This year I received quite an unusual Christmas card from Myrna & Gene, who I’d met whilst sailing aboard the Soren Larssen in the Pacific Ocean – they related some of their latest adventures and I thought I share some of them with you, as there’s plenty of travel related detail in what they had to say. The Ant!!

As we were in South Africa at Christmas, our greetings to all of you are a little late! We were gone from mid-Oct. until the end of Jan. sailing as crew from Madagascar to Mozambique through part of the Bazarito Archipelago and on to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique before heading to Richards Bay & Durban in South Africa. The sailing vessel we were on was a 40′ sloop named “Juno” captained by Tom Hildebrandt, who had been on the boat since he bought it in Australia in 2004. School teacher Frances from San Francisco joined us in Madagascar and participated as crew until we reached Maputo. We helped with all manner of jobs whilst on board – from sailing the boat, scrubbing decks as well as the sides of the boat, stood watch, baked bread, cook meals, washed clothes in buckets on deck and helped with repairs as directed by the skipper.

On a small boat quarters are cramped, water is at a premium and mainly used for drinking & cooking, refrigeration is very limited and provisions are shopped for & brought to the dinghy and taken to the boat at anchor. On boats there is always something breaking down…just in the time that we were aboard “Juno” the boom broke off the mast, the windlass for bringing up the anchor chain quit working, the water intake plugged and the engine overheated & part of it melted! As a result we stayed tied up to the wharf in Richards Bay for a month while most of the major repairs were made. During this time Gene and I took off for two weeks to explore inland. Lyn from Malule Safaris took us to some wonderful nature reserves and escorted us personally through Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park, Dumazulu Cultural Village, the greater St. Lucia Wetland Estuary & Reserve and Kruger National Park. We saw white rhinoceros’s, elephants, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, cape buffalo, hippos, crocodiles, nyala, duikers, water buck, warthogs, baboons, monkeys, hyenas, elands, steinboks, lions, leopards, and a great variety of birds. We also went up to the pinnacle at Blyde River Canyon to see the spectacular view from what is called God’s window. The day after our tour was completed Lyn took us to the farm where she grew up to meet her mom and dad and they invited us for Christmas dinner. What a treat!!!

We spent 6 days and nights at Imhambri Lodge in Meerensee which was a delightful place to stay. From here we were able to walk to the Methodist Church close by for a Christmas carol sing-a-long and a potluck Christmas morning service. They truly made us feel welcome. Back to the boat by the end of December and after two weeks we reached Durban, where we again were able to tie up to the wharf. Here we made friends with a number of the other yachties and were able to take real showers at their club. We also took a couple of day tours – one to The Giants Castle in the Drakensburg mountains to see the San bushman rock art paintings from thousands of years ago and the other to explore historic Pietermaritzburg & Howick Falls. The big thrill was to be zip lined on a canopy tour over the Karkloof falls and forest – what a ride harnessed and zipping along on the cable to eight different platforms.

We decided to get off the boat on 16th January and caught the backpackers Baz Bus to Capetown, where we had a marvellous eight days in Cape Town and then two days in Simons Town on the beach. Our spots visited list included the top of Table Mountain in the Cable Cars, a winery tour and walk through the Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens. There are frequent power outages in Cape Town and one night the tourists in the cable cars had to be rescued by the Search & Rescue team by crawling out the hatch on the top of the car and then being lowered down in harnesses & ropes to safety far below! Eating conjured up a number of good restaurants – my favourite being “Mama Africa” where I had crocodile kabobs and Gene had springbok steak! Our last two days were spent near the beach at Top Sails lodge in Simons Town where The Boulders National Park, spending a delightful day on the beach with the penguins, protected by the large boulders so the wind which always blows wasn’t quite as strong.

Love and have a very happy New Year! Myrna and Gene