Tag Archives: Jessica Swanepoel

Roosfontein Mass March

‘Smorning I went for the worst nature walk I’ve been on in my laaf! This was May 2015.
I knew I shouldna gone, but friends said come and I thought ‘don’t be a recluse all your life.’ So forty fools wandered through a coastal grassland and riverine forest starting long after 9am. Brats as young as three scurrying around underfoot. NOT my style!

Not a leaf stirred, not a birds turd.

Got home at noon and saw more birds and blomma cheese in ten minutes than on the whole 2,5hr walk. We live and don’t learn.

Make no mistake, Roosfontein is a beautiful grassland and riverine spot and well worth a visit. Early morning best, small group best. Ah, well, I took Jess along and she got some exercise.

– Roosfontein Jessie –
– too late in the day, too crowded –

feature pic on top is from Amblers hiking club – thanks!

~~~oo0oo~~~

One year later, a decades-long struggle by environmentalists finally succeeded with the official proclamation of the Roosfontein Nature Reserve.

The nature reserve, which will now be preserved for future generations, borders the Westville Prison and is being preserved to protect the endangered rare dwarf chameleon, North Coast grasslands and medicinal plants.

The land had been earmarked for a golf course, stadium and casino in the past, but environmental activists fought for its preservation.

Richard Boon, manager in biodiversity planning at the eThekwini Municipality, said the nature reserve covered 213 hectares, with a further 20 hectares near the nature reserve earmarked for housing projects.

Dr Debra Roberts, deputy head of environmental planning and climate protection, said it was a joyous moment that the reserve had finally been proclaimed such and recounted how they had negotiated with the Westville mayor pre-1994 not to misuse the land.

She said the challenge for Durban and African cities now was to create uniquely African cities that were not made in the image of mini-European cities.

“We’ve had to decolonise our minds,” she said. “We need to be uniquely African, like when you go to Rio or Nairobi, they have huge natural parks and savannahs. Our cities have to be different and must play a different role.

“Look at the beautiful grass hills, these are a valuable resource. That is why a golf course on that land was not part of building an African city, that is why we started lobbying 30 years ago, we said we think this is valuable and we need to protect it for the future and keep Roosfontein free of development,” she said.

Well done Richard and Debra and Mayor Nxumalo!

~~~oo0oo~~~

blomma cheese – blommetjies; flowers

Mfolosi Day Trip

Up at 4am, left at 4.30, inside the Mfolosi gate at 7.15am. Me and Jess and a friend. Tom couldn’t imagine anything worse that being stuck in a car with two girls and no wifi, so he stayed home. Later, he went fishing for grunter in the harbour with the Naude boys. Craig took a picture:

Harbour Tom & Naudes

In Mfolosi we had good close-up views of nine white rhino, buffalo, warthog, giraffe, zebra, kudu, nyala and impala. An across-the-river view of four or five lions; Two eles about 100m off and approaching but Jess got nervous from watching youtube where eles overturn cars so we drove off. And bonus: Two black rhino as we were leaving the park.

LOTS of birds, including the best single bird party I’ve seen in years! A drongo chased a southern black tit so I stopped to look. Next a black-headed oriole, a golden-tailed woodpecker, a puffback shrike, white helmet shrikes, a bearded woodpecker, dark-capped bulbuls, orange-breasted bush shrike, a grey-headed bush shrike calling nearby, petronias, black-collared barbets, yellow-bellied bulbul, a large cisticola, white-bellied sunbird. All moving together in some trees against a rocky hillside on the way up to Mpila camp. Magic! That made my day. The girls wondered why I had switched off when there was “nothing to see.”

Also saw white-backed vultures, emerald-spotted wood dove, cape turtle dove, red-faced mousebirds, paradise flycatcher, black-crowned tchagra, chinspot batis, gorgeous bush shrike (heard only), cape glossy starling, a single red-billed quelea in a flock of winter weavers, pied crow, red-billed oxpecker, golden-breasted bunting, blue waxbill, melba finch pair.

Breakfast and lunch at the picnic spots. Home by 5pm.

I must remember to take photos! On this outing I took one: the tortoise on the tar road!

~o0o~

Hella Hella weekend

Hella Hella 2016 (37).jpg
Hella Hella 2016 (30).jpg
Hella Hella trip-001
Hella Hella trip

On the banks of the beautiful Umkomaas river at what the Porters used to call ‘The A-frame’ campsite. The A-frame washed away in the 1987 floods, heading downstream and maybe out the mouth, into the Indian Ocean and off to Australia.

