Change In Plans

Greetings from Cape Town!

Like suburbanites the world over, I was sitting on the front porch drinking coffee and reading the Sunday newspapers this morning.  The waves were massive and messy, and there were no surfers or body boarders out, even though it was sunny.  Mid-winter in Cape Town is pretty sweet.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a giant flipper come out of the water about 250 meters off shore.  I grapped the binoculars (and Tallulah), and we watched a viagra right whale breach and flop back into the waves.  It is the beginning of calving season, and the whales are moving down toward Hermanus in large numbers. 

We saw the whale spout a few times, breach again, then wave a flipper and swim off toward Cape Point.  Unbelievable and amazing.  I tried to get a picture, but it just looks like foamy blue ocean.  Anyway, a photograph couldn’t capture the blueness of the sky, the rocky mountains behind me, the lushness of the mid-winter fynbos, or the kids playing happily on the beach.  The sighting will have to live on in the mind’s eye.

We have two sets of friends coming from New York this week for a visit.  For all of them, it is their first trip to South Africa.  I hope they see the same natural beauty that has kept us coming back to Cape Town for the last 20 years.