Showing posts with label South. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Hout Bay South Africa B B accomodation and places to stay
This was suggested to me by a regular reader in the UK, what do I know about the bed and breakfast industry you may ask?
Why not I thought, its that time of the year when seasonal holidays are being planed, I will expand this thread over the next few days. It will highlight what Hout Bay and the places near it are like.
It just happens that a fellow classic car restorer and local B&B association chairman who lives close by knows lots, so if you want advice and some help to make a booking, send me a mail and I will see what can be done?
Its whale watching season in the cape right now,this will continue for some months and we spotted one on our way back to harbour.
Cape Point and not that many miles south of where I took the picture above from, we live in one of the
worlds favorite tourist destinations.
Roy
Mail just in from a regular blog reader:
phone number and to place a booking.
Its overcast today but once the cold front moves through this bay will be bathed in sunshine.
The bronze statue of a Leopard has watched out over Hout Bay for decades, come and see it for yourself. Check the story and a really fine picture here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hilton-t/5396489712/
The statue was made by Ivan Milton-Barberton. I think it was stolen once?
The surf is rarely large and suitable for body boarding and surf board training.
With the school holidays now on this is a popular spot for the kids to try to learn surfing.
You may wonder what we have close by and near enough to take a short drive to?
The Kirstenbosch Garden is certainally one of those places, its just 12 kilometres from the center of Hout bay and should take around 15 minutes to drive there.
The roads are good and its an interesting drive through some forests.
If you need some B&B booking contacts send me an email.
roy@ckdboats(dot)com remove the word dot and replace with a real dot!
Roy
There is some history about Hout Bay in this link
http://www.blogspot.com/2009/04/hout-bays-past.html
The best venue for a sundowner will be the Hout Bay Yacht Club, which is open to non members.
Try www.hbyc.co.za for full details and a map of the bay.
What else can Hout Bay offer you, well how about a boat trip in the bay?
http://www.drumbeatcharters.co.za/Home.html
Where to buy gifts and food?
Lots and lots of such places and one that is well worth a look is the Bay Harbour Market.
http://www.bayharbour.co.za/#ad-image-1
BOKKE & BLOMME
Both functional and fun, Bokke & Blomme can do custom designs, or simply browse the locally produced array on offer.
The English language has so many gems that have such an uplifting impact, even Mother Theresa said “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly
Why not I thought, its that time of the year when seasonal holidays are being planed, I will expand this thread over the next few days. It will highlight what Hout Bay and the places near it are like.
It just happens that a fellow classic car restorer and local B&B association chairman who lives close by knows lots, so if you want advice and some help to make a booking, send me a mail and I will see what can be done?
Its whale watching season in the cape right now,this will continue for some months and we spotted one on our way back to harbour.
Cape Point and not that many miles south of where I took the picture above from, we live in one of the
worlds favorite tourist destinations.
Roy
Mail just in from a regular blog reader:
Good Day Roy,
Like many ex-Cape Town residents, I have been reading your blog for many years as even after 19 years of living in the UK we still get very homesick for Cape Town, the best place we ever lived.
After leaving the UK for a better life in 1966 we as a family spent over 27 years in South Africa, most of these in Cape Town where we brought up three children, two of them made in SA and one made in England, all three are still living there. Foolishly, we decided to go looking for a better place to live on our yacht Jacana but I have to be honest after cruising for over 16000-miles we never did find it, though the grass is certainly greener in the UK it comes at a very high price, in the form of lots of rain and snow.
I see that you have now entered the holidays section and we wish you all the best in this new venture and feel sure that with your knowledge of the sea around the Cape as well as the best places to visit and contact with the local B&B association, you could certainly offer a wealth of tourist information to anyone who wants the holiday of a life time that is not going to cost the earth.
I wonder if your readers will know that you also have some amazing contacts for sailing around the Cape.
Good luck.
Al & Soni Noteman.
Al is a sailor and navigator, also an author.
The view from East Fort and looking towards The Sentinal on the far side, below and on the seaward side the Seal Island (duiker island) boat trips run daily and around every hour.
Just one of the places to stay, the sea views and sunsets can be quite something, contact me for the Al is a sailor and navigator, also an author.
The view from East Fort and looking towards The Sentinal on the far side, below and on the seaward side the Seal Island (duiker island) boat trips run daily and around every hour.
phone number and to place a booking.
Its overcast today but once the cold front moves through this bay will be bathed in sunshine.
The bronze statue of a Leopard has watched out over Hout Bay for decades, come and see it for yourself. Check the story and a really fine picture here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hilton-t/5396489712/
The statue was made by Ivan Milton-Barberton. I think it was stolen once?
The surf is rarely large and suitable for body boarding and surf board training.
With the school holidays now on this is a popular spot for the kids to try to learn surfing.
