Winter Weather in Struisbaai

2016-05-07 | puppy1952

There is bitterly cold south-easterly wind blowing here at the tip of Africa. I don’t want to say that Winter has arrived with a vengeance because it could change again just as suddenly. But if this is an indication of what is to come then I’d better start taking out the thicker jerseys! We have had a few cold snaps but this morning was the first time that I snuggled down deeper under the duvet and resisted leaving the warmth of my bed. When I did emerge, I put on jeans and polo neck and settled down for some couch potato pursuits before finally taking a drive to see what the sea looked like.

I saw some impressive photographs of stormy seas on the Cape Peninsular on Face Book and although we have rough seas here, it did not seem as dramatic as there.

The harbour boats bobbing on the choppy sea

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The cormorant and oyster catchers didn’t seem to mind the weather

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What a treat to see a common whimbrel on a stony beach near Agulhas

Agulhas Lighthouse

I ventured out of the car to walk a little way and it was a fight against the strong wind but it sure blew the cobwebs away. It also worked up a huge craving for a cup of good strong coffee! Our favourite coffee shop, Potpourri, is closed for renovations so we tried a little place in Struisbaai that we’d been meaning to go to for some time. It’s called The Shipwreck Cafe. Wow – what a find! We threw caution to the howling wind and ordered chocolate cake. It was the best I’ve ever had in my life – rich, moist and chocolatey.

The Best Chocolate Cake ever and wonderful cappuccino and black coffees

Earl gobbled his down in two minutes but it was a really large slice and so rich that I could only manage a quarter of mine. I took the rest home in a doggy bag!

I am extremely fussy about coffee – it has to be hot, strong and black but not too bitter- If it’s not just right there’s no milk and sugar to disguise the taste! Hats off to The Shipwreck Cafe – the coffee was beyond my expectations and absolutely perfect. If ever you’re in our neck of the woods – don’t miss this secret treasure – find the Shipwreck – it will be well worth it. We will certainly being going there again – I have to try their breakfast.

It doesn’t have a sea view but the decor is interesting

Tomorrow, Sunday 8 May, is Mother’s Day in South Africa – So Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. May your little ones thrill you with their home-made cards and thoughtful deeds. Those are the things we treasure more than expensive gifts.

Beach

2016-05-05 | puppy1952

I don’t usually participate in WordPress’s daily prompt challenge but today’s word BEACH made me want to try it.

Is there anybody who doesn’t love a beach. Have you ever heard anybody say – I don’t like the sea? I once met a young man in Zambia who’d never seen the ocean. He asked me to describe it to him. I told him about the tides, the beach and the waves and the sport of surfing.
“What is surfing ?” he asked. He was my bird guide and we were in a canoe on the Zambezi River. I was not sure how I could explain it. “You’d love it,” I said. “You know the thrill you get from riding the rapids? It’s that kind of feeling, I think but different as you stand on the board and ride the waves.” He laughed because he just couldn’t picture it.

I grew up on a beach and the sun, the sand and the sea is part of who I am. In my very early years I lived right opposite Fish Hoek Beach. As children we could just walk across a road and a level crossing and the beach was our playground. In those days children had so much more freedom than the kids of today. No adults accompanied us and once we were there we were sure to meet up with other unsupervised youngsters. We lived a car-ride away from the beach when I was raising my own kids but it was close enough to go after school and we did so regularly – the beach had everything a child desired – a play park, sand and water and dozens of other kids to play with. And for Mom – wow – you’d always meet other moms down there and we’d all chat and watch the kids enjoy themselves. I wonder how moms without beaches cope – a beach is a calming place – a grouchy kids becomes all smile the minute her toes touch the sand.

Fish Hoek Beach

The beach was also part of my teenage days. It was the place to play beach games and meet your friends and what courtship would be the same without a romantic walk along a moonlit beach.

And now I still love the beach – I’m near to another one now – Struisbaai at the tip of Africa – and it’s the longest one in South Africa. It would take a day to walk the entire length of it. And the sea is warm and there’s the prettiest fishing harbour that buzzes with activity. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t take a walk along the beach winter or summer. Summer of course is the best when the sea is warm and swimming is pleasant.

Struisbaai Beach

Struisbaai Harbour

I love the wild, the mountains, the bush and the desert but I need the beach – it is part of my being.

Struisbaai -Two Oceans Marlin Competition

2016-02-24 | puppy1952

When there is a fishing festival or event, our quiet little fishing town wakes up and shows its true colours. The Tenth Two Ocean’s Marlin Competition held here last week, ( I mentioned it briefly in a previous post) seemed doomed to failure as the weather provided only one good fishing day which was last Friday. The boats that got to the 45 mile bank were confronted with green and cold water but worked their way back to Halfway House where the water was better and managed to get a few big yellowtail and a Dorado.

