Big News

Our middle daughter Jennifer has become engaged to her partner Mark Stonehouse. It seems there is another wedding is in our future.  Thank heavens we are headed in the right direction!! What a lovely ring, good job, Mark!!

Taken from the train window, but look at that surf. 

We are going to head around the Cape of Good Hope tomorrow.  We will leave about 0400 to make sure we get to the next marina in Cape Town during the day, it is about 60nm so a good days sail to get there.  The winds were howling here today so hopefully by the morning they will have calmed down somewhat so we won't have trouble leaving our berth.  There are about 5 other boats that will be leaving about the same time so decent weather must be forecasted.
We had a wonderful New Years Eve, dancing the night away at the yacht club.  At midnight they shot of a canon on the other side of the bay and they about 3 seconds later I heard the sound. Then  all the naval vessels touted their horns, it was a great way to welcome in 2013.

On Jan. 2nd we headed into Cape Town and took part in the Cape Minstrel Festival.  There was a free live concert at city hall and then groups of minstrels would parade past down the streets.  I was expecting a big parade but a group would go by and then there would be a half hour wait and another group would stroll on past.  I was expecting a continuous parade and after 3 hours of standing in the hot sun Barry and I left.  I was glad we went because it was a great crowd that was there and they were all having a great time.  The announcer was speaking in a language we could not understand so a lot of the jokes and commentary was lost on us. 

I have been walking regularly in the morning with a group of women. Today we tried to find the way up to the top of the ridge above Simon's Town.  We did not find the trail but it was a gorgeous view nonetheless.  Perhaps I will have to convince the Tagish crew that it would be worthwhile to go up this peak.