Leopard and otter footprints; A tiny little dead shrew – what kind? dwarf?;

A magic lunch on the rocks next to a pool in the river below a little rapid.

And five kids.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Ocean Cruisin’

Should’n have asked, should’n have asked, should have gone to a game reserve . . . Jess decided she wanted an ocean cruise for her eighteenth birthday. Tom was cool with that for his fourteenth birthday, so off we went.

I checked with friend and veteran cruiser Craig and booked the four night cruise to Portuguese Island in Maputo Bay in Mocambique on the MSC Sinfonia.

Lots of queueing – LOTS!

What a bay!

Maputo Portuguese Island
– ferried ashore –
There's Milibangalala!!
There’s Milibangalala on the horizon! On the way back we had sunny weather.

The cruise north was rainy, so the kids had indoor fun. Jess took to quaffing cocktails at the various bars. Hey! She’s eighteen now! And the nice barmen didn’t need money, they just swiped her room key card.

MSC Sinfonia pub

Tom focused on the meals, making sure we got to where we needed to be and using the pizza and burger cafes in between meal times.

The highlight was going ashore on Portuguese Island in rubber ducks, having a swim and lunch onshore.

Portuguese Island
– two us are lovin’ this! –
sea-cruise-durban-sinfonia

On the beach a huge group of people formed a square and danced to some catchy tune. We swam and walked. I could see Jess actually wanted to join the dancers. But she didn’t. She just watched and watched and swayed in time to the music. Little did I know that tune was going to come back to haunt me!

– hamba nawe –

Back on the boat an obviously Durban family walked past us chatting to their friends about going for a jacuzzi; I had seen the jacuzzi and thought “Good luck”; Minutes later they were back to where we were sitting and told their friends “Hey you can’t even go in there, it’s CHOCKED!” Elbow-to-elbow people. Bum-cheek to bum-cheek. Every facility was crowded, every deckchair taken.

The kids loved the experience and I survived it, so all good.

~~oo0oo~~

IMO, Cruising is hell.

Update: More people experienced gastrointestinal illnesses while aboard a cruise ship in 2024 than any other year since 2012. Hurgh!

Hluhluwe Again

Flying ants, black rhino, wild dogs and a magic unidentified raptor.

Plus impressive thunderstorms, pelting rain, dry stream beds that ended up running merrily. The Hluhluwe river changed from dry sandy bed to quite a brown torrent between Friday night and Sunday morning.

A coucal bubbling in the rain, then listening intently till his mate or rival called then immediately hunching and bobbing into his call. Jess said “Look Dad: He’s laughing!”

Yep, three teen girls. Who were most impressed by the buffet breakfast and most unimpressed by the massive thunderclap that banged right overhead in the wee dark hours of Saturday. “Dad, I thought the thatch of our rondawel was going to catch fire!” says Jess. Also mostly unimpressed by the lack of wifi.

Samango and vervet monkeys with babies, bushbuck, nyala, duiker, impala, zebra, francolin, longclaws, lots of buffalo, a dozen white rhino; Two eles right at the roadside each munching a tree for breakfast; baboon; a hippo out of water; a few giraffe.

20151122_093711

~~oo0oo~~

That raptor: I thought ‘Augur Buzzard’ as I stopped the car just outside the reserve cattle grid gate on the main road. Three raptors were soaring in the wind welling up from a little ridge on the north of the road, right overhead. Surfing the airwave, they were.

Pale leading edge, rust-coloured trailing edge, black ‘fingers’; A falcon-like head pattern (yet not quite) and the size of a YBK or a marsh harrier. Soaring and diving spectacularly. Saw the underside mainly. Upperside I think brown-ish. Clean forgot to take a photo!

~~oo0oo~~

Thanks xeno-canto.org for the Coucal audio

Mkhuze Camping

Mkhuze with Jess-collage
– click on pic to see my fiery jackal with a slit throat in the embers –

While I was pitching camp Jess came running to me with a horrified look on her face. She must have seen a snake or a leopard, I’m sure.

“DAD!!” she says breathlessly, horrified, stricken. “DAD!! There’s no wifi here!!”

Her idea of hell.

~~oo0oo~~

Embarrassing note:
I am good at giving advice. If you ask me – actually you don’t even need to ask – I will tell you what the MOST IMPORTANT thing is to take camping.

The FIRST thing you pack when you go camping is a deck chair.