Other boats fished outside of the 12 mile bank where they found shoals of small yellowfin tuna. No marlin were hooked but some were sighted.

It’s a marlin competition so no other species counts for the trophy. So when the weatherman predicted that Sunday’s conditions would be perfect, they decided to extend the competition by one day! And this is how the competition was saved with one boat catching and releasing a 90kg marlin, the only one caught, thus winning the competition!

Our harbour was graced with many beautiful boats and brought many locals and visitors down to have a look.

Some of the boats that graced our harbour

Gwaza is done for the day

I love the name of this boat!

And this one – translation – Hectic Leaks

@Work – Good name – Fun Boat

@Work’s towing vehicle – Just love it!

Black Pearl with crew on board

Le Boss coming back after a fun day at sea

And Marco Polo are the winners!

The seagulls certainly welcomed them as did our friendly stingrays who were only to happy to accept the scraps from fish cleaning that were thrown into the sea.

Waiting for a hand-out

Dozens of Cape Gulls – adults and juveniles

Fish guts are a great meal for a gull

This juvenile Kelp Gull nabs a sanck

Others want a bit too!

One of the stingrays

Suidpunt Deep Sea Angling Club were amazing hosts and each evening good food and company was provided.

A lovely braai being prepared

The amazing catering team

The prize-giving was a happy affair and there were some lovely prizes handed out.

A great new tackle box.

The winning team – Skipper – Rikus holding the trophy

Enjoying the prize-giving

Share your world Week 8 2016

2016-02-23 | puppy1952

Here are my answers to Cee’s Share Your World Week 8

What household chore do you absolutely hate doing?

Cleaning windows. I don’t mind any other household chores but somehow the cleaning of windows is too much for me – I just can’t get them clean. So I never clean them – instead I employ somebody else to do it. It’s well worth the money.

What was the last URL that you bookmarked?

It was about making a Banting Toasted sandwich – but I haven’t tried it yet! Low Carb toasted sandwich

Close your eyes. Listen to your body. What part of your body is seeking attention? What is it telling you?

My stomach is telling me that I am hungry. I’ve been busy doing household chores, made the salad and am now ready for some flash fried tuna. (Hubby is going to make it!)

Would you rather have a two-bedroom apartment in a big city of your choosing or a mansion in the country side in the state or country where you currently live?

I am happy with the house at the sea-side where I live. My caravan is also an attractive option. The mansion would require too much time doing household chores – imagine all those windows!

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful for the stunning weather we’ve been having -lovely sunny days but not too hot and we’ve even had a shower or two of much needed rain. I’m making the most of the sunny days and usually have a morning and afternoon swim in the sea. Whatever the coming week has to offer I am sure I’m going to love it.

Share Your World Week 5 – Happiness

2016-02-03 | puppy1952

Cees Share your World Challenge

If you had a shelf for your three most special possessions (not including photos, electronic devices and things stored on them, people or animals), what would you put on it?

This is a tough one because my photographs and electronic devices are the first things that I’d grab if my house were on fire! My favourite pieces of art hang on the wall so they wouldn’t go on the shelf – I have a painting of a house that hung in my grandmother’s house that I really treasure. The artist was 11 years old when he painted it. He grew up to become a successful and very well-know artist in this country and is now about 70 years old.

Another painting was done specially for me by my Aussie friend Wendy – I love Rainbow lorikeets and she painted the most beautiful picture of them for me.

There are others – too many to mention so I’ll save them for another time. Other things I treasure are my jewellery – specially a gold and diamond necklace given to me by my darling husband. Then there are all the cards our kids have given us over the years. I keep those in a file. I have a little memory year book made for me by a class I taught a few years back – well it was organised by Ashleigh’s mum – but it has a message and a drawing from each child – and that is probably my most prized possession of all.

If you had a box labelled ‘happiness’, what would you put in it?

Lots of things make me feel happy – the view from the top of Sir Lowry’s Pass, arriving in Kruger National Park on the first day of a holiday there, plunging into the sea early on a summer morning. But I can’t put these things in a box – I would have to put photographs or a poem about them inside the box instead.

What do you want more of in your life?

Not much, actually. I have pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted. However, I would love to travel to Australia again. I’d also like to go to some places I’ve never been to before -India, USA, Italy and Holland. Also another trip to the Greek Isles wouldn’t be shunned.

Daily Life List: What do you do on an average day? Make a list of your usual activities you do each day.

Now that I’m retired I’m asked this question quite often. It’s not easy to answer as I don’t have a routine and we’re not always in the same place for long so what we do differs from week to week. But when I’m at “home” my day would go something like this.

