December 10, 2009 - Kruger National Park, South Africa

Talk about wish fulfillment. Last year, while visiting friends in Washington D.C., we saw an exhibit at the Smithsonian that fired our desire to go on safari in Africa. It was a very lifelike model of a leopard in a tree with a kill. We looked up at it and said "I wanna see that." We didn't realize what a big ask that would be.

In the wild, leopards are among the hardest of the cats to spot. They hunt at night. During the day, they rest in trees or in tall grasses. Seeing a leopard with a kill is even more unlikely. At Yala in Sri Lanka, we didn't have any luck spotting a leopard. In South Africa, it took us 3 days in the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi to see one. But here in the southern section of Kruger National Park, we have had the most unbelievable luck spotting leopards.

Our first afternoon in the park we were driving along and came across three cars parked on the side of the road. We pulled up behind them, but couldn't see anything in the dense bush. So we rolled forward. At the front of the line of cars, we pulled back over to the side of the road. I scanned deep into the bush with the "close lookers". And there she was; a big, beautiful leopard. Sten had just enough time to focus his camera and get a shot off before she got up and stalked off.

The following morning we were driving along the S28 south of Lower Sabie camp. We were seeing lots of game, including dozens of elephants, buffalo, zebra, giraffe, rhinos, and baboons, but no cats. We had come nearly to the end of the road when a pickup truck passed us, slowed down, and stopped to ask what we were looking at. We chatted for a minute then asked if they had seen any cheetahs or leopards. The driver responded that they had, just a few kilometers back. Sten swung the car around and headed back the way we had come. There, deep in a tree just 30 meters back from the road was a leopard. Even if we hadn't seen it this time, we would have picked up the road spoor - tire tracks showing where others had pulled over.

As we sat there, looking at her gorgeous coat, several other cars pulled up. The word was out. Soon we were in the middle of a classic Kruger traffic jam as a dozen cars parked all over the road, trying for the best angle, blocking the flow of traffic. We could see why this section of the park is called "the circus." Eventually, the leopard had enough of the commotion, jumped down out of the tree, and stalked off, looking decidedly grumpy.

A few hours later, we drove back by the tree to see if she had returned. We were in luck. Not only was she back, but she had brought dinner with her. A small antelope hung draped over a branch of the tree. As we watched, through a decidedly obscured view, we could see her head shaking back and forth as she ripped at the flesh of the antelope. It was getting late and the crowd thinned enough for us to get a good angle into the tree. We could have watched her for hours, but we had to get back to our lodging at Lower Sabie before the camp gates closed.

A leopard guarding her dinner - the small dukier draped over the branch between her legs

December 8, 2009 - Nelspruit, South Africa

If there is one thing that Sten and I are both really bad at it is waiting for weather. We both get very antsy sitting around waiting for a suitable weather window. If we are in a lovely tropical locale where we can swim and snorkel in clean water and fish for our dinner, we can usually occupy ourselves for a week or so before going completely stir crazy. In Richards Bay, where our biggest diversion is the local shopping mall, we lasted all of three days (during which we rerigged our repaired jib, rebedded the chainplates, and restitched the bimini) before we (ran out of projects and) needed to get (the hell) out of dodge.

Unfortunately, the weather forecasts aren't projecting a window that would allow us to get south for at least a week. So rather than doing something silly like heading offshore in 25 knot headwinds (ala our trip south from the Seychelles), we decided to go stalk some game. Within three hours of realizing that we couldn't take the boat anywhere for a while, we had booked accommodations for four nights in Kruger National Park (one of the best places in the world to see wildlife), extended our rental car lease, packed the car with enough gear to drive around the South Island of New Zealand, and were on our way.

The drive north towards Kruger took us the rest of the day. Skirting the edge of Swaziland as we took the most direct route that wouldn't violate our car rental agreement, we ran afoul of one road construction project after another, adding hours to our trip. The mountainous scenery around us was gorgeous but we were getting nervous that we wouldn't get to our hotel for the night before dark.

After our prior two South African road trips we swore not to drive at night if we could avoid it. The roads here are just too narrow for the speeds at which people travel. Major highways in this region aren't divided, and there are long sections that are only one lane in each direction. So vehicles ease into the shoulder to give passing vehicles half a lane in which to pass them. It is terribly unnerving to find yourself straddling two lanes of a national highway with a truck rumbling along in the shoulder next to you and another coming right towards you. Throw into the mix the ever present hitchhikers and fruit sellers standing right on the side of the road and groups of people walking along the shoulder, and it is no wonder that the vehicular homicide rate in South Africa is so high.

