Problems, problems and more problems!

Sorry you didn’t hear from me yesterday. I was uploading photos to this site. It took almost 5 minutes per photo. It was almost midnight when they finally loaded. I went to bed. I tried to get on this afternoon and couldn’t. So here I am tonight, Thursday, 11th at 10:00 PM. I’ll start with yesterday. We arrived in Capetown and had to go through immigration again. We had an early tour so we were one of the first groups to go through. It was a cloudy, drizzly day. Our tour was to Table Mountain, a huge mesa in the middle of the city. I thought surely we wouldn’t go because the mountain was shrouded in clouds. But we went. I had to buy a baseball cap to keep my head dry. It was blowing a gale with zero visibility, and raining. We walked around for a couple minutes, then went to the gift shop. Bunny and I both bought several items. Then we went to the snack shop where most people were. We had a hot chocolate and warmed up. Our guide said we could leave early, thank heavens. When we got to the bottom of the cable car, there was an overlook of the city. The sun was out and we got some nice pictures. Then back on the bus for a city tour. We went through an area called Bo Kaap where the houses are painted vibrant colors. We saw the original old fort, the place where Mandela gave a freedom speech after his release from prison. Then we went to a bar/restaurant called Cabo for a free glass of champagne. It was near the port and right on the water. Even though the shore was rocky, they had a sandy beach area with tables and umbrellas. It was a very scenic place. We saw a seal swimming in the water. It looked like a really nice restaurant and we wished we could have had dinner there. But it was back on the bus for the short ride to the ship.
‘Anyone who wanted could get off at an entrance to the Victoria and Albert Wharf, which we did. We walked 5 minutes and we were there. It looks the same as it did in 2013 when I was there. We found a nice restaurant and had the best burgers we’ve had since leaving home in December. We walked around a bit, went to a store that had everything African. I really wanted a jade turtle but it was $100 American. I couldn’t justify that price, as beautiful as it was. So we headed back to the ship. We saw Beryl and Ben just on their way to the wharf. We also saw them on top of the mountain. When we were walking back, my Table Mountain hat flew off, the wind was really strong. We didn’t really know the way to the ship but someone we asked said to follow the yellow brick road. There was a large path painted yellow to help us find the way. We rested a bit, then I went up to the back pool for sail away. We waited, and waited, and waited. We didn’t leave. We saw another cruise ship leave but not us. The captain finally announced the winds were too strong for us to leave port. So we had dinner, thinking we’d be underway when we got up this morning.

That didn’t happen either. It was a beautiful, clear day, but still windy. Table Mountain was not covered in clouds, but it was closed due to the high winds. So we sat in port all day. Because we had already gone through the exit immigration, we couldn’t get off the ship. We were captives. We did the usual at sea day activities, but it was weird just sitting in port. We have high hopes we will be at sea in the morning. So does the Cunard Queen Victoria. They are anchored offshore waiting for our berth. We have already missed the first port in Namibia. Hopefully we’ll get to the second one. Then we have a long stretch of 7 days at sea while we go up the coast of Africa to Senegal..Stay tuned for the next installment of “Stuck in Port”

Photos: Our view on the way up in the cable car, us being blown by the wind , 4 views from the platform after coming down, lion’s head mountain, Cabo where we had champagne on the beach, houses in Bo-Kaap,(Got those two in the wrong order), Table Mountain from the port, our restaurant on the wharf, the famous clock tower on the wharf