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Cape Town is a beautiful city with enormous layered quartzite mountains taking in most of the view. Very impressive. The pictures are of the views from my hotel room. The conference was nice, but too many investors and money talk, few geologists. I prefer the Cordilleran Roundup. The two evenings were spent with more formal events, a gala dinner at the Verlegen Estate, hosted by AngloAmerican and a boat party in the harbour (much like Victoria) with a band and good wine, hosted by sir Dai, a socialite. And I met a handsome Australian journalist from MiningNews.. I was very fortunate to have an 8 hour overlay in Mauritius, so I took this opportunity to go to the Blue Lagoon Beach. Once there, I noticed advertisements for boat tours with glass floors…hmmm, I thought, maybe a one hour boat tour would be nice….so I went up to this big black man named Ben and we came to an agreement. Two hours of boat tour. I soon realized that I was the only client and so had the boat and Ben all to myself. We toured around the lagoon, incredibly beautiful turquoise waters bound by a reef, with small islands within, all white sandy beaches and sure enough, peering over the edge into the glass bottom, I saw coral! Ben proposed to give me the names of the different corals, and me, always eager for knowledge, gladly agreed. This one, over there, and he pointed to large, white, flat rounded shapes, is the plate coral. Fair enough, I thought. That one, and now he pointed to a much more dendritic version of pale brown coral, that is called the chicken finger coral. Now my forehead started to crinkle and before I could stop him he pointed to a brown bulbous coral, which he then called the potato coral….ok, so it wasn’t very scientific. Now he stopped the boat, in the middle of the lagoon, and dropped the anchor into a sand bar. He took out two snorkling masks. Fun, I thought, I’ve never been snorkling, it couldn’t be too difficult? He tightened the strap around my head and I put in the mouth piece. No breathing through the nose is possible, only through the mouthpiece. Ben told me to stop breathing so fast and to relax. Then we lowered ourselves in the water. Once in the water, which was a very pleasing temperature, not as warm as Morondava, but still very nice, I decided it was time to view the fishes and lowered my head down into the water…what I saw still makes my heart race, a myriad of fish, so many fish in fact, that my breathing rate increased exponentially within 3 seconds and 3 more seconds later I found myself back in the boat! How I got back in so fast without having lowered the little ladder, I still don’t know, but I have a bruise on my shin that speaks volumes…Ben was still in the water, he looked up at me, removed his mask and asked what happened. I’m a bit scared, I replied, there are a LOT of fish down there! Are there any sharks? And Ben said no, confidently. Have you ever seen a shark in this lagoon? Again, a confident no. So I gave it another try. And back in the water I went. I still couldn’t quite get down the act of being able to breathe under water and realizing I was in the same body of mass as all those creatures surrounding me. I was getting flashbacks of elementary school swimming lessons where the only two kids not passing the head-under-water test were me and this little boy Jan-Willem, who had growth issues and the kiddie pool water came up to his chin… Ben brought me over to stand on the sand bank to practise. There were few fish around the sand bank, which made it easier. Slowly, bit by bit, I managed to not only put my head in the water, but also be able to breathe short breaths. Now most of you will know that water sports are not my forte, which is why it’s odd I would choose a three day trip in a dug out canoe and now this snorkling adventure…maybe I’m trying to overcome those fears. In any case, after half an hour I felt ready. Ben took my hand and with my head down in the water we swam back towards the coral. An incredible journey followed. For an hour we floated over the coral reef, I would point in amazement at schools of bright yellow fish with zebra stripes, elegant black angel fish, little iridescent blue/violet/green fish, large brown and purple puffers, parrot fish, pink and yellow striped fish, and black fish with long snouts and long blue veils coming of their tails. Feeling more confident, I felt I was swimming like Patrick Duffy in The Man from Atlantis (dating myself here). Ben dove down once to fetch me a sea urchin and placed it in my hand where delicate spines manoeuvred across my palm, another time he dove down to get me a sea cucumber, rather phallic, especially when it started to spew white threads cross my hand..:/ With wrinkly hands I got back in the boat, feeling great. I had mastered the lagoon! I treated Ben to lunch, enjoyed a fabulous shrimp curry at a beach restaurant (mostly Hindustani people in Mauritius) and returned to the airport with plans of exploring more of this gorgeous island in the future. Continue reading... People of the Thorns, Androy, Southern Madagascar, 2006
Emeralds and a King, Mananjary Region, Eastern Madagascar, 2006
Kalalau Trail,
Kauai, Hawaii, 2007
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