You may wonder what we have close by and near enough to take a short drive to?
The Kirstenbosch Garden is certainally one of those places, its just 12 kilometres from the center of Hout bay and should take around 15 minutes to drive there.
The roads are good and its an interesting drive through some forests.
If you need some B&B booking contacts send me an email.
roy@ckdboats(dot)com remove the word dot and replace with a real dot!
Roy
There is some history about Hout Bay in this link
http://www.blogspot.com/2009/04/hout-bays-past.html
The best venue for a sundowner will be the Hout Bay Yacht Club, which is open to non members.
Try www.hbyc.co.za for full details and a map of the bay.
Check the link to see the club house and on a day when flea market is hosted.
http://www.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-hout-bay-yacht-clubs-market-day.html
For snacks, breakfast and lunch, plus ice creams try Murials Munchies, its right next to the yacht club and a short walk from the beach.
Yes we are still having a little winter rain here but it will be gone in a week or so!
What else can Hout Bay offer you, well how about a boat trip in the bay?
http://www.drumbeatcharters.co.za/Home.html
Where to buy gifts and food?
Lots and lots of such places and one that is well worth a look is the Bay Harbour Market.
http://www.bayharbour.co.za/#ad-image-1
BOKKE & BLOMME
The Market’s ideal of “Local is Lekker” finds perfect solace in Bokke & Blomme; a business quite literally inspired by words.
Patriotic South Africans find colloquial slang a particular darling, with “Howzit” being a favourite for entrance halls and bar walls alike.
Whether “Dream” finds a place above your bed, or “Yummy” adjacent to the fridge, all and sundry will have a perfect setting to incorporate the written word into daily life.
Janet Ormond's beautifully-rendered text carvings in a variety of fonts are perfect for every mood and environment and serve as a fantastic wooden wordsfor every room.
Patriotic South Africans find colloquial slang a particular darling, with “Howzit” being a favourite for entrance halls and bar walls alike.
Whether “Dream” finds a place above your bed, or “Yummy” adjacent to the fridge, all and sundry will have a perfect setting to incorporate the written word into daily life.
Both functional and fun, Bokke & Blomme can do custom designs, or simply browse the locally produced array on offer.
The English language has so many gems that have such an uplifting impact, even Mother Theresa said “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly
endless.”
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Off to Masthead Island for some reef hopping South
December 1 - 2016
The sky began to lighten nice and early at Great Keppel Island as the calendar ticked over to December first. It was now well and truly into summer and we were enjoying nice long days. Despite having fifteen or so hours of daylight available to us, we still raised the anchor in the predawn for our fifty nautical mile passage offshore to Masthead Island on the outer Great Barrier Reef. We wanted to arrive early enough to have time to go ashore and do some exploring as we only planned to spend the night there before moving onto Fitzroy Reef for a couple of nights before sailing further south to Lady Musgrave Island.
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| On our way from Great Keppel Island as the sun climbs into the sky. |
Only a very weak north easterly breeze blew in the early morning. Hopefully it would strengthen enough later in the day for us to sail but the engine stayed on as we began the passage on flat seas. Fortunately the wind angle generated as we motored along was such that we were able to fill the sails and gain a small lift. We also look a lot better with the sails up, very important of course.
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| Light winds and calm seas en-route to Mast Head Island. |
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| Our Whitby 42 ketch does well motor sailing in light conditions. |
As hoped, the wind did fill in enough in the late morning for us to silence our 80HP Ford Lehman and glide along nicely maintaining better than five knots. Karen took advantage of the calm sea state to spend some time in the galley teaching Kristian how to make his own sushi rolls for lunch which proved a smash hit – highlight of the very laid back passage in fact.
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| At last, enough wind to silence the engine. |
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| Kristian constructing his own sushi rolls for lunch. |
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| They're a winner. |
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| Great Keppel Island to Masthead Island 49.9 Nautical Miles – 9 Hours 17 Minutes Average Speed 5.4 - Max Speed 7.9 Knots To see our track in a zoom-able format click HERE |
The pilot guide suggests the best depths to anchor in are to be found off the north west corner of the island’s fringing reef and the Google Earth imagery also indicated this was also where the most sand was to be found. However, the wind was forecast to continue from the north east before swinging slightly more northerly over night. The tide was very low when we arrived and the reef was totally exposed but we were concerned that the high tide overnight could see any swell sweep over the reef so we anchored in 7 metres a little further in along the reef edge in attempt to gain some more protection from the island itself.
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| Masthead Island has good sand for southerlies through to north easterlies but we pushed the anchoring envelope with an overnight northerly predicted. |
Dinghy access to the beach was impossible with the low tide so that ruled out our planned afternoon’s exploration of the island. Rob decided to see if he could spear us some dinner instead so we dropped the dinghy off the davits and zoomed over to a likely looking section of reef. He was only in the water a few minutes before surfacing with a nice coral trout.