December 3, 2009 - The Drakensberg

When our South African cruising friends George and Colleen invited us to join them and Colleen's daughters for a drive up the Sani Pass, a legendary 4x4 track linking the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal to the mountain kingdom of Lesotho, we jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately, the weather since we arrived in Richard's Bay has been pretty unpleasant. The trip up Sani Pass is difficult in the best of weather, but in the mist and fog it would be foolhardy. So we had to wait for a good day for it.

While we waited for the rain to let up, we spent a night at a really nice guest house in a reasonably safe part of Durban, enjoying dinner at a sidewalk cafe as the rain dripped off the awning over our heads. The next day, after stopping in at the Quantum sail loft to check on the progress of the repairs on our headsail, we made a trip to Victoria Market with friends on s/v Blue Sky, which was anchored in Durban harbor. Sten was disappointed to see how sanitized Victoria Market had become in the 12 years since last visited. When he was last here the place was like a scene out of Bladerunner, with vendors were selling monkey heads, witchdoctor supplies, and unusual game. Now it is filled with shops selling spices, wood carvings, ostrich eggs, elephant leg stools, beaded jewelry and other souveniers.

After the market we went in search of a renowned roti joint - Johnie's Sunrise Cafe. Johnie's is the destination of choice in Durban for late night partiers in search of something to set them right. At noon it was a bit tamer, but the rotis and bunny chows (hollowed out loaf of bread filled with curry) were still delicious. With our bellies stuffed with curried goodness we headed out of town towards the mountains. But the steady rain made the driving too difficult. We only got as far as Pietermaritzburg before calling it. We found a cozy backpackers in which to spend the night and a nice Italian joint for dinner.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to drive out to Kamberg for a morning hike up into the mountains to see the famous San rock-art paintings at Game Pass Cave. The mist that dogged us all the way out to the foothills of the Drakensberg became a cold rain as we reached the park entrance. But we were determined to make the most of the day. We changed into long pants and raincoats and joined our Zulu guide.

As we hiked up the mountain, following a narrow trail, the rain continued to fall. We couldn't see much but the water dripping off the brims of our hats and the wildflowers at our feet. In the distance we could hear baboons warning each other of our approach. Half way up the mountain our guide stopped to point out the surrounding mountain peaks and tell us of their spiritual importance to the local Zulus. As we stared out into the heavy grey mist, which obscured everything more than a few meters away from us, we had to take his word for the fact that we were surrounded by soaring mountain peaks.

The Zulus call the Drakensberg mountains the "Barrier of Spears." The KZN tourism board calls them the "Dragon Mountains." Sten and I call them the "Drak," which just cracks up George and Colleen. For tens of thousands of years these mountains were the home of hunter-gatherers known as the San or Bushmen. Two thousand years ago Bantu farmers moved into the region. Somehow, the two groups were able to coexist. Then white settlers moved into the region, annexing the San's traditional hunting lands for farms. When the San began stealing cattle from the farmers, the white settlers reacted by hunting the San. By the 1870's there were no more Bushmen left in South Africa. In the Drakensberg all that remains of the San are some of their words, which are characterized by a distinctive clicking sound and which have found their way into the Zulu and Xhosa languages spoken today, and the paintings they made on rocks throughout the region.

The paintings at Game Pass Cave depict the thin veil that existed between the spiritual world and the material world for the San. The panels feature images of hunting and dancing. The trance dance was the San's most important religious ritual. The San believed that the heightened state of awareness that they achieved during the trance dance allowed them to journey into the spiritual realm to harness supernatural powers.

Many of the panels feature eland, a large antelope that was very important to the San people. Due to the eland's high fat content, it was considered to be a very powerful animal. Several panels depict shaman absorbing power from dying eland.

The San mixed ocher and eland blood to make the paint they used in their rock art. By layering image upon image, the San believed that they increased the spiritual potency of their art. Perhaps it was only the heightened state of awareness that I had achieved due to hyperventilation and oxygen deprivation by the time we had reached the mountain top, but hundreds of years later, the images still seem to vibrate with power.

Once we were back down the mountain and had changed into dry clothing, we set off towards Underberg to meet up with George and Colleen. We tried to take the unimproved road that skirts the very bottom of the mountains. But it was so rough that we were afraid of blowing out a tire, so we turned back towards the highway. Along the way we spotted a blackbacked jackal running across a field, a lucky sighting of a normally nocturnal animal.

We arrived at Castleburn just in time to toast the sunset (which we couldn't see in the rain) with champagne and look for the otters that live in the lake by the resort. After the best showers we've had in months we joined George, Colleen and the girls for dinner. Colleen's curry and her youngest daughter's bread alone were worth the drive to get there, and we still had the prospect of making it to Lesotho in the morning to look forward to.