I know this cos my pal Greg Bennett told me back in 1983 on my first Duzi Canoe Marathon. He said “Pete, you can forget everything else but take a deck chair. The most important comfort item you can take is your deck chair,”  he said. I have since pontificated on this very often.

So on this trip to Mkhuze: I forgot the ducking feckchairs.

The girls sat on ammo boxes. I sat on the tailgate. Greg is right: You can’t lean back and snooze on a tailgate.

~~oo0oo~~

And we FINALLY saw an ele in Mkhuze! One lone elephant. I was beginning to think there were none left. He was across a little bay in Nsumo Pan. His one leg was wounded. Thru our binnies we could see what looked like a deep, healed snare wound right round his foot.

~~oo0oo~~

Home Invasion

It’s holidays!! yay. They’re short. YAY!!

So I get this: “Dad – May 7 people pls sleep over?”

Home Invasion

So I put my foot down and Negotiated Tough. We settled on six total.

Then one arrived by bicycle and one’s Mom dropped him off. So I ended up only catering for eight meat-eating 13-and 14-yr-old noisy, farty, rugger bugger boys. Just as Tom had asked for in the beginning (no doubt having told them Yeah, No Problem! right from the start!).

20151004_073330[1]

20151003_180813[1]

Poor Jess!

(Sunday I got rid of three of them and then I had five referees playing rugby in the pool. Loud shouts of “Played On!” “Offsides!” “Release!” “High Tackle!” “Use it!”)

~~~oo0oo~~~

Sand Forest

Sand Forest is a rare, very distinctive forest type with a unique combination of plant and animal species. As far as is known, this vegetation type is more or less restricted to ancient coastal dunes in northern KwaZulu-Natal and the extreme southern portion of Mozambique (together: Maputaland). Sand forest harbours many rare and unusual plant and animal species.

Sand Forest Lodge Collage2-001

Sand Forest Lodge just east of Hluhluwe village on the road to Sordwana Bay is a lovely spot. We spent two nights there this week, the kids each taking a friend along.

More:
Sand forests are thought to be relics of coastal dune forests, which have been separated from the ocean for more than a million years as the shoreline has shifted slowly eastwards over the millennia. Dunes have accreted on the southeast African coastal plain since the Pliocene (around 5 million to 2.5 million years before present) and frequent sand mobilization events during climatic changes have resulted in some reworking of the dunes. The geological history of the region suggests that the current ecosystems here may be of recent derivation and many endemic plant taxa comply with the concept of neo-endemics (recent locally evolved species), and biological evolution (notably speciation) is still in an active phase.

Sand forest harbours many rare and unusual plant and animal species, including several Maputaland Centre endemics. Because of its restricted occurrence and unusual species complement, sand forest is perhaps the most unique plant community in the Maputaland Centre. Of the 225 Maputaland Centre plant endemic species, 30 are associated with it and 20 restricted to it. In the case of birds, Neergaard’s sunbird is strongly associated with it.

Sand Forest Lodge Lungelo Jordi (1)

Plant species that characterise sand forest (licuati forest) are Drypetes arguta, Uvaria lucida subsp. virens, Cola greenwayi, Balanites maughamii, Psydrax fragrantissima, Hyperacanthus microphyllus, Dialium schlechteri, Pteleopsis myrtifolia, Ptaeroxylon obliquum, Croton pseudopulchellus and Newtonia hildebrandtii. The protruding crowns of many of the larger species are usually covered by epiphytes, such as the wiry orchid Microcoelia exilis and various lichens including Usnea spp. (Thanks wikipedia)

Sand Forest Spider big
Jumping spider on my shoe

And boys will be boys:

Sand Forest Boys GIF

~~oo0oo~~

A Week in Mkhuze

We saw lots of bewilderbeast droppings and lots of bewilderbeasts – many with tiny calves, meals on wobbly hooves to the lions and cheetahs. The big male lion had helped himself to a giraffe calf, so fat pickings this summer. The lions were recently introduced to shake things up in Mkhuze, apparently four in Nov 2013 and four in 2014. So the edible animals are probably on high alert, muttering to each other ‘there goes the neighbourhood.’

DSCN0883
– wobbly hooves –
DSCN0888
– hmmm, I’ll have one of those! –

Jess and I watched with bated breath as this cheetah and its mate launched into a flat-out sprint after the wildebeasts they’d been watching, but they disappeared before we could see any outcome.

– impala nursery or creche on the banks of Nsumo Pan –
– ugh, I ate too much giraffe –

