. This is the time of year when they burn off the fields and there was some smoke over the valley. Visibility was fair and the view was impressive. It would be spectacular on a clear day. The weather up here is much warmer and very dry so it was comfortable.

The dancing at the Zulu village centered on the courtship and engagement customs of the Zulu. They have dances that celebrate some of these customs. For example, the way most men meet and select a girl they want to court is by watching the women as they go to the local water supply to get water for the family. When they see someone they like they try to talk to her and see if the attraction is mutual. If they find that they are compatible the man asks the woman to marry him and if she accepts she starts wearing a top. Single, unengaged women go topless. Then the groom must come up with the marriage dowry. In the case of the Zulu the normal price is 11 cows. The Zulu are polygamous and a man can marry as many women as he can afford. Each will require a dowry and cattle are expensive.

They danced and sang for about an hour. It was very athletic. The women may be large (the men prefer them that way) but they are very limber. They could kick above their heads. The men’s dances are very acrobatic. They jump, tumble, cartwheel, kick, hop and flop on the ground on their butts. This last maneuver requires a little elaboration. From a standing position they simple jump off both legs straight backward to a seated position. As gravity takes over they land on the ground, butt, heels and legs hitting the ground simultaneously as they stay in the seated position all the way down. Ouch!! They did this at several points in the dances and a little dust cloud would rise about them as they sat. It looked like it would hurt but they didn’t seem to mind at all.

I spent so much time taking video that I have very few still shots. The sun was at a bad angle so both activities were difficult.

After some photo ops with the dancers we drove to the Tala Game Reserve. It’s a private range of about 8,000 acres. It includes open plains, tree covered hills and several lakes. When we arrived we boarded small, open 4x4 Range Rovers for a 2-hour tour of the reserve. The drive was great. The first thing we saw was a White Rhino across a valley resting under a tree. He was a long way off but he could be seen very well. During the drive we saw giraffe, blue wildebeest, zebra, impala, blesbok, warthog, springbok, buffalo, hippopotamus and white rhino. These are only the mammals. We saw dozens of different birds and lizards most of which I didn’t recognize. There were some geese, sparrows and wading birds that looked familiar but the rest were totally unknown.














One unusual feature of the Port of Durbin is the delivery and pick up of the harbor pilot. The entrance to the port is very narrow and the traffic is one way. If ships are entering no ships can leave and vice versa. To facilitate the quick passage of ships the pilot is delivered by helicopter. As we entered the port the pilot was flown out to us and once we were at the pier the helicopter came to pick him up. When we were ready to leave the port the pilot was dropped on the forward deck by helicopter even though his office was just a few yards from the ship’s gangway. As soon as the ship passed the last channel buoy on the way out the helicopter swooped in and picked him up for delivery to another ship waiting to leave port. I taped the pick up from the ship with the sunset in the background.

Speaking of the sunset (right and Left), it was fantastic as we sailed out of Durbin. The sun was setting over the city skyline and everything was glowing red and yellow.

It was a great day!! This tour and the Pang Nah Bay tour are the best so far. Now we have a day at sea to rest up for Cape Town.

April 12 – The transition from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean around the Cape of Good Hope is often rough and this trip was no exception. We passed through several storms one of which was at least hurricane status. The web site I look at for weather and wave status has been down so I can’t really tell. The ship has been moving around quite a bit but not very violently. Some of the changes of direction were fairly abrupt and some people were having trouble walking. They did lock the doors to the outer decks and lash down the deck chairs and tables. That usually means very high winds are expected or lots of movement on the ship. In this case it meant both. The dining room was only about half full at dinner, another sign that some of the passengers are not enjoying the ride. They had to cancel a performance by the repertory cast on the ship because the dancing would have been very unsafe, in fact impossible, on the moving stage. They scheduled a classical pianist instead and moved the cast show to a later date.

April 13 – We don’t arrive in Cape Town until noon so we put the final touches on the Plumb Blossom Tai Chi set this morning. Tai Chi class is at 9AM. It has three segments and I remember the first two pretty well because we did them so often. I get a little lost when I get to the third part when I’m doing it on my own. When Robert is leading us and calling out the names of the next movement I do it just fine. Robert Newton, our instructor, is one of only two Westerners ever recognized by the Shanghai Institute of Wushu as a Tai Chi Master. There are five schools of Tai Chi and of the five the Wushu style is the most widely practiced.

