At Sea

January 16^th, 2025

The best talk of the day today was again by photographer Chris Fellows. This conversation was on how to get your best animal shot. I certainly need to learn that.

He showed amazing photos he had taken of sharks, whales, and lions.

He was in a cage when he took most of the shark photos. They were really up close and personal shots of these magnificent creatures. However, it does seem that some of his shark photography is done when he is not in a cage. He has a great deal of trust when relating to sharks, which must work as he is here today to show us his photographs. I will not be taking any close ups of sharks. Chris may think that they are wonderful creatures, but I think they are best left alone.

I learned 2 main things from Chris’ talk. Firstly, you need to be near to the ground or the water to take your best photos.

My whale photos are often taken when I am standing up on a boat in order to see the whale, so even though I am short, I am way above the water. Leaning over the side of the boat so my camera is just above the water may work in a small boat, but the risk of my camera getting splashed by a wave is high. I am destined to not get great whale photos. So, the water-based shots aren’t going to work. How about the land-based ones?

Chris showed some amazing photos of lions. They appeared to be looking right into his eyes. Well, they probably were. He was lying on the ground in front of the lions when he took the photos. No matter how important a photo is to me, there is no way I am going to lie down on the ground in front of a lion, or a leopard, or a cheetah, or a wild dog. Not even an elephant or zebra. So there goes my chance of the perfect photo of a sleeping lion.

However, if I had known about this when we did our gorilla trekking many years ago, maybe I could have taken the video I did take while lying on the ground. Although I would have risked getting trampled in that situation as well.

The other important fact that I learned from his talk is that you have to spend days trying to get the perfect photo. So, a 2-hour game drive in a Land Cruiser with 5 other people just isn’t going to work. I will have to be content with my very amateurish videos. They work for me.

Still despite the fact that I didn’t learn anything very useful for me from the talk, I loved seeing Chris’ photographs. He is so talented.

After this talk, the Grand Salon was prepared for the next edition of the Great Cook Off.

Today’s contestants were Nick and Rhys from the entertainment team, and Soso and Jen from Guest Services. Chef Ainsley was the judge.

Both teams were given a recipe for bacon wrapped stuffed chicken breasts in a herb sauce, and the goal was to follow the recipe and produce a professional looking plate of food in 15 minutes.

Apart from cooking the bacon separately so it wouldn’t wrap around the chicken breast, the girls did a great job.

Nick and Rhys did not appear to have a clue what they were doing and Chef Ainsley had to step in and help out. Even with his assistance their herb sauce looked suspiciously like scrambled eggs, and when they were making the sauce, as the chicken was still cooking, they placed the sauce pan on top of the chicken instead of waiting for the chicken to be done. This was quite an unorthodox way to make a sauce, as evidenced by the end product.

I did learn a good tip when Nick and Rhys were plating the dish, with Chef Ainsley giving them directions. Instead of placing the chicken on the dish and then pouring the sauce over the chicken, they put the sauce on the dish first and then lay the chicken on top of this. This would have looked good if the chicken had looked OK.

The winner was chosen by audience applause, and Jen and Soso won.

Here is their winning dish

And here is Nick and Rhys’ dish.

Quite honestly, neither looked that appealing, but then if I saw bacon wrapped stuffed chicken breasts in a herb sauce on a menu, I am not sure I would order it.

Tonight, singer Ruhan Du Toit was the entertainer. He is one of the South Africans who joined us on the banana boat escapade. It was a good show, and we enjoyed it. And I managed to stay awake for the whole show, something that doesn’t always happen.