The next morning the sun finally peeked out. Within a few hours the mist had burned out of the valley. Colleen called to tell us that the trip up the Sani Pass was a go. We grabbed a few extra layers of clothing, binoculars, two cameras and a three day supply of Diet Coke (emergency rations) and hurried over to their chalet.

As we headed towards the South African border post Sarah, Colleen's eldest, attempted to teach me some basic conversational Zulu. My attempts to speak Zulu cracked up the girls, particularly as my mouth, of its own volition, kept pronouncing the words with a bad Italian accent. I'd better stick to the Afrikaans phrases that Colleen has taught me.

After stamping out of South Africa, we followed the road up the mountain. All around us were undulating green hills, leading up to soaring pinnacles of rock. The scenery was just breathtaking. It was also very windy as denoted by Sten's backward lean in the above photo. Each time we stopped to take photos, Abigail, Colleen's wild child, entertained us by wriggling out through one of the rear windows.

The road was also breathtaking. It is little more than a one lane gravel track, switchbacking its way up a deep valley and then up the mountainside. At one point the road was so steep that six of us had to get out and walk so that George could get the vehicle up the track.

As we ascended, we passed a pair of Basotho shepherds, leading a flock of goats down the mountain. We also passed a quartet of hikers, who seemed ill-equipped for the trek in trainers and running shorts - but who are we to criticize? Our hiking gear usually consists of flipflops and baseball hats.

The top of the mountain is a cold, barren, windswept place. The Basotho we saw were all wearing knit ski masks to keep warm, not the woven straw hats sold in the tourist shop. It is so windy that the outhouses are held in place with guy wires. After getting our passports stamped at the border post we hustled over to the Sani Top Chalet for hot soup and toasted sandwiches.

The view from the top

After lunch we cleared back out of Lesotho and headed down the mountain. As we descended, Colleen spotted a wreck of a vehicle that hadn't managed to stay on the road, a chilling sight that served as warning to take it slow on our way back down.

Back in Castleburn, Colleen prepared some veggies, George fired up the braai, and we opened some wine and revisited the highlights of the day. After dinner the girls attempted to educate Sten and me about South African rock and pop music. And then somehow we ended up pushing back the furniture to clear room for some tradititional Afrikaner dancing called sokkie.

The following morning I discovered that it is dangerous to fall behind on a "wee walkie" with George and Sten. As I was wheezing my way up the hill, gathering wildflowers, the two of them started to plot an ascent on the ridge above us.

"The view from the top is unbelievable!"

And suddenly a two hour hike turned into a five hour long expedition. The steep climb up to the ridgeline was difficult (particularly for me), but once up there, the going got much easier as we followed a game trail along the edge of the ridge. The grasses and flowers up top were so varied and beautiful that we were all stopping to check them out.

By the time we reached the serpentine stream feeding the waterfall that we had seen as we began our walk, we were all parched. As we lapped water from the stream, we spotted little frogs and caterpillars among the grassy riverbanks. Meanwhile, George began to plot our descent.

We picked a spot and began to ease ourselves down through the rockfall just below the ridgeline. As we navigated our way among the boulders on tired legs, I found the going to be incredibly difficult. George and Sten kept stopping to wait for me, resting as they did. But by the time I reached them, we needed to get moving again. Finally, I had to just stop and rest. I was afraid that otherwise I was going to make a mistake and end up spraining an ankle.

How do I get myself into these situations?

George pushed on ahead, scouting a good route down. Sten waited just below, to keep an eye on my progress. Then, as I bent down to tie my sneaker, I caught sight of a pair of reedbuck, a medium-sized antelope, running across the valley below us, likely flushed by George as he descended into the valley.

Our impromptu trek ended with us staggering through waist-high grasses that in times past would have held leopard and other such beasts that would find us a mere snack. Luckily, by the time we got back to the chalet, Colleen had some fab fried pancakes ready to cook for Sten and George, who by this time were famished. I was too close to hurling from exhaustion to partake. We had a most excellent time in the Drakensberg and really appreciate George and Colleen letting us crash their family vacation.

November 26, 2009 - Thanksgiving

Not being able to be with our family this year for Thanksgiving was a real bummer for us, but we were not about to let being in South Africa stop us from doing this very American holiday up right. We were determined to have a traditional feast with all the fixins: turkey and gravy, Silver Palate stuffing, Gourmet golden creamed pearl onions, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, something green, and apple pie a la mode. The only consternation was fitting a bird big enough to feed 8 people into our tiny oven. Measurements were made. Dry fits were undertaken. It was going to be close. Then, mere hours before the turkey had to go into the oven, my sister introduced us to the wonders of spatchcocking (which isn't nearly as dirty as it sounds).