At noon I was on the top deck for the sail-in. The scene was spectacular (above right). Table Mountain was flanked by Devil's Peak on the left and Lion's Head on the right. It was great. First we sailed across Table Bay and past a long jetty. We turned to starboard there and headed into a small harbor. At first I couldn’t tell where we were headed. Then two tugs came alongside, one at the stern and one at the bow. At that point it dawned on me that we were going to enter this very small harbor through an entrance not much wider than the ship’s beam (left). Just before going into the small harbor we received lines from the tugs at the bow and the stern. The reason for this became very apparent as we entered. There was absolutely no room for error while maneuvering to the pier. The tug on the bow went to starboard to pull us around the pier and the tug at the back held back to keep the stern from swinging out as the turn progressed. When we finally made fast to the pier our bow extended over the wharf in front by about 25-30 feet and our stern stuck out past the pier about 50 feet. Later our guide told us that the Prinzendam was the largest ship that ever docked in this harbor. A ship any larger would have to dock at the commercial piers several miles from downtown.

The little harbor was very small and is surrounded by a waterfront development called the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (right). It’s very new and upscale, lots of restaurants and shops. Looks very much like something you might find in Newport Beach or Irvine in Southern California. Right at the bow of the ship is a large 5-star hotel and the shopping center extends to the left of that down the entire wharf area and around the harbor.

Jan van Riebeeck, a ship’s surgeon sent ashore by the Dutch East India Company in April of 1652 to establish a supply port for company vessels headed to India, founded Cape Town. When the French Protestants (Huguenots) were driven from France they settled in Holland and subsequently found emigration to South Africa attractive. Together the Dutch settlers and the Huguenots established farms and a wharf area and the colony flourished. In 1795, during the French Revolution, Holland was invaded and William of Orange gave the South African colony to England for protection. When the British abolished slavery in 1834 and the descendants of the Dutch and French Huguenot settlers, collectively known as the Boers, revolted and the Great Trek across the Orange and Vaal Rivers took place. They established the Free Orange State and the Transvaal.

Diamonds were discovered in the Transvaal and that led to the Boer Wars. Britain was very interested in the mineral wealth of the Boer countries. One infamous part of this conflict was the establishment of concentration camps for the Boers. This was the first time concentration camps had ever been used and 25,000 Afrikaaners, as the Boers had come to be called, died in them. The descendants of these Afrikaaners had a little revenge when in 1948 the Afrikaaner National Party, in fair elections became the head of the South African government. One very unfortunate result of the pent up frustrations of the Afrikaaners was the establishment of Apartheid. This legally enforced separation of blacks and whites lasted until 1994 when, again in fair elections, the African National Congress party, led by Nelson Mandela, wins control of the government. Ouch, I guess that’s enough history.

Today we are headed up to Table Mountain. It’s a large mesa that provides a backdrop for the entire city. It is flanked on the left by Devil’s Peak and on the right by Lion’s Head Peak. Directly in front of Lion’s Head is Signal Hill. It got its name because lookouts were posted there to watch for ships on the horizon. They were to fire a cannon signal when one was spotted to alert the surrounding farmers that they should gather their produce and head for town go sell it to the ship. Today they still fire a shot at 1PM to remember this tradition. A range of mountains extends southward from the east/west line of Table, Devil’s and Lion’s Head. This range has many peaks, like the Sierra Nevada’s in the western USA. They are collectively called the 12 Apostles although if you count only the tall peaks you get 11 and if you include the shorter, less defined peaks, you get 13 because there are two that are the same height.

Table Mountain is about 3,000 feet high. A bus picked us up at the pier and took us to the base of the mountain where there’s a cable car station for the trip to the top. The cars are very unique (above left). They are large, they hold about 60 people, and the floor rotates in a clockwise direction while the car is in motion. The trip up takes about 5 minutes and in that time the floor rotates about one and one third times to give everyone a good view up and down. The trip is very vertical because the face of the mountain is steep. It’s more like being in an elevator than riding a normal cable car. It’s Swiss designed and has only been in operation about 5 years. The previous cars were small and rectangular. They only held about 4-6 people and didn’t rotate. There were several on display at the base station.