Wake up any time between 7 and 8:30 – Check my emails and Facebook in bed – sometimes, not always. Get up and do 45 minutes of gym ( I have a space set up for this) After this run (slowly) to the beach and have a swim in the sea. This is the best part of my day.
Hubby brings my towel to the beach and drives me home. He then cooks me breakfast which we enjoy at a leisurely pace.
While he is cooking I make the sugar water solution for the birds so that we can enjoy the sugar birds, sun birds and witogies who partake of this treat while the seed eaters enjoy the seed we put out for them.

The Hoopoe doesn’t rely on us for seed or sugar water – he is a worm eater

Sugarbird at the sugar water feeder

After breakfast anything can happen. I try to do all the necessary household chores first. Monday and Thursday are my house cleaning days when the house gets a thorough doing but on other days it’s usually just the kitchen and bathroom that has a proper cleaning. Then there is washing ironing which might get done in the afternoon. (Boring I know – but it has to be done!)
We sometimes take a trip to watch birds or to shop in our nearest big town – Bredasdorp. Sometimes we’ll even take a longer drive just to explore other places in the Overberg.
The computer consumes quite a bit of time – I organise functions for The Bird Club so emails have to be sent and dates organised. Hubby does a lot of business on his computer and often yells for me to help him with this and that. I blog and check facebook. I sort out and edit photographs.
Then there’s my new hobby – crochet. I am busy on a blanket at the moment. I also read a lot.
Most afternoons I head to the beach for an afternoon swim and/or surf on my boogie board.
Then there’s shopping and dinner to be cooked.
I’ve left out socialising. We don’t have a huge circle of friends in Struisbaai but we often have people to stay. Having said that friends of ours have moved to Struisbaai now and we’ve seen quite a lot of them!
After dinner we usually watch television – we have a media player and have just finished watching the entire series of Downton Abbey which we loved. We’re now on Suits and White Collar. We seldom watch SABC television and we don’t have DSTV.
Sometimes I read before going to sleep – this includes reading Blogs.

Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

I am grateful for the great weekend we had with friends and I’m looking forward to spending this weekend in Cape Town.

Struisbaai and The South League Competition

2016-01-31 | puppy1952

What a successful South League Off-shore competition it was for Team Kiora – Earl, Gus and Karla (10) and Team Red-Head – (Sam (18) Gareth (22 and Chris (Die ou man at 31)

They all had brilliant catches but Karla was the hands-down winner! This amazing little girl who has been fishing with her dad since she was barely out of nappies caught two yellow-fin tuna 13,39kg each and two skipjack tuna, 4 Kob, 1 Santer and a red stump.

The men on Team Kiora caught a yellow-fin tuna each, Gus caught 2 skipjack and they each caught 5 Kob.

Team Red Head also did quite well with some yellowfin and red stump.

All the other teams did well too so it will be interesting to see the final results.

Kiora coming onto the trailer – Struisbaai Harbour

Karla at the weigh-in with her Yellowfin Tuna

The smaller species count heavily towards points

Quite a catch for a 10-year-old girl. She beat all the participating junior boys!

Team Red-Head – Sam (Skipper) Chris and Gareth

It was a rewarding day. But after the fun, the cleaning of the boats and fish as well as the cooking thereof must follow. Karla was exhausted but she still willing did her share of the work.

Still smiling while cleaning the fish

Totally exhausted but still prepared to fry the delicious fresh fish

Sam, Chris and Gareth ready to partake of a feast of fish

Fishermen’s Friend, Andrew who mans the shore-based radio communications joined us for Earl’s famous fried fish

It was very late when everybody finally got to bed and I can assure you nobody was up with the early sparrows chirping outside my bedroom window! We decided that cooking breakfast was not an option so instead we headed to Potpourri in Agulhas and enjoyed their delicious fare instead.

It was way cooler outside than in and what a happy brekkie it was

Struisbaai and Share Your World Week 4

2016-01-26 | puppy1952

It seems a while since I’ve posted anything about Struisbaai so I thought I’d write something today and combine it with Share Your World Questions.

1. What one thing are you really glad you did yesterday?

I’m going to replace the yesterday with today!

This morning we got up later than usual. I have always been an early riser and thought during retirement that I would continue to be up with the sparrows – but not so – Sometimes I only get up after 8 o’clock! Usually, I do a bit of gym then run to the beach and have a swim before breakfast. Today we skipped the gym part, drove to the beach and had a delicious swim just after 9 o’clock before returning to an ‘Early Breakfast’ of giant black mushrooms and fried banana, tomato, bacon and eggs. “To die for doll!”

After breakfast, we walked to the harbour to see what the boats had brought in. I will never grow tired of Struisbaai Harbour! It must be the most picturesque and interesting little harbour in the Western Cape. Or maybe I’m just biased.