Basically, this process turns a big, bulky bird into one which is mostly flat. First, Sten cut out the backbone and cleaned out the insides. Then he flipped the bird over and broke its breastbone which achieved the desired flattening. After positioning it on a baking tray, we dressed it up with a cape and booties, to protect it from the back and sides of the oven, which it would be pressing right up against. Then we tossed it in the oven and served the first round of cocktails to our guests.

Because we are in South Africa, it seemed only right to use Cane, a spirit created in the sugar cane fields of KwaZulu-Natal, as the base of our Thanksgiving Day punch. Mixed with a cranberry-rosemary syrup, garnished with cranberries skewered on rosemary branches, the punch was a festive blend of traditional New England and South African flavors. And pretty tasty too.

Is it just me or does this bird look like it is wearing a superhero costume? Perhaps its super power is the ability to cause people everywhere to slip into a tryptophan induced coma.

Flattened out on a baking tray, the bird cooked really fast, staying moist and delicious. Because the spatchcocked bird cooked in a third of the time a turkey normally takes, this technique saved gobs of cooking gas and kept the closed up boat from becoming a sauna. Unfortunately, it finished cooking way before we were ready for it. There was a last minute scramble as Sten mashed potatoes by hand and I tried and failed to make gravy (luckily, our friend Colleen stepped in and saved the day).

With our South African cruising friends George and Colleen off of s/v Affirmation and American friends off of s/v Someday Came, we feasted late into the night.

November 24, 2009 - Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Park

These past four days have been amazing. Now, we've done and seen some pretty cool things these past three years, but rarely have so many cool experiences happened in quick succession. On Saturday we stood in an enclosure at an endangered wild cat rescue center, not ten feet from a cheetah eating a big hunk of zebra meat. That night, as we ate our dinner at a bush camp, a family of bushbabies leaped around the branches over our heads. Early the following morning we drove into the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Park and Wilderness Area where we would spend the next three days hunting the Big Five with our cameras.

Over the next few hours, from the comfort of our rental car we spotted dozens of zebra, giraffe, blue wildebeest, warthogs, baboons, impala, nyala, white rhino, and buffalo. Just before stopping for lunch, we were crossing a low bridge when we came abreast of a big bull elephant eating the leaves off a tree next to the road. We stopped to watch him and take a few pictures. We must have been too close for his comfort because he started moving towards us. Frozen by the fact that there was a huge wall of grey pachyderm with long white tusks coming towards us, ears flapping away, I completely failed to take any pictures. Sten, reacting more quickly, dropped his camera gear, got the car in gear, and swung us out around the elephant just as he stepped into the road to cross the bridge. We stopped the car a few yards away and stared at each other for a few seconds, wrapping our heads around the fact that we'd just been herded by an elephant, before Sten spun the car around to follow him down the road.

Self-driving (as opposed to going on a 4x4 tour) allowed us to do the park at our own pace. But the only way to see animals at night is to do a night drive in one of the park's vehicles. The only way to do a night drive is to stay in the park. So late that afternoon we checked into our accommodations at Mpila Camp. We would spend two nights in a permanent raised tent with an attached shower and adjoining kitchen connected by a wooden walkway. The camp is not fenced. Wild animals regularly wander through the area. As we checked in we were given a mobile number to call in case we needed any assistance during the night. The receptionist wasn't explicit about what we would need help with, but she emphasized several times that if we needed any help at all to just call and the staff would take care of "anything." A sign in our kitchen was much more forthcoming as it warned parents not to leave their children unattended lest they get carried off by a hyena. Hyena are also known to steal meat off of the braai (bbq) next to the tents. Upon returning to the marina in Richard's Bay, we would learn that last year a local man had been scalped by a leopard as he tended his braai at Mpila Camp. The bush grows quite close to the tents, and it is easy to imagine a big cat lurking in the grasses waiting for an easy meal.

After a shower and changing into long pants and sleeves, we joined 10 other people in the back of a large truck for a night drive. We'd already seen a massive amount of game that day, including three of the Big Five (buffalo, rhino, and elephant), and had hopes of seeing the remaining two (lion and leopard) during the drive. Well, we didn't see any cats, but we saw several other fierce predators, including a pack of wild dogs (we saw approximately 20 of the 500 remaining in the whole of South Africa) and a skulking spotted hyena. The other two highlights of the drive were seeing a rare black rhino (the only one we would see during our stay in the park) wading into the river to bathe at sunset and a herd of 40 or so buffalo blocking the road well after dark. By the time we returned to the camp at 7:30, we were completely wiped out from a long day of spotting game.