Once on top there were trails leading across the top so you could look down on all sides. The view over Cape Town was fantastic (right). Cape Town is behind us and the hill to our left is Signal Hill. Out in Table Bay you can just see a small piece of Robben Island, the prison site during the Apartheid Era. The view to the south, across the 12 Apostles was great as well. Looking north into the interior of South Africa you could see the great plain and a large mountain range in the distance, the Cederbergs. The weather was fantastic and visibility unrestricted.

This was a big change from the previous few days. They had huge storms over the weekend. (The same ones we sailed through) Trees were uprooted and awnings torn off buildings. The cable car up to Table Mountain had not operated for the three previous days due to high winds. The mountain was pretty busy today because it was the first day it was open this week. It was a great day for sure.

Tomorrow we have an all day tour so we didn’t want to stay up to late. When we got back to the ship we walked over to the Victoria Pier for some shopping and dinner. There were a lot of really nice looking restaurants overlooking the water. Most had an outdoor area right on the harbor side. We had a hard time selecting one but finally settled on the Greek Fisherman. We sat at an outside table and had dinner. Videoing the sail-in had cut short my lunch so I was hungry. I had a seafood platter that included mussels in a tomato sauce with feta cheese, deep-fried calamari, fish fillet prawns, rice and chips (French fries to us). Diana had fish Vasco de Gama, a fish fillet with tomato sauce, calamari, prawns and the same starches. We were both stuffed. It seemed unusual to both of us that the platters included both rice and potatoes.

Then it was back to the ship to get some rest for tomorrow.

April 14 – Another day in Cape Town and it’s just as glorious as yesterday. That’s good as we are headed down the peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope. It’s an all day tour so we will leave early and get back just before the ship is due to leave.

Our tour will travel south on a road that follows the west coast of the Cape Peninsula like Route 1 follows the west coast of the US. Our first stop was at a point overlooking Clifton Beach (left). The beach was breathtaking with the 12 Apostles mountain range in the background. The waves were pretty large and created a mist along the beach.

From there we continues south until we were on the southern shore of Hout Bay (below right). Here we are traveling on Chapman’s Peak Drive. You used to have to cross the peninsula and drive down the east coast to get to the cape. In the middle of the last century (I love to refer to the 1900s that way) they built a highway along the cliffs to go south on the west coast. That’s the route we’re taking. At some points the road is carved out of the cliff face like a tunnel with one side missing, just sort of a groove in the granite. Very strange! At other places it’s a road with a sheer drop off on one side and a granite wall on the other side, no shoulder at all. I’m not sure I’d want to drive that big bus here but it would be fun in a car.

Hout Bay is not only the name of the bay but the city on its shores as well. The people here are very independent minded fishermen. They have gone so far as to issue Hout Bay ‘passports’. They must look authentic because, as a prank, a man used one to enter Italy and got through immigration, no problem. The bay itself is very picturesque. The Sentinel, a large rock that guards the entrance to the bay made it impossible to cut the road around the small spit of land that forms the bay so it cuts across at the base of the range of peaks. The little valley through which the road runs has a small area of sand dunes in it, like a tiny desert. Very odd! The little range of peaks looks like a snapping turtle with the Sentinel as its head.

Next we drove into the Table Mountain National Park. It covers the entire southern end of the Cape Peninsula. It’s shaped like a boot, but unlike Italy the toe points to the right. The toe of the boot would be Cape Point; the heel would be the Cape of Good Hope. First we went to the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwestern point of Africa (left). Who could resist a photo opp. at the sign? Not us, that’s for sure!

Next we drove to the boot’s toe and Cape Point. At the Point you can ride a funicular part way up the hill toward the old lighthouse, but you have to climb stairs the last 300 feet of the 820 feet from the base of the hill. It wasn’t that hard for us but the average age of the people on the ship’s tour is probably 80+ and some of them had a hard time with it. I was very impressed with their perseverance and drive. All of them that could walk without mechanical assistance made it to the lighthouse. The views from there were fantastic.

