Saturday I "dragged" UG for a drive around the wine region. To get there, we followed a pretty coastal road, then passed a massive "township" (aka: shanty-town), almost immediately followed by vineyards.
We started with a stop at the visitor centre in Stellenbosch, which turns out to be the oldest European village in South Africa. The woman there got on a tangent about social issues in South Africa, which led to comments about all the young people of South Africa moving overseas, mostly to Australia. The downside of Australia, according to her, is how regimented life is there, all those rules! Apparently in South Africa, you can do whatever you want. That explains the driving!
But she also provided some helpful maps and suggestions of places to stop. I was expecting a "wine route", a loop of some sort that drives past the majority of the vineyards. But it turns out ALL the roads in the region have multiple wineries on them. There seems to be at least 10 times as many wineries as the Niagra or Okanagan regions. Some of them aren't even on the winery tour map. We stopped at a relatively new winery with impressive gardens and modern restaurants, then very old one with a quiet outdoor cafe under the oak trees (with homemade lemonade and lemon meringue pie!).
We then passed a tourist trap of a shop, with large, ugly, multicoloured metal art decorating their front yard. As we have a weakness for tacky tourist traps, we had to stop (have YOU had your photo taken with the world's largest mango?). The front half of the shop is basically a country grocery store. The back half is a discount wine liquidation warehouse. There were bottles of wine for about $2 CDN. I was tempted to load up, but what if it wasn't good? If I bought 2 bottles so I could try one before going home, it was no longer such a good deal. The decision was made when I realized I didn't really want to fight the crowds. UG compared the experience to an underwear sale at Army & Navy (a slightly less upscale store than Giant Tiger for you Easterners), old ladies going crazy and buying everything in sight. There was one giddy woman pushing her cart loaded with possibly 50 bottles of wine.
We then stopped at a couple more wineries with good scenery (no tasting for me, as UG did not appear to be in the mood to wait for me to try the thousands of wine on offer) and then headed home.
By Saturday evening, UG had recovered from his seasickness, and picked up some drugs from the pharmacy to take on the next attempt at shark cage diving, but Sunday's trip was full. Apparently they had been trying to call us all day to see if we still wanted to go, but either they were trying to call our Calgary phone number, or we're the victims of yet more South African cell network issues. But they were able to book us in for Monday.
Sunday turned out to be the best day in Cape Town, weather wise (up to 34C and sunny in Cape Town proper). We drove into town and wandered around the V&A Waterfront (Victoria and Alfred, named for Queen Vicki and her son, not her husband Albert). This is a cleaned up for tourists version of the 19th-20th century harbour front. It's a large collection of malls, tourist gift shops, restaurants and harbour cruise boat operators. There are also live musical acts and a ferris wheel. After arriving and then spending about 45 minutes looking for a bathroom we sat down at a restaurant with a shaded, waterside patio. Unfortunately, it seems like 85% of South Africans smoke, and restaurants here have never considered non-smoking areas. So while we waited almost 2 hours to order, eat, get the bill and pay, we were completely engulfed in cigarette smoke.
We then headed back to Simon's Town with the intent of hitting the beach. But everyone else in the city was out enjoying the weather, so we hit a traffic jam on the scenic coastal road. By the time we got back to the apartment to change into bathing suits, we had only about an hour of sun left. So we suited up and enjoyed our private pool instead.
This morning, we woke up early to a clear, calm and warm (although still dark) day. While eating breakfast and preparing to go on another shark tour, suddenly the wind blew in, as if someone turned on the wind switch on our movie set. UG pulled up his email and was told that the trip may be cancelled, and that they were trying to call us again. Apparently there are a lot of messages waiting for us back in Calgary. A few minutes later, we got another message that the trip was to be delayed by an hour. When we eventually arrived at the boat, everyone else was already onboard, as they were all staying in Cape Town or on the Atlantic coast, a 45min drive away, so they were all already on their way to the boat when they heard of the delay, so they had to wait on the pier instead of a couch like us. I am very happy to have chosen this spot.
A shark breached in front of the boat before we even got to the island and dropped our decoy to instigate a breach. Of course, UG and I missed it as we were riding in the nice warm cabin, instead of up on the cold, windy viewing deck. Once the decoy was dropped, I got probably 30 minutes of video of a rubber seal bobbing through the waves. But no sharks.
As we were getting ready to drop the anchor, our captain pointed out a seal swimming by himself and told us to watch him. He had a feeling, based on the activity we had seen, and the fact that the seal was all alone. I video'd this poor lonely seal until he passed the boat and I could no longer see him. That was the point when he met his fate and was snapped up by a shark jumping out of the water. Luckily, UG saw it through the front window of the boat cabin, and another guest from the top viewing deck got a photo. I then got video of the shark flailing around and finishing the seal off.
UG decided not to be the first to suit up in anticipation of getting in the cage, since the wetsuit was uncomfortable, so 2 other guys went first. While they were in the cage, the largest shark of the day grabbed the bait line in front of the cage, got it caught on his teeth, and slammed into the cage in the process of getting away. This shark was about twice the size of the guy that rattled UG's cage on Friday. And both guys in the cage saw it, since it happened in front of them (as opposed to behind like UG's experience). There were at least 2 more sharks who came by the boat while these guys were in the cage. Eventually UG decided to get in, but the activity seemed to be done by then.
Back on shore, we went for lunch with a couple of the other guests who have just arrived in SA from Oregon. And just as we arrived back at the apartment, it started to rain.
We now have less than 48 hours until we leave to head back to Calgary. On one hand, I am looking forward to seeing my dog and sleeping in my own bed. On the other, it doesn't seem to have stopped snowing in Calgary.
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