Kitchen on the left, sleeping tent with attached bathroom on the right...and hyenas in the bush?

Back at the camp we discovered that we (alright, I) had left the light on in the sleeping tent before we left for the drive. Unfortunately, I'd also left the door to the bathroom open. That was when I discovered that the bathroom wasn't screened in (deep eaves had obscured that fact from me before) and that we now had half of the insect population of iMfolozi inside our tent. This was a little closer than I'd wanted to get to nature. But as staying in the tent had been my idea and their presence there my fault, I couldn't very well make a fuss about it. So I turned off the light, left the bathroom door open and went to the separate kitchen to pour us each a glass of Cabernet. Meanwhile, Sten was lighting the braai in the clearing next to the tent. As he grilled a tenderloin of beef he kept his back to the kitchen and one eye on the bush around him. As we ate, we debated whether the can of mace I carry in my bag would be of any use against a hyena or wild dog. That night I woke to the sound of a hyena barking outside our tent. I eventually fell back asleep, but I must have spent the rest of the night with one eye open; when I woke the next morning the contact in my right eye was firmly glued to my eyeball.

Our second day in the park proved to be very frustrating. We were parked by a watering hole, watching a family of white rhino rolling in the mud when a second car pulled in next to us. About five minutes later we heard some very excited noises coming from the vehicle and one of the passengers turned to us and asked "Did you see it? Did you see the lion?" Apparently a lion had walked right by, but we were blocked from seeing it by their car. We spent a while longer at the watering hole waiting to see if it would pass by again, and once we got very excited when something emerged from the trees, but it turned out to be a warthog.

Not a lion

A few hours later, we were having an early lunch at a picnic spot when we ran into the folks who had seen the lion again. The first thing one of them said to us was "Did you see the leopard?" She went on to explain that they had just turned left out of the turnoff to the watering hole when a leopard loped across the road. Now, leopards are very rarely spotted during the day doing anything but sleeping in trees. We asked if it wasn't a cheetah. But no, she had the photo to prove that it was a leopard. So within a period of ten minutes these people had seen two of the Big Five. We had been right there and seen neither. I was so envious I might have been turning green. As she walked away I muttered under my breath to Sten "I hate these people a little bit." We packed up our stuff and headed off to continue our hunt for cats.

By mid afternoon we were starting to think that the only cat we would see was the big piece of Caterpillar machinery that was fixing one of the roads. Then at one of the river overlooks, where we were scanning the reeds hoping to see a lion, a young woman came up to us and asked if we had seen the cheetah sitting under a tree a few kilometers back. We stared at her crestfallen, wondering how we had managed to miss another cat. We must have looked devastated. She took pity on us and proceeded to give us very precise instructions on where it was. We hopped back in the car and, as instructed, turned left at the Do Not Enter sign, drove back 2.4 kilometers, and then slowed to a crawl, scanning the underbrush. There, right where she had said it would be, sat a cheetah. We were at least a hundred yards from the animal, but somehow seeing one in the wild was an even more intense experience than being in the enclosure with the cheetah at the rescue center two days prior. We sat there for ages, watching this big cat roll around, play with its tail (just like a housecat), and clean itself. Then it sensed something tasty nearby. We could see its whole body tense up. Sten rolled the car forward as we tried to follow the hunting cat, but eventually it went too deep into the trees for us to see it, even with a powerful pair of binoculars.

We spent a few more hours driving the unpaved roads in the southwest corner of the park looking for lions. There were very few other vehicles around. We were so pleased to be mostly on our own in a beautiful piece of country. We didn't see any lions, but we enjoyed seeing baby impala, which are just all legs and ears, and kudu, an antelope with spectacular spiraling horns. We also saw many of the tiny creatures including the very cool dung beetle and grass hoppers six inches long and colored like a circus clown. The park is filled with many cool and unusual birds, ranging from small colorful finches, which build upside down teardrop-shaped nests, to huge eagles and vultures. As the afternoon wore on, we saw several young male impala sparring in preparation for mating season. As we made our way back to camp for the night, the light was low and casting a beautiful golden hue across the hills. The day had been interesting, but frustrating. It was great to see the cheetah, but we were both somewhat dejected about not having spotted any cats on our own. Hot showers and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc were on order.