Friends saw the lionesses bring down a wildebeast calf right in front of them at the waterhole. Lots of square-lipped rhino, a baboon sentry up a tree; and a beautiful hunting wasp, all yellow and black rugby jersey colours. Wonderful Mkhuze birdlife as always, 106 species, with cuckoo hawk, nicator, grey-headed bush shrike, wattled lapwing and pygmy kingfisher being my highlights.

Then at last: A hook-lipped rhino! We’ve only seen a few of those over the years. He stood obligingly while we took pictures.

He just stood there as placid as anything. I had long told Jess if we were lucky enough to see one we’d probly just get a glimpse, so she should be ready with her camera! So there’s yet another reason to take everything your parents say with a great big sack of cerebos.

20141229_183644

We had lovely weather, including rain, wind and too hot, but mostly perfect, as all the others were short duration and actually pleasant. It’s dry again, so the waterholes were busy. Three of the lady lions launched a run on a wildebeast calf at the waterhole as we watched. Other voyeurs (among whom friend Geoff Kay) told of watching them kill and eat one the day before.

We dipped on eles. Again. Not one; and not a single elephant turd neither. Not one. We drove 450km over the six days and the reward I offered of an ice cream to she who spotted an ele turd (not a whole ele, just a fresh-ish turd!) went unclaimed!

It reminded me of a Free State Reed-ism: “Not a leaf stirred. Not an elephant stirred (geddit?)”

– giraffe stereo –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Mkhuze’s Great

Some things I love about Mkhuze:
Those dirt roads between the fever trees (there’s lotsa tar too, these days).
Few people.
Polite people even at a lion kill (‘After you! No, after YOU!’).
Lots of birds.

– Fever tree dirt track Mkhuze –

African time; African efficiency. We had electricity – at times, but not at our site, which I found out after I’d set up camp fully. Couldn’t test, as the generator only runs from 5pm to 10am – which is plenty, but you can’t find out if your site is working if you arrive when it’s not running. No problem, I set up a field kitchen 60m away from my site. We had water – at times. Even hot water at times. The bins had monkey- and baboon-proof lids – some of them.

FRIENDLY inefficient staff: Got any charcoal? Yes. Where? There. You’d looked there, but you go and look again: fokol. Go back. Doesn’t seem to be any. Yes, it is there. Where? I show you. None. HAU!! It was here! Screech of laughter: Hau! So she goes and fetches extra from the stores, hosing herself at the fact that ‘Strue’s Bob, there wasn’t any when she thought there was!

At the waterhole a sexy young thing with a 400mm lens got chatting away to this 59yr old. She musta been 19 in the shade. Burbling away about look at that and watch here for the pygmy kingfisher and have you seen the lions behind that bush and the poor wildebees calf lost its mother and the lions nearly ate it and etc. Fairly unusual for a Seffrican she was. My 17yr old can seldom string two words together to a stranger!

Very little ranger or staff presence so the ous were up and out on game drives well before the meant-to-be time of 5am.

Patrick the ranger on a game drive in his open top Landie stopped me – he recognised us from two previous visits when we went on drives and walks with him – and asked again, ‘Where’s the boy?’ Remarkable really, as the one visit was in May and the other in 2009! I spose we do stand out a bit. I told him Tom thought he’d rather be eaten by a lion than endure two teenage girls for six days.

Mkhuze very dry and huge tracts recently burnt.
The water hole was muddy and hugely popular. Everyone took turns to churn up the mud and poo n pee in it!
As thirsty as they were (they would come running up to it, keen to drink) they showed great reluctance to actually start drinking. But they had no choice.
This morning one of the wildebeests was lying dead next to the edge. Unmarked.
We speculated one of the rhinos had reprimanded it (they had “baleka’d” anything that came near to them as we watched them drink).

The only thing that baleka’d them was a male warthog. When a rhino said to him voetsack, he said No, YOU voetsack and made the rhino move over. Courage!
~~~oo0oo~~~
Note to self: There’s LOTS that needs fixing with your camping equipment!
I forgot the braai grid and couldn’t find one in six shops in Mkhuze village 18km away. I took the wrong gas bottle, didn’t fit. No problem, the girls got cold food* and hot tea – I had grabbed the electric kettle from the kitchen as I left home.

As always, the fridge worked a treat, so in the heat they got plenty of ice-cold drinks and water.

