Cape of Storms

Wednesday 8 November

Another gorgeous day in Cape Town. Today was the social portion of the ANADO meeting in which the hosts organized a tour of the South African Cape Pensiula.

The first stop on the tour included a ferry ride in the Atlantic Ocean to Seal Island. Hundreds of seals were making the most of a sunny day in South Africa by lazily sleeping on the rocks, while others were showing off in the water for the boats that passed by.

We then made our way to Simon’s Town and Boulder Beach. Boulder Beach is home thousands of African Penguins. From just two breeding pairs of penguins in the early 1980s, there are over 3,000 of them now living in False Bay. A big reason that the penguins have remained on Boulder Beach is because of the decreased boat travel in False Bay over the years which has increased the supply of anchovies and pilchards which are part of the penguin’s diet. The penguins in South Africa were formerly known as Jackass Penguins because of their donkey-like call.

A little trivia – the black and white colouring is a form of camouflage for the animal. The white side is for underwater predators looking upwards and the black for predators looking down into the water.

After the Penguins, the tour drove down the beautiful Indian Ocean Coast of False Bay to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. Cape of Good Hope is the most south-westerly part of Africa. Most popularly perceived as the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Cape Point is actually the spot where the cold current of the west coast of Africa meets the warm current of the east coast.

The Cape of Good Hope was first named the Cape of Storms. When the early settlers came to this area, the South Easterly wind (which is still very abundant today) was so fierce causing the water to be very dangerous that the sailors named this Cape the Cape of Storms. However, when Dutch-India Trade Company came down, they began to see the possibilities of the trade route to the east, therefore renaming the Cape the Cape of Good Hope. That is the Cape of Good Hope behind me.

Kate Mittelstadt, a former co-worker from the US, was also at the meeting in Cape Town. She had also decided to extend her stay for a couple of days. That night, we had a little picnic on the roof-top garden of the hotel.