Mossel Bay, South Africa

January 27^th, 2025

We have never been to Mossel Bay before, but have heard about it for many years from our friends who have a home here. We were so excited to finally get to see their home.

Mossel Bay is a tender port, and we anchored out in the bay.

One advantage of being on a smaller ship is that it is so easy to catch a tender. We went down to deck 3 at 9:30 and had no trouble getting on the waiting tender, and in no time we were at the tender dock.

It is a short walk from the tender to the city center, and we found a lovely bench outside the tourism office where we waited for our friends.

Our plan was to walk from their house along the St Blaize hiking trail. I had read up on the trail, and there was a warning to be aware of puff adders sunning themselves along the trail. I wasn’t too sure about this, but the trail looked very pretty, so I was willing to risk a snake encounter.

Their house is right on the trail, and we followed the path past the neighbouring houses, restaurants and ice cream stands passing through an underpass, with the most beautiful mosaics.

The path rises quite steeply from there, and goes by the cave below the lighthouse

and then along the cliffs, with a beautiful view of the water below. It really is a very pretty and not too strenuous hike.

We saw some cute dassies along the way.

By the time we were done with the hike it was time for lunch, so we jumped into the car and headed for Café Gannet for lunch.

We had a wonderful buffet lunch there, joined by friends from the ship. The sun was shining, the wine was good, the food was tasty, the conversation enlightening. Who could ask for anything more?

Well, a swim would go down well, so we drove back to our friends’ house and immersed ourselves in the large rock pool in front of their house. Personally I prefer warmer water, but it was so great to swim in the clear water after all of our activities of the day, I didn’t mind the temperature. As we were swimming we could see dolphins and seals in the distance. How cool is that? Apparently the dolphins are quite friendly, but the seals are mean spirited and not pleasant at all. Our friends would rather encounter a shark close up than a seal. Sharks will only interfere with you if they are feeling a bit hungry, seals are just downright unpleasant. Who would have thought that?

All too soon in was time to get out of the water, have a quick cup of tea, and then return to the port to catch one of the last tenders back to the ship.

We arrived at the tender dock and walked down to the tender, expecting to be welcomed on board. I mean, that’s what has always happened.

We were greeted by an officer who we had not met before. He asked us what we were doing there. I explained that we were planning on returning to our ship. He looked at us as if we were trying to sneak on board and asked to see our cruise cards. We showed them to him. There was another couple waiting by the tender, and he looked at them, and then at us and declared that there were meant to only be 2 people who were not back on the ship yet, so what were 4 people doing on the dock?

I had no answer for him. He told us that the last tender wasn’t going to leave for another half hour so we could go and wait for it at the top of the ramp.

The other couple and the 2 of us waited on the shore to be called back to the tender so we could once more return to our “home away from home.  Then the officer beckoned for the 4 of us to return to the tender and get on board.

He seemed to be a bit more friendly now and I worked out why he must have been so surprised to see us. I expect that he had been told that there were only 2 more passengers who needed to come back on board, so seeing the 4 of us he must have panicked and thought that maybe there were more than 4 people who still needed to come on board, and how could he trust the updates coming from the ship.

When we arrived back at the ship we were told that indeed we were the last people to come back, so all was well.

We headed to the sail away party.

Then the captain announced that now that everyone was on board, he would let us know that there was a delay in the sail away. Due to storms in Cape Town, we will be staying at anchor in Mossel Bay overnight, and we will set sail in the morning. That will give us plenty of time to get to Cape Town the day after tomorrow. Apparently, there are 2 cruise ships in the port that cannot leave, and one cruise ship outside the harbor that can’t get in, so we were better off staying put.

So the sail away party was more of a staying put party but it was great fun. Champagne and caviar always go down well as far as I am concerned. Chelsea has joined us to sing in the Band, replacing Amber. This was her first sail away gig, and she did very well. Good times.

There was an Australia Day theme, which was very nice for the Australians on board, but there still has been no mention of Burns Night.

As we are in port, and the weather was looking good we joined friends for dinner at Earth and Ocean out on the pool deck. It was a lovely night, and as usual the food was great. Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a downpour but we were under cover so we avoided the deluge.

We then spent the rest of the evening in the Observation Bar. This has really become my favorite place late at night. The Club is great if you want to dance, but with Robert softly playing the guitar, sitting around the bar and having a nightcap is a lovely way to end another great day on the Sojourn.