Next time I’m gonna be SO organised . . .
*Don’t feel sorry for them! They got some toasted sarmies from the Rhino Dino once or twice – and Phindile also made us one lekker breakfast.

~~~oo0oo~~~

fokol – none

Hau! – goodness gracious me

baleka – move away! fuckoff! language isiZulu

voetsack – pr: footsack; move away! fuckoff! language Afrikaans

Mkhuze Mantuma Camp

Jess and her two mates giggled away the weekend looking for big beasts. Elephants was what they were after, but they stayed in hiding. Eventually we were placing bets on seeing elephant poo! not even the whole animal! Still no luck. We saw lots of rhino and a a few buffalo instead. Plenty antelope and lots & lots of birds. Beautiful.

Evenings they watched movies while I read Bill Bryson’s Short History of Nearly Everything (again!) and listened to the nightjar.

Mkhuze is very dry, so all the animals from miles around crowd the waterhole. Mudhole, really – very little water. Amazing that just a few miles away at Nsumo Pan there is miles of shoreline and clear blue water, but we saw very few animals there. Just hippos. Wisely croc-shy, maybe?

Dunno if it was this visit or another, but in walking around the camp I saw the bluest bird I’d ever seen – and it was a Black Cuckooshrike! I would have confidently asserted to you that Black Cuckooshrikes are black. Well, usually, but have a good look in bright sunlight:

– ’twas just like this – – the blue of the Black Cuckooshrike – from ethiobirds.smugmug.com – thanks –

Tom back in civilization had a ball too. His weekend was very different to ours: beach, shopping mall, KFC, two movies, a home in Durban North with dogs and pet pythons. Plus he was given three shad his host had caught. He brought them home, scaled them, filleted them and fried them with fresh-cut potato chips. Delicious! Quite the chef, my Tom!

~~~oo0oo~~~

My Namesakes in Mkhuze

A few of my namesakes at Mkhuze this weekend.

DSCN0716

Spot the two old rhinos in the shade under the tree? *Click on the pic*

Then you’ll also see how dry it was – the “water” is mainly mud and algae with a rich dose of dung mixed in.

– Nsumo pan had good water, so the Mkhuze river must have had rain upstream –

~~oo00oo~~

Jessie’s Show and Tell – and Aitch’s Legacy

Jessie’s grade 10 class had Dr Chris Barnard and Heart Transplants as a subject last week.

When she told me I asked, ‘Did you tell them your Mama worked with him?’ Actually, no she hadn’t. She vaguely knew Mom had done it, but wasn’t confident enough to step forward. My shy Jess.

So out with Aitch’s old albums of her working next to the old sleazy charmer, still quite young back before 1983 (when he retired). She says he tried his luck to get her to go out with him one night, as he apparently did with all the nubiles on the team.

And there in the pics was Aitch in theatre greens and mask: The cardio-vascular perfusionist operating the heart-lung machine – ‘the oxygenator’ – that kept the patient alive once the blood circulation had been diverted away from their own heart and lungs. And there was the famous cad watching. And there was a heart in a jar.

Aitch & Barnard at the heart-lung machine
– The Prof and The Mom –

Off to school went the album the next day and Jess was the focus of much attention and oohing and aahing. Which she loved.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Afriski 2014

*** publishing now, but a story I wrote six years ago after our annual winter trip to Lesotho – just ‘parking it’ for the archives! ***

The resort has taken another leap forward this year under PIN management since they got 51% share and with that, management control. Most noticeable was the parking, the roads and the walkways are neater and better paved. This makes getting around easier and safer. In an earlier year, Aitch once slipped on ice and got a big fright. The whole complex is tidy, too, where before material and equipment would be left lying around.

Much of the accommodation has been upgraded – notably the two big units which have been completely re-done and their outside staircases enclosed in glass (red arrows);

– two original triple-story accom units – the ‘PIN’ lodges –

Two completely new staff quarters have been built below the dams which frees up more accommodation next to the restaurant. I think its up to 240 beds. Up to 800 day visitors can arrive on a busy weekend day in school holidays!

The restaurant is terrific now. They have expanded to upstairs and down, take two sittings and were fully booked Sunday night. Professional chef, lovely grub.

– pisten bully –

Weather was two perfect days – midday saw ladies skiing in skimpy tops! One day was too windy for the skilift to run, so the slope people used the Pisten Bully to take people to the top instead. And three average days. With us was the Naude family Michelle and Craig and their three boys, and Tom’s mate Lungelo.

