20241228 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 33/96 - Sea Day

Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 33/96 - Sea Day Newbies and Boobies

Today is the first full day of the next segment of this journey - Cape Town to the Seychelles. There are a whole lot of new faces around today so lots of new folks to meet. It's always fun those first few days when you spot them. They take a few steps, pause, turn around, look, turn back, look, then look confused. I usually ask them if they're looking for something and then provide directions to what they're looking for. I steered someone to the launderette just this afternoon. Newbies.

Last night, around 2:00, we did sail past the Cape of Good Hope. Many folks think the Cape of Good Hope is the southernmost point in Africa. It is not.

You can see Cape Town on the southwest corner and our next destination, Durban on the northeast side of South Africa

The southernmost point in Africa is actually in L'Agulhas, South Africa.

Cape Town is marked with the green star, L'Agulhas with the red star

Cape Town is 34.34 degrees south, and L'Agulhas is 34.83 degrees south, or roughly 34 miles further south than Cape Town. We sailed past L'Agulhas around 7:30 this morning. It seems crazy that we still have two days to sail before reaching Durban until you consider how big South Africa is. South Africa is nearly twice as big as Texas. It has 1,740 miles of coastline between Namibia and Mozambique, and 960 miles of it is between Cape Town and Durban.

Arlona worked on two watercolor projects today - koi in the morning and a lighthouse in the afternoon.

She wasn't happy with this but she's her own worst critic - I like it

Lighthouses are a favorite of hers

There was more aviary action this afternoon with boobies zipping along the ship. Well, I thought they were boobies. Plus, that made the title of this blog work. But, a little research showed that they are more likely Cape Gannets. Boobies and Gannets are all part of the Sulidae family of birds. The big difference is that Boobies live in tropical waters whereas Gannets live in more temperate climates. They all fish by diving after small prey. I think it is a scheme by Big Ornithology. :-)

Cape Gannets - I love it when they drag their wing

We added some new members to the Titanic Swim Team trivia team so we're at a full complement of ten members. It was a standalone game today and we finished in second. A single question made the swing.  Our goofs:

• In mythology, who solved the riddle of the sphinx?
• No team got this - it was Oedipus (we made up for it on the next question by being the only team to correctly identify Donald Trump as the most-Googled person in 2024, scoring us double points for that question)
• In what decade was the atom first successfully split?
• We guessed the 1940s but it was the 1930s
• The question that decided the game: In 1982, what singer/artist/performer released the first-ever compact disc?
• We came up with Elton John, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, or Michael Jackson and went with Elton John
• It was Billy Joel - the winning team was the only one that got it, scoring double points for a 60-point swing - they won by only 20

As usual, it was fun and we have a nice new Aussie couple on the team until we get back to Cape Town on January 28.

We hit the Observation Bar for pre-dinner drinks and wow, the place was packed. I'll try to get an updated passenger count tomorrow but it sure seems like the count is up by way more than the 50 we were initially told.

For dinner tonight, we returned to Solis, but this time, with Aussie friends, Margaret and Michael. The reason? Michael and I share December 27 as our birthday. Their excursion brought them back too late yesterday to meet for dinner, so we did it tonight. We enjoyed yet another terrific meal at Solis with the usual, incredible service from the team there. 

Since it was a celebration, they brought out cakes for us and then delivered slices garnished with vanilla gelato to each of us.

We all went to the Grand Salon after dinner for tonight's guitar performers, CH2 from South Africa. They are a flamenco-style guitar duo, but they are so much more than that. They play incredibly complex pieces with only their guitars making noise. The included percussion and augmented sounds are all created by manipulating the guitars with their hands. It was a terrific performance and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tomorrow is our final sea day before arriving in Durban, South Africa on Monday.