On Thursday and Friday in Memphis, the temperature was mostly below freezing with wind-chill values below 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
Yeah, it was time to get out of there for a while.
It was my first air travel since the coronavirus made itself at home in North America almost two years ago. I was apprehensive about the whole experience, but in the end it was about as painless as an almost-24-hour overseas journey can be. The airports and the flights seemed a touch less crowded. The Memphis airport was a ghost town--nothing new, really--and my flight from Memphis to Newark was only about two-thirds full and there was nobody seated in my immediate vicinity. But even the Newark airport wasn't too bad, and my flight from Newark to Cape Town was only maybe 80 percent full, as opposed to jam-packed when I made this trip two years ago.
I arrived in Cape Town at 6 PM local time, and Miller's Taxi proprietor Vinnie Cicatello drove me from the airport to my bed & breakfast in Fish Hoek. Now it was time to begin the process of adjusting my body to the new time zone. After supper at a nice little Indian place I found during my last visit, I turned in just after 10 o'clock, at which time my body thought it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. I slept for some 90 minutes, then lay awake for two to three hours, then managed to doze off again. It was daylight when I woke up around 5:30 AM. I got myself out of bed at six.
The Western Cape had been in something of a heat wave when I arrived yesterday, and the temperature was around 93 degrees Fahrenheit. It felt like, well... summer in Memphis, Tennessee. Thankfully, milder weather is moving in starting today. Today's high is a lovely 80 degrees, and the forecast for the coming week shows highs mostly in the 70s. It's very comfortable for walking around in shorts and short sleeves, and that's a nice feeling in the month of January.
"Camp Mocke" kicked off this morning with an introductory session. Our coaches, Dawid and Jasper Mocke, met my four fellow campers and me at the Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club and helped us get the surf skis we're renting for the week adjusted. Then we paddled from Fish Hoek Beach over to Glencairn Beach and back. The wind was blowing out from the shore--no good for downwinding on the Miller's Run--but that was okay for today. We did remounts so that Dawid and Jasper could be sure that we all had that important self-rescue skill, and we also did a few sprinting drills. Photographers John and Tamsin from Cape Town Sport Photography captured some shots, such as this one of me paddling out from Fish Hoek Beach:
And this photo of me coming back in:
And, finally, this photo of our group for the week:
From left to right, it's Donald, yours truly, Dawid, Moses, Jasper, Garth, and Ezra.
After the paddling session we were free to do what we wanted the rest of the day. I walked a short distance up the beach to the Fish Hoek Surf Lifesaving Club, where its youth athletes were participating in the Nipper Classic competition along with a number of other surf lifesaving clubs from beaches around the region.
After watching the action for a while, I returned to the B and B, and then went back out for some groceries and a few other basic supplies. Our second "official" group activity was getting together for supper at Bertha's, a good seafood establishment in Simon's Town.
The wind for Miller's Run action is supposed to start picking up tomorrow and be pretty impressive by midweek. I'll try my best to bring you every thrill and chill here.
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