Part of our tour for our last day in Cape Town was a drive up the famous Chapman’s Peak where you could see incredible ocean views.  However, the Peak road was closed indefinitely due to landslides so we were driven a slightly different route.  We had a good overview of the area around Cape Town.

Our driver took us through a fair amount of the city before heading south along the coast.  
This is the stadium that was being built for the Soccer World Cup that was to take place in Cape Town in 2010.

Our frist stop was Maiden’s Cove where we could see the Twelve Apostles mountain.  Judging from the many people walking around taking photos this was one of the ‘must see’ spots when in Cape Town.
With the continuing wind, the waves at Camps Bay were calling to the surfers.False Bay was named by sailors over three hundred years ago when it would be confused with Table Bay to the north. When sailing in from the east the identifying mountains at the entrances to the two bays are very similar and would cause ships to enter False Bay when looking for Table Bay. Upon our return to the ship we had lunch then took the port shuttle into town and wandered around the Victoria and Albert Waterfront which was very picturesque and had many street entertainers and vendors.  We purchased the CD of a great African Street band which, when we listen to it, takes our memories right back to that day. The Captain set sail at 7 pm.  Cape Town is located on the southwestern edge of the African continent so we did not have to sail too far before we began going north up the coast on our way to Namibia. We ran into fog about 1 am and listened to the fog horn blow every few minutes the rest of the night.  We didn’t see the sky until mid-afternoon the next day.

On our day at sea after leaving Cape Town there was a Garage Sale on the Lido Deck around the swimming pool.  The cruise ended in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on May 13 or New York City on May 16, about three weeks away.  Many of the shoppers on board were beginning to realize they had acquire more stuff than they could fit in their bags for the flights home.  Among many other things, people had purchased 6′ carved giraffes and sandstone rhinos the size of rocking horses in Mombasa for screaming hot deals and then found out it would cost $500-$600 to ship it home from Florida or New York.  If you had a veranda deck or penthouse the quantity of luggage pieces was not an issue because one of the perks for the expensive cabins was free shipping.  We had friends that brought eight pieces of luggage when they boarded, shipped four boxes home of things they purchased on the 14-day cruise between Ft. Lauderdale and Los Angeles and then shipped a further18 boxes when the arrived back in the US.

Every formal night, which were about once a week, the cruise line gave every passenger a gift.  The final gift was a duffle bag to put all the rest of the gifts in.  Some people no longer wanted some of the things they had impulsively purchased or some of the HAL gifts so tables were set up to sell it off to others that may want it.  All proceeds would be given to a Namibia AIDs orphange so it wasn’t something a person did to re-coup some of their spent money.

There were about 300 passengers that got off in Cape Town and 250 new ones that got on for the last leg of the voyage to the USA.  One person flew from northern Europe to Cape Town to get on the ship because we are stopping at Pitcairn Island, Ascension Island and Devil’s Island and their personal goal is to go to as many of the world’s populated islands as possible.  Everyone needs a hobby I guess.