Weekend Warriors

Every week I watch the clock for 2pm on Friday to finally arrive, partially because that is the meeting time for the VAC weekly activity, but mostly because this signals the start of the ever amazing Cape Town weekend. This week I was fighting a cold and eventually lost my voice, prompting me to forgo late night dancing downtown and karaoke at Gary's Corner Bar (losing one's voice really inhibits their ability to belt a duet of Marvin Gaye with a vocally talented stranger). Despite these small set backs I still got to enjoy a full weekend of incredible South African activities including surfing, Seal Island, and springbok burgers. 

This Friday's weekly VAC activity was a boat tour out of Hout Bay to Duiker Island, home to a cape fur seal colony. Each Friday activity is fun, but from my interest in marine biology I was especially excited to push off of the coast and view some marine wildlife.

All the interns agreed that we wouldn't mind living in Hout Bay with a sail boat.

Before we boarded the tour boat we had about half an hour to get some ice cream and wander around the dock. There were a few young boys feeding seals from the dock with fish scraps. We were impressed by the boys feeding the large seals with their hands and even more impressed when they started holding the fish in their mouths and letting the seals jump out of the water to the scraps.

For some reason the seals were really enjoying this position... should we have been offended?

Jenna and the crate of fish scraps.

Amazing photo by Jen Reynolds of a dock boy feeding the seal by his teeth. 

After the pre tour entertainment, we boarded the boat and headed out towards Duiker Island. After a short ride spent mostly by hanging over the side fascinated by the abundance of red jellyfish (mostly by my part) we arrived at Duiker Island to view the seal colony (also to mainly my enjoyment). After Seal Island we got to view a ship wreck named the "American."

American VAC interns filling up the tour boat... to see the American.

Seals for days!

I love marine mammals!

Ship wreck.

Photo by Samantha Murray. Notice the SA flag in the corner. 

Saturday morning rolled around and of course that means a trip to the Old Biscuit Mill! The trip involved the usual consuming of good food, admiring of crafts I can't afford, and socializing with people I love. Basically another perfect Saturday morning.

The market is actually called the Neighbor Goods Market, but because of it's location everyone calls it the Old Biscuit Mill.

I finally got a springbok burger. It was delicious. 

I was so full by the time we got frozen yogurt that I had to casually lay down to eat it, but it was worth it.

After breakfast a group of the VAC interns hopped on a train and headed out to Muizenburg. Half of the group went to enjoy the beach and explore the town, the other half, myself included were intent on catching some waves. When we arrived at the beach the red shark flags were up, but to our relief the guys in the surf shop said that there had not been a sighting in hours. So, we got outfitted in wet suits and boards and by the time we hit the water the red flags were back down. I almost wet my wet suit when a siren went off, but when I looked around no one was running out of the water and the black shark flags were still up. Luckily the sirens were just the time signal for the youth surf competition. Because of the competition, music was being blasted out into the water, more than making up for the waves being small. We spent a fantastic few hours dancing in the water, and more importantly riding waves like we knew what we were doing. I'm not sure what it is about surfing, the gallon of saltwater I seem to constantly hold in my mouth, or the endless tumbles in water and sand, but there is just something that gets me. On second thought it is probably the ice cream that we got afterwards. We bought a package deal that makes each surf trip less than ten dollars for each person. Would you rather go to a movie or surfing? I think we will be back.

To our entertainment, someone on the train had previously labeled each passenger.

Matt was not happy with his being labeled "desperate."

Black shark flags meaning "spotting conditions poor."

Colorful beach houses.

It may not have been perfect weather at Muizenberg, but we did get a rainbow at the end. 

After a night of deep sleep that can only be obtained by tired surfer, Sunday morning brought the World Cup Ruby finals. While everyone here in South Africa is still bitter about not being able to watch the Springboks compete for the title, we still got up early to watch the game in Gary's Corner Bar, with our best friend Gary. He usually has the best samoosas in town (filo dough triangles with various delicious fillings), but I think it was a bit to early for samoosas after working a late Saturday night crowd. Although we did get to watch the game on a projector on comfy couches with a few locals.

Kate excited about the game and her savanna. 

It's Sunday night and the weekend is sadly coming to an end, but the fun doesn't stop there. My supervisor told me that this week we are going to go to University of Cape Town to use their facilities to start working on the fish feed for our probiotics research. Also we are hoping to start some fish dissections to figure out exactly what and how we are going to test for the project. On top of that I just got Kings of Leon tickets for Wednesday night at Green Point Stadium. It's going to be an amazing week.