Commercial Fishermen rowing back from their moored boat

I’m sorry I didn’t take photos of the huge yellowtail being off loaded from one of the ski-boats but believe me there were some beautiful fish. I concentrated on the commercial fishermen gutting on the slipway and throwing the guts to the stingrays and gulls.

I am glad we did this today as afterwards we sat at Pelican’s Cafe and had a cup of coffee and met a couple from Cape Town and had a great chat with them. I overheard them talking about birds which is what started the conversation!

2. Are you generally focused on today or tomorrow?

Definitely I am focussed on today although I do make plans for tomorrow. But especially in my retired state, I let things happen on a daily basis! So far I’m having a fabulous day!

3. Would you want to have a guardian angel/mentor? What would they tell you right now?

I am convinced that my guardian angel works overtime on me! Why else would my life be so good and full of good things happening in it. I think she would tell me to take every opportunity that comes my way and to enjoy every minute of my life.

4. Would you rather live in a cave house or a dome house made out of glass?

I would definitely choose a cave. One of my fondest memories is staying in cave accommodation in Kagga Kamma – a private game reserve in the Cedarberg Mountains. Originally this area was home to the San people who lived in caves. Caves have cleverly been recreated using artificial rock to blend in with the surrounding mountainside. They are so cosy and it was great fun staying there.

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Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?

On the mountainside of Fish Hoek which is near to where I lived in Cape Town, there were horrific fires which threatened the homes of my sister, aunt, sister-in-law and many friends. I am grateful that none of them lost their homes in spite of being evacuated or nearly evacuated (some refused to leave in order to fight the fires themselves). I am grateful to the amazing firefighters and helicopter pilots who worked so bravely to beat the fiery monster.

Next week I am looking forward to entertaining friends and fishermen who are coming up for an angling competition. It will be great to have a houseful again.

Retirement in Struisbaai – The Agricultural Show in Bredasdorp

2015-09-17 | puppy1952

Today I was up at 7:15 and did a session of gym. Earl thought the world has come to an end or something – and staggered through to the lounge where I have my gym set up – and said – What the heck are you doing at this unearthly hour?! (hahaha I used to get up at 5:30 when I was teaching!) I said – “Well you want to go to the Agricultural Show in Bredasdorp later on and I know you will be rushing me so I’m getting ready now! He thought I’d truly lost it. But I missed doing a session yesterday so thought I’d better get one in today.

Earl cooked brekkie and then we set off for The Agricultural Show and got there at about 10:30. I thought – this is going to be boring – but actually it was great! It wasn’t only tractors and farm tools. I loved the animals – cute miniature horses were the best and the most amazingly attractive goats! Don’t laugh!

An adorable miniature horse with an old granny going gaga over it

Isn’t the baby toooo adorable

Can’t remember what these are called but they’re so cute

Donkey and foal

This is where your milk comes from!

Fascinating Llamas – remind me of Dr Doolittle’s push-me-pull-yous

Couldn’t resist a piccie of the peacocks

We also went to the 4X4 and camping stalls and bought a gazebo type tent – almost a cross between a gazebo and tent.

We got a tent like this one

We also got some good ideas about be vegetable gardening in different types of containers. Stored those away for the future.

Good idea – veggies planted in drain pipes

Another good idea

We were amused at a convoy of old tractors passing by and compared them to the unbelievable modern farming equipment used today! WOW the new tractors and combine harvesters etc are HUGE.

Earl wanted to check out solar panels and that kind of thing and my bag got fuller and fuller of pamphlets and business cards.

Deep interest in the solar panels

There were also clothing and jewellery stalls which Earl tried to drag me past but he was sweet enough to buy me a very nice necklace

Some nice boots here

My sweet husband bought me this pretty necklace

We found ourselves in the shearing shed where they were talking about wool in Afrikaans and there was a woman spinning which fascinated me. She allowed me to take a photograph of her and then I went to browse the products while Earl watched a champion shearer shear a huge male sheep. I missed that (so no photos) because I got into conversation with the spinner who had the loveliest range of wool and cotton yarns – Nurturing Fibres

Turned out we actually know the spinners mom!

As you know I am now into knitting and crochet and there is limited variety of yarns here in Struisbaai! She gave me three free balls to try and asked me to persuade the Hekel tannie I take classes with to order from her. I bought another three balls of her organic cotton yarn and plan to make some place mats for the braai room table.

At lunch time we found a stall selling waterblommetjie bredie which I’ve never had but always wanted to try. Do you remember the TV show Nommer Asseblief? It was often mentioned in that show.

Earl looking horrified at the size of the portion

It was delicious! And if I can ever lay my hands on waterblommetjies I will make it myself!

The four hours we spent at the show flew by and we were well pleased with all we purchased – lemon infused olives, droerwors from the “hectic biltong” stall, a lovely necklace, my yarn and the tent.