Travel Blog - Mr & Mrs Smith Boutique & Luxury Hotels

August

James’ blogging memoirs: part one

Staying in a lovely cottage - 80 Waterkant Street - which is under the management of The Village Lodge Hotel. It’s perfect for honeymooners as you get the privacy you are after (i.e. no other guests) but all the amenities a hotel has to offer at the end of a phone.

First night dinner at Ginja - a Cape Town favourite which, as ever, delivered a fabulous meal. Go for a table towards the window away from the kitchen and make sure you order the salt and pepper prawns. You won’t find finer cuisine in the Cape, or at least we thought so until we had a stunning lunch the next day at La Colombe.

World-famous head chef Frank Dangereux may have recently left after his ten-year reign but former sous-chef Kerri has stepped in and I have to say delivered the most fabulous feast. So if you worried about Frank’s abdication I’m pleased to report that you have nothing to worry about as it is still as wonderful as ever.

So enough of all this gluttony — next up, shark cage diving.

6am is never a good time and when the minibus driver rang our door bell and pointed to a minibus full of students that smelled a little more mature than their years (late night on the snake bite and black, I’m guessing) this Mr & Mrs Smith were not a happy couple. Several stop offs to pick up yet more students (from the backpacker-this and the backpacker-hostel-that) and then a two-and-half-hour-drive to Hermanus to Shark HQ. Of course we didn’t have the right gear but thankfully Souvenir fleeces were available at R200 a piece and frankly the way the weather was we would have worn pink tutus if they’d been fleece-lined — this was no time for fashion.

So we head towards our boat to meet our four-fingered captain (a worrying start) in extremely rough seas. All very exciting to start with until the sea sickness took a hold of Mr Smith and several other people on board. After two hours of waiting for Sharks to turn up suddenly they did and the cage was dropped beside the boat and the captain asked for the first five volunteers.

Suddenly it all became a bit real — I’d forgotten why we were here for a moment and the rattle of the cage hitting the side of the boat suddenly brought everything into focus. I’ve never seen people look away so quickly so as not to catch the skipper’s eye. I decide that getting in would relieve the seasickness and the cold waters and 4m-long sharks can’t be worse that how I was feeling, so I volunteered, as did another four people. We then put on our already wet wetsuits (I’m now not amused at all) weight belt and mask and told to jump in to the cage and wait while they lure the sharks to come in close so we can get a good look at them.

Who’s bloody idea was this? Oh ye, it was mine. I get bored sitting around but I vowed then never to dismiss yet another lazy lunch as a boring option. So as the arctic waters filled the wetsuit as we are told to dive every time a shark comes close. It was incredible. The Sharks are literally inches away, sometimes feeding on the baited line so you can actually see inside their gaping mouths. Suddenly I realised why people go through the rigmarole — it was worth every retch over the side to see these incredible animals in their natural habitat.

Mrs Smith then went in and was equally impressed and hopefully the underwater camera will have captured a couple of moments to give you all an idea on our return.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 8:49 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.