Penguins!

It’s a loooong ways to South Africa from the US…but well worth the long flights. I flew out there for some meetings but had a couple of days at the end to tour.

Cape Town is a lovely area, with the beautiful Atlantic side and the warmer bay side. Table Mountain and Lion’s Head dominate the town..you can see them from pretty much anywhere in the city. An hour or so out of town is an African penguin colony, which is also a destination point.

Sunday, my friend Jenny Cerff, who lives in Cape Town, and who has played on many many So African Cup teams gave me a tour. The Young Seniors Individual championships is going on now and we practiced at one of the venues. The energy was good there as it should be at a World Championships.

After tennis we drove to see the penguins at Boulder’s Beach. It was a picture prefect fall day, sunny, warm but not hot and pretty calm. We stopped along the way to walk and take photos and then continued past Simon’s Town (a tourist area…lots of tour buses around) and the aptly named Boulder’s Beach. There are really big boulders on the beach there!

We first went to the free beach north of Boulder’s and yes, there were penguins! We went to a small cove where three penguins were just standing on a rock after swimming; we got to see them very close up, then swimming and eventually walking away in that awkward penguin walk. They are very cool birds. I also went into Boulder’s Beach where it’s a sanctuary and I think breeding ground…there were a lot more penguins there, but it wasn’t as peaceful.

We saw a bit of sunset on the 12 apostles back in Cape Town…it was a really fun day.