Another Day in Paradise

The water in the tide pools is really clear

A beautiful abalone shell

I love the ocean

            So last night, after I made yesterday’s blog post, the volunteers were told that we should be on stand by for the next morning; we weren’t sure whether we’d be going out to sea or not. The engines on the Shark Team boat were getting changed out yesterday, so early this morning they had to do a couple of test runs with just the crew. There was only one trip to sea with clients scheduled for today, and there were only room for two more people. Since Lizzy and Beth are the newest ones, we all decided to let them go out today, and the rest of us would just have a realizing day around the harbor. Their trip to sea was scheduled to leave at 12:30, so the volunteers all slept a little later than usual. When we all met in the kitchen and were eating breakfast together, we decided that some of us would take a walk along the coastline heading towards the lighthouse to just continue exploring the area. At a little before eleven Lizzy, Ryan, Aurelie, the two Alina’s (we sometimes distinguish them as German Alina and British Alina), and I headed down to the harbor and walked along the path by the water, just before the rocks, enjoying the sunny day and the beautiful coastline. After going that way for about forty minutes, Lizzy, Aurelie, and the German Alina decided to head back so Lizzy would be sure of being ready in time for the trip out to sea. Ryan, British Alina, and I decided we’d continue on in that direction for a while longer before turning back. After about ten more minutes of walking, we left the main path and walked down closer to the water, jumping around the rocks and admiring some of the tide pools that had formed around them. I didn’t bring my phone or camera on this walk, but I’ll definitely take that walk again before I leave and bring my camera along. We saw several starfish, some bigger than my hand, as well as lots of sea anemones of a wide variety of colors, some little fish swimming around the pools, and some beautiful shells scattering the area around them. The shells that we find out here on the South Africa coast are the type of shells that I could only find in gift shops back home.

            We arrived back home at a little after one this afternoon and made a pretty simple lunch, then just hung out around the house most of the afternoon. Aurelie had started making her dinner by the time we got home; she’s making a stew for tonight, so she made it really early and just left it cooking most of the afternoon.

            When Ryan, Alina and I got back home we arrived to really great news; to make up for us not going out to sea this morning, Karla arranged a volunteers only cage diving trip tomorrow morning, then a trip out to the South African Shark Conservancy (SASC) on Hermanus after that. The trip should also include snorkeling in the Hermanus area, which is about an hour away and supposed to be beautiful, and having lunch at a restaurant out there.

            The volunteers that have already been here awhile have said that the volunteer only cage diving trips are the best ones, and SASC is a really nice area to visit. Tomorrow should be a really great day, and I’m sure I’ll bring my camera along for the ride. I pretty much feel like the luckiest girl in the world right now.

            That’s enough for now. Tomorrow’s shaping up to be a really busy day, but I’ll try to make time for another blog post. This post’s food for thought: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”- Mark Twain