Mossel Bay, South Africa

New-to-us port #31.

The plan for this tender port was to go a-wander and see what we could see. Maybe have lunch at a restaurant overlooking the Indian Ocean.

We went ashore on the first tender, picked up a map from the information kiosk set up on the tender pier, and headed to the Bartolomeu Dias Museum Complex, dedicated to the Portuguese explorer who, in 1488, made the first recorded sailing around the Cape of Good Hope.

The woman handing out the maps wasn’t sure the museum would be open. But, with a ship in town, perhaps they had made an exception. Nope … they had not. Turns out that the museum is closed two days of the year — Christmas and Good Friday. Yup, you guessed it. Today was Good Friday … a fact that had completely escaped us.

So we went for a long walk on the hard-packed sand on Santos Beach.

The good news is that when we went by the museum again after our walk, the door was open. A caretaker had come to feed the fish in the aquarium and said that we could take a quick peek in return for a donation. Alrighty then. We’d already seen the 500 year old post office tree and the botanical garden. By going inside, we added the full-size replica of the Dias caravel to our sightseeing.

From the museum, we continued to The Point … the rocky foreshore below the St Blaize Lighthouse. Our destination was Delfino’s a seafood restaurant … recommended by the woman at the museum. What with it being Good Friday, we weren’t sure if they could seat us. They did … but even if they had not been able to, the long walk would have been worth it. The scenery was spectacular, with natural swim holes protected from the rough surf of the ocean by big boulders over which the waves exploded in a froth of white.

We had just finished our meal when our friend CD Ray arrived at Delfino’s with his friend, Sandra. They joined us for drinks and dessert before we moved on to complete our walk to the tip of the rocks. What amazing scenery. We stayed a while, watching people swimming in the natural swim holes … jumping off platforms into the roiling water as the waves crashed on the rocks. Mui might have joined them had he brought his swim trunks with him.

We walked back into the city via a slightly different route … just as quiet as the first route we had followed. With the city pretty much shut down for Good Friday, we decided to head back to the tender pier. By 4:00p, we were “home” … with time on our hands to rest before dinner at the Polo Grill.

Another great day in Africa. Next up … some R&R at sea.Read more