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| Hunter-gatherer about to do his thing. |
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| One coral trout headed for the dinghy. |
Next he spied two crayfish hiding under a coral ledge and was soon passing the first one into the dinghy before heading back for the second. Unfortunately this larger specimen managed to evade him scurrying into a deep inaccessible hole in the coral. Keen to add to the catch to provide a decent dinner of crustacean, a long but ultimately unsuccessful search for more crayfish followed.
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| The fringing reef at Masthead Island provides incredible snorkelling |
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| La Jorja arrives at Masthead Island |
Having enjoyed a sleep in and later start from Great Keppel, our friends, Matt and Debbie on La Jorja had arrived while Rob roaming the reef was chasing shellfish. They anchored up nearby and while a visit for another sundowners session was inviting, we opted to get the dinghy back up on the davits as the wind and swell was building. We also had another early start planned next morning to arrive at the right point of the tide to pass through the narrow entrance into the lagoon at Fitzroy Reef.
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| Rob's snorkelling yielded a good sized coral trout and crayfish. |
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| A couple of visitors on the bow. |
We enjoyed a nice feed on the very fresh coral trout done on the BBQ that evening and were treated to a truly awesome sunset that went on forever evolving through a number of stages. That night the wind did swing more from the north at about 15 knots with a bit of swell finding its way over or around the reef at high tide. We also spun 180 degrees when the tidal flow reversed but still enjoyed a reasonably comfortable night.
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| The Masthead Island beaches were lined with the tracks of nesting turtles. We look forward to exploring ashore next time. |
Next morning both us and La Jorja found our anchors/chains fouled and took a fair bit of time and effort to free ourselves. We both paid that price for choosing the additional protection of anchoring further behind the island rather than over the clearer sand bottom to the north west. Regardless, we are very keen to return to Masthead Island sometime in the future and explore underwater more of the great fringing reef and get to land on the island itself. A few more crayfish would be good too.
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| We hope you enjoy the evolution of a magnificent sunset below. Good night from Masthead Island. |
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| Cape Capricorn in the distance. |
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Sunday, August 21, 2016
1275c Mini Cooper S for sale in Cape Town South Africa
Who wants a genuine Mini Cooper S 1275 single tank (old shape) with matching numbers and restored?
At this time I have not even seen the car but I do know the owner very well, we talked about the
car being my next project but a buyer needs to be found first.
The car is said to be an early model and about 1963/4, its a bare shell right now, so ready for its rebuild and a new owner.
This is not the actual car but shows what a Mini Cooper looks like.
http://www.blogspot.com/2008/07/austin-mini-cooper-genuine-parts-manual.html
I already have a genuine 1st edition ,September 1961 Cooper parts manual on my books on cars, so re assembly should be faster and correct.
I heard on Sky TV that Jeff Randle Live was saying the market in wrist watches and classic cars was better than the stock market these days!
Roy
At this time I have not even seen the car but I do know the owner very well, we talked about the
car being my next project but a buyer needs to be found first.
The car is said to be an early model and about 1963/4, its a bare shell right now, so ready for its rebuild and a new owner.
This is not the actual car but shows what a Mini Cooper looks like.
http://www.blogspot.com/2008/07/austin-mini-cooper-genuine-parts-manual.html
I already have a genuine 1st edition ,September 1961 Cooper parts manual on my books on cars, so re assembly should be faster and correct.
I heard on Sky TV that Jeff Randle Live was saying the market in wrist watches and classic cars was better than the stock market these days!
Roy
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Pictures of a misty Hout Bay Western Cape Province South Africa
We dont get mist here often but when we do it sure adds to a photograph.
Pictures taken by R McBride using a Canon G11 digital camera set on auto.
Note the Canon G11 and others have a common fault in that the automatic lens cover closes and scratches the glass lens.
This may be after some years, mine was first noted after about three years of use, the scratches are not an issue unless your looking towards the sun or a light source, then the camera is seriously faulted.
I would buy another though, any on offer out there? G11 or G12 and a higher??
Roy
Click on the image to enlarge it.
Pictures taken by R McBride using a Canon G11 digital camera set on auto.
Note the Canon G11 and others have a common fault in that the automatic lens cover closes and scratches the glass lens.
This may be after some years, mine was first noted after about three years of use, the scratches are not an issue unless your looking towards the sun or a light source, then the camera is seriously faulted.
I would buy another though, any on offer out there? G11 or G12 and a higher??
I have purchased an almost new Canon G1X, its a great camera but less compact than the G11 which is also better with macro pictures which I need for work quite often,
By Sunday the 12th of October the SE trades were gusting over 25 knots, this monday morning its well past that speed and for sure the mist is just a memory!
Roy
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