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Starblazer - 09/01/2016 – Four more weeks in Cape Town part 1



In total we spent 5 weeks in Cape Town, arriving in the early afternoon of
Wednesday 2/12/15 and leaving on Wednesday 6/01/2016in the late morning. I
was horrified to discover that my last blog was written on 10/12/15, all I
can offer is my usual excuse: Life got in the way. This blog will appear in
two parts, the fun bits followed by the work bits. John says that I have to
get the good stuff in first!

Following the group visit to AYAMA Slent Farms Winery I am happy to announce
that all the boxes of wine made it safely back to the boats, being ferried
by several dinghies from the tripper boat pontoon to the yachts. We became
a point of interest for the trippers as we carried box after box down from
the car park to the pontoon, stacked them according to boat name, loaded
them into dinghies then transferred them the short distance to the yachts.

We decided to spend our first weekend with the hire car exploring some of
the land we sailed past. Day 1 took us down the peninsula to Cape Point and
the Cape of Good Hope via the coast road. We are sailors and like to see
the sea! Actually the road was quite spectacular in places. On the way
back we stopped at Boulder Beach to visit the penguin viewing point. These
are quite small penguins and found only in South Africa and on 6 or 7 small
islands in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. There were hundreds of them, both on the
beaches and on the surrounding rocks. Our route back took us through Simons
Town but it was after 6:00pm and the place looked dead.

Day 2 started not far from where we had finished the previous day, at
Somerset West mall. Woolworths had a dress I wanted in the right size.
Woolworths here, think Debenhams and Waitrose. From there we drove along
the eastern side of False Bay, stopping to pick up lunch in Pringle Bay
where we had spent a night at anchor to ensure a daylight arrival in Cape
Town. We followed the coastline more or less then struck across country
just past Betty’s Bay, driving through the vineyards surrounding the Elgin
area. I’m sure the climate is not suitable for vineyards around Elgin,
Scotland where my grandfather came from!

Touristy stuff took a back seat for the Christmas festivities. Eight boats
with crew from 8 different nationalities shared a lovely, sociable Christmas
dinner. Each boat was tasked with providing a dish, Starblazer cooked
stuffed leg of lamb and some roast potatoes. Starters were served on the
pontoon then we all crowded on Aretha for the main course and dessert.
Father Christmas arrived to distribute boat gifts, each boat provided one
wrapped gift then a boat’s name was drawn out of a hat and you picked a
package. Another boat could decide to steal your chosen present rather than
taking pot luck with the remaining parcels. It was great fun.

Between Christmas and New Year we allocated several days to touristy
exploits. We went to the theatre with Wayward Wind and Allegro to see
Singing in the Rain, not much storyline but fantastic dancing and good
singing. We drove to Stellenbosch, the second oldest town in South Africa
with lovely architecture surrounded by a huge wine growing area. We visited
several museums but no vineyards. The final destination was Kerstenbosch
Botanic Gardens, we drove slowly around the car park then drove away, there
were no spaces! We decided to find lunch in the Canal Walk Mall in New
Century Park. This mall is newer, bigger, more spacious and far less
crowded than the Waterfront area. It had a special feature for Christmas,
an ice slide, a circular toboggan run and snow for the kids to play with.
It also had free wi-fi and John managed to download some new charts to the
i-pad so it wasn’t a wasted afternoon.

On New Year’s Eve we had a rally Braai (BBQ) on the pontoon. Two local
chaps provided and cooked the food on gas BBQs then Sarah and Luc on Makena
kindly invited everyone on board Makena to eat. We had a good view of the
Waterfront’s fireworks from Makena’s upper deck and there was even some
dancing after midnight. John and I wimped out at about 1:30!

The next two days continued our touristy activities. First of all we went on
the Cape Town Wheel, not as tall as the London Eye, with 6 person cars,
travelling much quicker and significantly cheaper. You get 4 complete
rotations for about £5. From there we walked to the Aquarium which as very
interesting and well presented. Saturday morning we got an early start to
the botanic gardens, arriving 15 minutes after they opened, we even managed
to find a shaded parking spot. We spent over 4 hours in the lovely gardens
but it was getting very hot so we left to find a Makro store to buy two 25
litre petrol cans for the small Honda generator. From there we headed to
Table Mountain, arriving at about 3:30. If you book on-line you can avoid
the queue at the ticket office which can be several hours long. The tickets
are valid for 7 days so if you wake up to discover the mountain covered in
fog you can put off your visit with no penalty. I am not a fan of cable
cars but this one was swift and not scary, fortunately! The inside of the
cable car rotates so that everyone gets to see all around. As expected, the
views were fantastic.

It would be remiss of me if I didn’t mention the lovely time spent with
Victoria and Devan and their family. They were friends of the Aretha crew
in the UK before relocating to Cape Town about 4 years ago. If you are
reading this, thank you so much for making us feel so welcome.

Tourism over, it’s time to get ready for sea. Part 2 of this blog will
cover the work that we and others have done (or not done!) to Starblazer
during the past 4 weeks.

Joyce


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