Now that's a rack

That night I was woken by the sound of a wild dog crying outside our tent. A moment later a chorus of voices answered from the opposite side of the tent. I was shocked awake by the disconcerting realization that we were sleeping in the middle of a pack of wild dogs on the hunt. The dogs proceeded to call back and forth to each other as the two groups converged next to us. I was afraid to make a noise and imagined that Sten was lying there feeling the same way. Eventually they moved on and I whispered into the darkness "that was a little close for comfort." When Sten didn't respond, I realized he had slept through it. A few hours later, I could hear the pack hunting just down the hill from us. Again, Sten slept on. As I lay there in the dark I thought about the fact that there are only five thousand of these critically endangered carnivores left in the world. I felt so privileged to have shared a small slice of the wilderness with them for a night. In the morning I discovered that once again one of my eyeballs had a contact glued to it. I groggily got up to make coffee as Sleepyhead continued to burrow under his covers.

In the hide

We packed up the car and headed back to the watering hole to look for a lion. At this point we had given up on the notion of seeing a leopard and were just hoping for a lion. We saw lots of game that morning, including dozens of rhinos, but still no cats.

During our three days in the park we probably saw fifty rhino; mamas, babies and some very big bulls. These things are absolutely immense and prehistoric. As our friend George says, "add a horn to its head and few fins to its back and you've got a Triceratops." While most of the time they act like massive lawnmowers, grazing on the grasses at their feet, if they feel threatened, they will charge a vehicle. One of the yachties we know has the dents in his rental car to prove it. We were amazed by the sheer number of rhino we saw over three days. We were even more amazed when we learned that a century ago there were only 20 white rhino left in the park. But thanks to the conservationists, the park is now rife with rhino. There are now so many rhino at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi that they are regularly captured and sold to other parks and zoos around the world. By the third day of our visit to the park we were a little abashed to be finding ourselves driving by families of rhino in our quest to spot a big cat.

Just before noon on our last day in the park we were driving by a watering hole when I caught a glimpse of a distinctive profile out of the corner of my eye. I turned to Sten and, with a big grin spreading across on my face, said "go back." By my expression alone, he knew I'd seen a lion. We reversed, and there it was, 100 yards away, just sitting there, in the shade of a big tree, giving us the full Abe Lincoln. And then we both did something very stupid. Sten grabbed his camera and the monopod and climbed out to take a picture. And I, who had been holding it for way too long, got out to pee on a bush. The lion took one look at us and got up and sauntered away. Smart lion. Stupid people. So we sat there for a while, eating lunch, and hoping against hope that it would come back. But the lion was smarter than that and eventually we moved on. So our only encounter with a lion was short-lived, but it was very gratifying to spot it ourselves after many long hours of hard looking.

We had spent most of the prior two days in the southern section of the park, which is very arid, and home to more game. So we decided to exit the park at the northern gate and revisit the section we drove through on our first morning in the park. We weren't expecting much, but our last few hours in the park provided us with some incredible encounters. We saw a large group of giraffes grazing the treetops, several more rhino families, some large lizards, and a couple of elephant. Unfortunately for Sten, he was having trouble enjoying himself as I had decided that the park roads would be the perfect place for me to practice driving stick. He was paying too much attention to my driving to spot game and I was paying too much attention to the bush to stay on the left side of the road. Luckily, there weren't many other vehicles on the roads.

Giraffe - cheaper by the dozen

As the sun was setting, we were driving along a dirt track close to the park exit when we passed a 4x4 from one of the private game parks that fringe the park. The guide flagged us down and asked if we'd seen the leopard. When we said we hadn't, he gave us directions to the spot where they'd just seen one. We thanked him profusely and then I stalled the car in my excitement to get to the leopard. With an embarrassed wave to the passengers in the back of the 4x4 we took off. Even in the dim light, the leopard was easy to spot among the sparse foliage of a tall tree 400 yards off the road. I don't know that we would have seen it but I'd like to thing we would have, though probably not with me driving and Sten busy watching me driving.

We spent the rest of the evening watching the leopard. It was high in a tree, looking down on a herd of zebra grazing nearby. A leopard won't usually take a zebra, but there was a baby in the herd that it might have found tempting. We didn't get to see if anything developed as eventually we had to race to the park gate to get there before the park closed for the night. As we changed into warmer clothing for the drive home we were both bubbling with excitement. It had taken us until the last hour of our last day in the park, but we finally saw a leopard, giving us a true Big Five experience.

The Big Five are pretty awesome, but the little stuff is just as interesting

African Wildcats at Emdoneni Lodge - They may look like housecats, but don't be fooled, the cage is there for your protection, not theirs

Yes, that is on odifforous pile of buffalo dung on which those butterflies are alighting. Being on safari is a feast for all the senses.

Madagascar Photos - Part One

As wonderfully convenient as it is to use our phone for internet access, it is a really slow way to load photos to the blog. So while Sten has been messing with the rigging, I've been spending lots of time in a little two seater internet cafe uploading our Madagascar pictures. Just looking at the photos makes me want to go back. Whales, lemurs, stunning scenery, beautiful people, excellent trading, and Sten dancing with a tequila bottle. What a place! Click here to see what we've been raving about: Magical Madagascar.

