March 12th, 2023 Day 68 of 128

Port Elizabeth, South Africa

I woke up this morning as our ship was coming into Nelson Mandela Bay in Port Elizabeth. It is cool and overcast this morning and the weather is expected to be high of 72, cooler than it has been for us the last week. I recommended to Megan we wear jeans today and we are really glad we did. We went to the Lido for a quick breakfast and then had to meet in the Main Stage at 8:15am. Today we did the South African Penguin Cruise. We took a short bus ride to the Nelson Mandela Bay Yacht Club and we were split into two boat groups of about 20 each for today’s adventure. We took a leisurely boat ride up the coast and saw a few Indo Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins and some Cape Fur Seals. We arrived shortly at St. Croix Island where a colony of African Penguins currently live. They colony of penguins used to be MUCH larger than it is today! (See photo below) Over fishing the waters nearby combined with oil from the cargo ships that frequent this area, killed off much of the colony. There are efforts being made to rectify this and save the colony through the work of the Bay Watch Port Elizabeth group. We got to see some of the birds and saw a photo taken in 2000 when the island was completely covered in the penguins. It was sad to see their drastically depleted number. We got to also see several sea bird including cormorants, white breasted cormorants and Black Oyster Catchers. We were served a snack while at sea and Megan and I climb up into the tower over the captain for a “birds eye view” pun intended. As we headed back to the marina we followed the beach line and got to wave to some people swimming the water. Then we saw a few dolphins swimming in the distance, and then a few more, and then before we knew it there were hundreds of dolphins all around our boat in the water. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. You could hear them taking a breath as they surfaced and dove back down. There were dolphins jumping up out of the water and mothers with their calves. I had never seen or heard of anything like this ever in my life. I later came to find out the Port Elizabeth is actually the bottlenose dolphin capitol of the world. We spent about 30 minutes sailing along with them before it was time to head back the rest of the way. And that’s where our adventure truly began. My understanding is the winds weren’t predicted to come in till about two hours later than they actually did. But mother nature had her own plans and Megan and I rode the ocean all the way back to the port on that upper deck of the boat. We were splashed and soaked to the bone by the time we got back in. Megan was whooping and hollering the whole way having the time of her life. I told her this was similar to what it felt like riding a mechanical bull. I couldn’t help but laugh hard at her silliness. All the passengers beneath us crammed into the captains steering area as that was the only place protected from the surf on the boat. By the time we finally got home we were absolutely freezing and gave thanks for the short bus ride back to the ship. We came home, changed out of our wet clothes, took a quick shower and warmed our bodies and then got dressed to go back out. It was about 2:00pm at this time and all aboard wasn’t until 4:30 so we hoped onto the shuttle that took us to a nearby mall to do some shopping. We bought a few things a book store, the Biltong Store (best jerky ever!) and the grocery stores. Megan restocked up on her sweet, mostly different types of Gummies and we also bought some local flavors of chips including Green Curry, Cheesy Pesto and Thai Sweet Chili. We look forward to trying them. Megan also grabbed a box of six donuts. The lady at the Biltong store said she loved donuts, so we gave her one and absolutely made her day. We were back on the ship by about 4:00pm and decided we are going to stay in for the rest of the evening. We are going to order room service for dinner, watch a movie in our cozies, crochet and be bums. Or I’m going to catch up on my missing two days of blogging…we’ll see which way the evening goes. Either way it will be relaxing and quiet. A nice way to end the week on this Sunday evening. Stay safe and dry especially to my loved ones in CA. I can’t believe the weather you are having again!!