Day 80-81 - Kraalbaai by land and sea

Kraalbaai is a fine sheltered cove just across the lagoon from our house in Langebaan. By road, through spartan National Parkland, it's a 40km drive, by sea it's 10 minutes over the sandbars.


- Looks like greece, the lagoon in the rear


- The arrow's pointing the wrong way surely?

Lucy and I drive around there on a sunny but prodigiously windy afternoon. The bay is a picture, dotted with permanent houseboats and sporting delicious turquoise water.


- Kraalbaai, houseboats and all


- A comprehensive list of do's and don'ts. It probably says you use the beach "at your own risk", the most common signage in all South Africa, seen from restaurants and fun-parks to the international airport.


- Beach furniture

Just a couple of klicks further West across a verdant dunescape is the atlantic, wildly smashing all and sundry against rocks and a 16-mile long beach. A wreck just down the coast is testament to the sea's power. We stay huddled in the car, behind glass.


- More rugged coastline

The next day the wind has died, so we travel en masse in Michael's pleasure-cruiser, the Knot Enough. It really is a 10-minute journey, and we pull up almost on the beach in time to braai off the back of the boat. A couple of drinks and a nap later, the boat has stopped swinging slowly in the mild current. That's because it's standing in knot enough water. Nice one!


- The "Knot Enough". Grant mans the cooler, ready with the rum-ration


- Beach-seal


- Up to the ankles, knot enough water for several displacement tons of boat ...


- ... I'll pull it! ... no, I won''t ... we stuck


- Looks nice though

We are informed that the tide will ebb at 8pm and we'll be afloat at about midnight. In seven hours. Lucy and I lose our sense of humour at about this point. Redeption for the afternoon and evening comes in the form of a superlative sunset, hunting for guitar sharks in the few inches of water, and feeding logs into an impromptu fire under crystal clear star-fields.


- Kum bai-ya etc

When finally we refloat and head for port, navigating between the dark houseboats, it's cold and we're a bit tired: are we nearly there yet? No. The boat's stopped working. Altogether. The manual is thrust into my hands. It's in Korean ... no it isn't but it might as well be all the advice it provides. Anyway we're now being pulled by Michael in the inflatable tender, accompanied by an inquisitive seal. Some deft pushing and pulling of the drifiting vessel eases us into a mooring and the seal buggers off. It's 2am by the time we pull covers over weary bodies.

Earlier in the day Michael suggested that "the people back home wouldn't believe the photos", perhaps he was right?