November 19, 2009 - Pressure Drop

Yet another benefit of being beamy: Not having to share a slip

Our week began with a traumatic trip to Durban for Sten (he saw dead people) and a most wonderful visit from some cruising friends who live nearby. Despite the dismal weather we've been having here, George and Colleen off of s/v Affirmation were determined to give us a proper welcome to South Africa. So in the cold and the rain they made their way up to Richard's Bay from their home outside of Durban, loaded down with bottles and bottles of luscious South African wine, a container of dukka, an aromatic North African mix of nuts and spices that they first introduced us to in Chagos, and a welcome gift bag full of other local goodies they wanted us to try, including Rooibos tea and Eet-sum-mor biscuits. No mere monsoon was going to keep these guys from a joll (party).

At some point that evening (long about our third bottle), Sten arrived back from Durbs looking completely frazzled and talking a mile a minute about bodies and engines. We poured a beer into him and took him up to Captain Cook's Restaurant (home of the Captain Burger) for a comforting plate of fish and chips. The next morning we had a very American feast of waffles with maple syrup, before sending our South African friends off to their next joll.

We've been busy the past few days doing jobs around the boat. The rigger has picked up our broken inner forestay and is making us a new one. We are eliminating the big lever quick disconnect on the forestay and adding a toggle at the bottom which should eliminate the fatigue bending that caused the failure in the first place. As an added bonus, the staysail bag will be closer to the deck when stowed.

During a brief lull in the weather, we got the headsail down (the one that failed on the way here) and found broken threads on the crosscut seams that hold several other of the panels together. Since the problem was so extensive (it would have taken me days to hand stitch it), we sent the sail down to Quantum - Durban for an evaluation and a quick repair. Depending on what they say we will look into getting a new headsail in Cape Town. Quantum's worldwide production loft is there and apparently the prices should be quite reasonable as compared to other parts of the world. So, our plan now is to hold off on the minor repairs to the main and all the canvas work we need done until we get to Cape Town where the loft is close to the boat.

Today, while I was off enjoying a spa day with the ladies off of three other boats, Sten and the boys had quite an exciting time of it in the marina. A small low developed unexpectedly and delivered 50+ knots and heavy rain for several hours. Because we aren't sitting at anchor on a mooring, we don't turn with the wind. Here in a slip, we are subject to cross breezes. During the squall, our escapist cockpit cushions were keen to take flight. After recovering several from the side deck, Sten brought them all down below, soaking wet or not.

The docks here are not too friendly with lots of metal edges and sharp corners. The wind was pushing us hard onto our fenders and it looked like several were loosing air so Sten was getting concerned as the wind kept increasing. There is no one next to us and we have a line across to the other finger pier to reduce the pressure on our fenders. This was bar tight but still not holding us off the close finger dock. During the blow, Sten managed to change this line around and get it onto the port side staysail winch and take some of the pressure off the fenders using the mechanical advantage of the winch.

While Sten was chasing cushions and trying to keep our fenders from popping, the guys tied to the dock behind us were running their engines in full reverse, trying to keep their dock and their bows from getting any closer to our stern. The whole situation was pretty sketchy. One just doesn't expect marina docks to move as much as these do.

We're not the only boat here with stays off for repair. During the blow several masts around us were doing their best impression of spaghetti. One crew member was so freaked out that she crawled over a buckled section of the dock on her hands and knees to get to shore. Meanwhile, back at the spa, we were all blissfully unaware of the drama.

Interestingly, during the blow, our wind gauge stayed in the high 30's while others saw gusts in the high 40's and even 53 knots several times. This really makes us question the velocities of some of the winds we've previously seen.

Changes in the weather come amazingly fast here. Sten commented today that watching the charting barometer is like looking at a roller coaster. Things are supposed to mellow as the summer takes hold. We're going to head off on Saturday to do some touring by car while we wait for things to settle down before we attempt to move down the coast.

November 14, 2009 - Technical Genius

Please excuse me as I take a moment here to toot my own horn. I just managed to do something that has me so impressed with myself that I simply have to share. I just turned our cell phone into a dial-up modem for the computer. Now, for most people my age, this wouldn't have been that big of an accomplishment, but for me, well, this is a major deal. I can barely text on the phone (I continue to be handicapped by my early adoption of the blackberry), and updating our antivirus software every once in a while is about as technical as I get with our computer. So, when our friend Karin told me that I could use my phone to get internet access, and began to describe in intricate detail how to do it, using terms like "data bundles," "drivers," "3G," and "settings," my eyes started to glaze over. She had to explain it to me several times, but eventually it took.