Not moving forward this year was the kids enthusiasm! Jess didn’t ski / snowboard at all – sore knee & wrist. Tom spent about half his snowboarding time doing other things, including sleeping! Three of the five boys who went with us were out on the slope early until they got kicked off when it closed – keen as mouseturd, like Jess & Tom used to be – so it was fun seeing their newby enthusiasm. Times change!

So come next January my two will have to convince me we should go – or we’ll hire out our week for the first time after eight years! Ons sal sien . . !

~~~oo0oo~~~

Hluhluwe LUXURY Camping!

Its a sudden decision: Let’s go to a game reserve Dad! – that’s Jess on Friday night.
OK! (I’m chuffed!). I’m working tomorrow, so you guys buy food and gather the camping stuff. Be ready when I get home at 2:30pm and we’ll go to Mkhuze. Remember the tent, mattresses, pillows, your swimming cozzies.

Cecelia helps them. Minenhle & Andile join us. As we head north to Zululand I realise we’ll be cutting it fine. The gates close at 7pm and it’s 3:30pm already, so there’s a change of plan: We’ll go to Hluhluwe/Mfolosi instead. Means no camping and no swimming.

At the gate the usual story: A pessimistic Ooh, you haven’t booked? Mpila is full. The bushcamps are full.

Keep trying, I say cheerfully. Oh! OK, I’ll try Hilltop camp. Just then the kids walk into the office and he gets interested in me and the kids, asking all sorts of adoption questions and Where’s my wife? and Is she a Zulu lady? and so tries harder when there’s no reply on the radio. Will you phone them on your cellphone? he asks me. Sure. We get thru, there’s a chalet available, we book and head off on what turns into a free night drive!

Tom spots an elephant running towards the road ahead of us, ears flapping. I slow down and it turns onto the tar road and walks determinedly towards us, causing great panic on the back seat. We reverse and wait, reverse and wait, giving him plenty of space, till he eventually finds a mud wallow, drinks and heads off into the bush, allowing us to proceed. It’s dark now and later on two more eles loiter on the road and we just wait patiently, watching them in our headlights. All the kids have watched the videos of the elephant flipping the car, so they’re nervous and don’t want to go anywhere near eles. A look at the video will show how many warnings the people in the car ignored.

– stupid human video –

At Hilltop they’re waiting for us, they give us our key and bring us an extra set of bedding and towels for the fifth body. Bleeding luxury for us were-going-to-be campers.

Hlu Feb'14 (52)
– girls in their element – NOT camping –

AND the big breakfast buffet in the restaurant is included.

The dawn chorus the next morning was fantastic. In that magic spell between pre-dawn and the screaming banshees waking up I made a cup of coffee and sat out on the deck listening in the half light. As the kids started waking two trumpeter hornbills landed in full view and the kids got a good look at them through my telescope. I issued a decree banning all post-5000BCE music and they just nodded, acquiescent (!). So birdsong was it.

Hluhluwe Feb '14

Meals? All I had to do was eat.

~~oo0oo~~

Madagascar

I never really learnt to be circumspect. I tend to blurt. So what would you like to do now your second chemo spell is over, Aitch? We’d gone snorkelling at Mabibi on the Zululand coast after the first. A six hour drive in a 4X4.

Where? The Great Barrier Reef? But that’s in Oz, m’dear! You do? Um, what I meant to ask was: What, reasonably-speaking, would you like to do?

So I scurried off to do my homework. Costs, flight times, travel time to the reefs, what we could afford. With trepidation I showed her two alternatives: The Great Barrier Reef in Oz vs Madagascar, where we would live aboard a yacht, plopping overboard to snorkel whenever we wanted to.

Phew! She chose Madagascar – and LOVED Madagascar. “My BEST holiday ever!” she enthused afterwards.

We shared the boat with a delightful English couple, Dickie and Claire, with their two blonde girls Sonja and Natasha. Easygoing and relaxed, it was a blissful getaway. They were chilled and accommodating, and so were we. The crew, too, were wonderful folk, friendly, capable, and good chefs! Skipper Bert, chef ___ and teenage deckhand ‘Mowgli,’ who fascinated our Jessie.

aitch-snorkel-wide-9

It was Aitch, so homework was still done, naps were still taken, routines were kept as far as possible:

Nosy Iranja in the Mocambique channel:

‘My Best Holiday Ever!!’ – Aitch

scan0063