The lighthouse (right), constructed in London in 1857 and erected here in 1860, was a prefabricated cast iron tower with a 2,000 candlepower rotating light on top. When conditions were good this light could be seen 40 miles out to sea. This is more than far enough to keep ships from grounding on the local rocks. Unfortunately, very often conditions at the Cape are not ideal. In fact, clouds often obscured the peak and the light was not visible at all. Not even at very close range. Ships continued to be sunk on the rocks. In 1911 the Portuguese liner ‘Lusitania’ hit the rocks and sunk. Shortly after that another light was erected on Dias Point just below Cape Point at 280 feet and no ship has struck the rocks since. There’s a sign showing the distances to various cities up at the lighthouse. London and New York are in almost the same direction from here. London is about 9,000 km away and New York about 12,000.

After our visit to the cape we drove back north on the east side of the peninsula on the shore of False Bay. It’s a large bay that used to fool sailors into thinking they had reached the Cape of Good Hope when sailing from India back to Europe. After they turned north they found themselves in False Bay and had to sail south around the actual cape before turning north to Cape Town, hence the name False Bay. The water in the bay is much warmer than the water on the east side of the peninsula. That’s because False Bay is fed by currents from the Indian Ocean even though it’s part of the Atlantic Ocean. The east side of the peninsula is fed by water directly from the Antarctic that moves up the coast of Africa and is usually very cold.

If the ocean maps were drawn today the sea east of the Cape of Good Hope, including False Bay would probably be considered to be part of the Indian Ocean and the dividing line between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans would be at that spot. When they were named them all the cartographers knew was that Cape Agulhas was the southern most point of Africa and therefore it became the spot dividing these oceans. If they had known more about the great ocean currents the dividing line would have been Cape Point or the Cape of Good Hope because that’s where the great currents meet.

We departed the Cape and headed up the east coast of the peninsula along False Bay to Simon’s Cove. This is the home base for the South African Navy. Their Navy is essentially a coast guard in function. Trying to control the coast and enforce the fishing laws in their territorial waters. We parked our bus in a lot belonging to the base and then walked along the water to a restaurant for lunch. We had fish and calamari for lunch and it was very good. After lunch we continued our walk south along the shore to Boulders Beach.

At Boulders Beach on the edge of False Bay there’s a colony of African Penguins. They used to be called the Jackass Penguin because their call sounds just like the braying of a jackass. But in these politically correct times they have been renamed. They are cute little buggers, waddling up and down the beach and flopping unceremoniously into and out of the bay. Many of them were sitting on nests, most with fluffy young chicks in them. They kept the chicks pretty well covered. Every now and then one would wiggle free. This caused the parent currently on sitting duty to whack at it with its wings until it was safely back under and out of sight. One dedicated momma penguin had her wing around a semi-fluffy (about half its fluffy chick feathers had been replaced by the smooth shiny adult feathers) chick that was an inch taller than she was.

It was fun watching them stroll about. Two males, one significantly larger than the other engaged in what would have to be called a foot stomping fight. Each appeared to be trying to stomp on the others feet while pushing them around with their wings. It was pretty comical, and it ended with both parties uninjured and the fight apparently a draw. There may be some subtle rules to this engagement that would have one party or the other declared the winner by a jury of penguins, but to me they seemed pretty evenly matched, in skill and technique, if not in size.

Two breeding pairs, they mate for life, came ashore at Boulders Beach in 1982 and today the colony is about 3,000 strong. You have to feel a little sorry for the local people. They moved here to a quiet rural location to retire and in 20 years the tourist visits have boomed. Oh well, that’s progress.

Our last stop of the day was at the Kirstenboch Botanical Gardens. It was a very nice garden but not much was in bloom at this time of year. I was shooting some video of a flowered bush when I noticed something large cross the area of the lens. It turned out to be a very pretty bird. Shiny green head and back with a red stripe across its breast. The green was almost luminescent in the sunlight. I have no idea what it was but I’ll be able to identify it if I ever see its picture. Very pretty!
After that it was back to the ship and on board just in time to set sail. We have one day at sea and then we’re in Walvis Bay, Namibia.

April 15 – Today we had another party hosted by our escorts from Cruse Specialists. Tom Mullen, one of our CSI escorts, was off the ship during the Out of Africa party. He and some others were on an overland trip from Durbin to Cape Town to visit a game reserve. He decided to dress up for tonight’s CSI party. He had on an India style pith helmet, bush jacket, monocle, jungle shorts and tall socks. I couldn’t resist taking a picture with Diana.


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(c) Rod Longenberger - 2005