Here is what I did:

1. Bought a SIM card from Vodacom, the local telecom company
2. Bought a lot of pre-paid airtime
3. Through the phone's menu, transferred most of those minutes to data bundles
4. Downloaded a software driver for our phone from Motorola.com so that the phone would speak to the computer
5. Called up Vodacom and had them walk me through the rest of the set up steps
6. Plugged the phone into our laptop via a USB cable that came with our Canon camera and just happened to fit the phone too

This all took a little while, but now our GSM cell phone is functioning as a dial-up modem. It isn't terribly fast, but I can read the New York Times, while sipping a cup of coffee, in the comfort of my own (floating) home. Moreover, we are now set up to have internet access for the next three months as we work our way down and around the coast of South Africa.

The process would have been somewhat simplified if we had a newer model of phone, which would typically have come with a disc containing the necessary driver software. If we had a 3G phone, our data speed would be faster. If I was used to Broadband, the slow speed would be driving me batty. But as we haven't had any internet at all since we left the Seychelles two months ago, we're not awfully picky at the moment about how fast pages open.

The most amazing thing about this whole process (other than the fact that I, a person who really does feel lost without a 24 hour IT help desk at my beck and call, managed to pull it off), is the level of service I got from the phone company. I don't know much about South Africa yet, but I can tell you that the service personnel at their telecom company put the service department at every American phone company I've ever dealt with to shame. They not only answered the phone, which is a minor miracle in and of itself, but they gave me clear (once they switched to speaking English from Afrikans), precise instructions on how to modify the phone's settings and my computer's settings to make the system work. Maybe monopolies aren't such a bad thing after all.

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November 12, 2009 - South Africa Arrival

With our bellies full of bacon cheeseburgers and ice cream and Mata'irea tied safely to a dock in Tuzi Gazi Marina, Richard's Bay, I'm happy to report that the last leg of our trip down the Mozambique Channel was practically drama-free. The coastal low turned out to be weaker than predicted (tho still strong enough that boats closer to Richard's Bay had to heave-to to wait it out) and the cold front stalled, so we had plenty of time to get in before it got here. We had to motor much of the last two days to get here before the front, but we had horded our diesel for just such a situation.

Our arrival was at the oh so convenient hour of 0200 in the morning so we anchored in the turning basin outside the marina. This worked out well and is a good (if rule bending) option if, like us, you make a habit of arriving in the middle of the night. After a short sleep and lots of coffee, we moved into the marina in the morning.

Our friends on Ovation arranged a marina slip for us. Toni and Darren and Jouke from Freya were standing by to catch our lines and make sure that we got into our slip with no trouble. It feels so nice to arrive in a strange place and be so taken care of. We've had joyous reunions with friends on several other boats that we met in Chagos and a few from the Sail Indonesia Rally. Between catching up with everyone, getting our passports stamped, off-loading a month's worth of trash and dirty laundry, a long lunch, followed by a long nap (me), and hooking up the boat to shore power and water (Sten), the day has flown by.

The only minor drama we had coming down the Channel was the discovery the morning after we left Inhambane that our jib was had parted a seam. We hadn't had much more than 19 knots in the night, so we figure the thread holding the panels of the sail together may be on it's last legs. The failed seam was near the top of the jib in a lightly loaded area, so we just furled the jib in enough to take pressure off of the damaged section and kept going.

As Sten looked at it, a big smile spread across his face, which seems like an odd reaction to a damaged headsail until you understand that he's been wanting a new jib for some time (like since we were in St. Martin at the beginning of the trip). He has lately been talking about having one made here in South Africa where many of the major sail makers have their world wide production lofts. But I've been arguing that it isn't necessary to get us home. We will need to do a thorough inspection first, but it looks like we are going to have to loosen the purse strings and order a new one.

While he was bagging up the staysail this afternoon, Sten discovered that the inner forestay (a beefy stainless steel cable that helps to support the mast) had a number of broken strands at the bottom swage. We can't safely use the staysail until we get a new one made or possibly get the current one re-terminated. With a torn jib and a weak inner forestay we are without a good headsail option at the moment. But we aren't planning on going anywhere for a while, so that isn't a major problem.

It seems like every boat around us suffered some damage on the way in here. By our count, six boats have had to be towed into Richard's Bay in the last month. After hearing lots of tales today about the damage that our friends and the other boats here sustained on this past leg (a damaged skeg causing big leaks, loose keels, serious electrical fires, broken forestays, broken side stays, bent propellers and shafts from hitting whales, engine failures, shredded mainsails, etc.), we feel like we and Mata'irea came out of it pretty well.