Brenda Arrived OK

Robert aboard Pachuca with Alice and Marianna

Brenda at Woodstock MiCity Bus Station

V and A Marina where True Blue Lies

Brenda made it OK to Cape Town as planned on Sunday morning the 27th.  The plane was 30 minutes early out of Johannesburg, arriving at 10.00 AM, but that didn't matter because I was at the airport 90 minutes early.  The bus connections from Woodstock Station near the yacht club to the airport were a dream but because I had never made the trip before I allowed plenty of time.  The buses from Woodstock station  run about every 20 minutes, the ride into the Civic Centre station takes about 10 minutes.  From there the buses to the airport depart every 20 minutes or so, and the ride to the airport takes only 20 minutes.  It was all convenient, fast, and cheap. 

I met Brenda who was in remarkably good shape after the trip and we got the next MiCity bus back into the Civic Centre station in the city then took a cab from there to RCYC.  The wind at the Civic Centre station was amazing.  It was rocking the bus so hard that we wondered if it would fall over, and  we saw a guy walking about 40 degrees to the wind.  Brenda had to be restrained from being literally blown away as she was trying to get into the cab.  Welcome to Cape Town, Brenda.

We had lunch at the club and I kept on the lookout for Alice, who had arrived a few days earlier from Simonstown on her boat True Blue.  Of all the tables in the club with people, the one next to us had a trio with a smiling lady who looked like an Alice to me.  I discussed the possibility with Brenda of fronting up to the table and asking if her name was Alice but as usual shyness and reserve prevailed.

What I thought was a defunct facility is in use

Brenda was very tired so she retired to the V-berth for a nap after lunch and I lay down on the cabin settee.  About an hour later I heard a female voice hailing us and I went topside to find that the person whom I had thought looked like an Alice was indeed her.  In the cabin later she confided that to her I had looked like a Robert, so there we were.  With her was Derek, an experienced sailor out of UK who has a boat with his wife Anthea across the fairway practically at my stern.  There was also young Marianna who at 20 years of age had recently flown from the Seattle area to join Alice and Ann to crew the boat to the Caribbean, Panama Canal, and Hawaii, the conclusion of the circumnavigation. 

Alice and I had a great chat about our experiences and Port Townsend, but before we could reminisce about our wonderful stays at Ala Wai Boat Harbor in Honolulu, and Carey and The Fuel Dock in particular, she was forced to leave in order to catch their ride back to the V&A marina. 

Brenda befriending Nelson Mandela of four SA Nobel Peace Price Laureates

Young Marianna knows Port Townsend well and told me that I looked very familiar to her.  I told her proudly that I had visited the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival for 3 years running, and she agreed that our paths may have crossed there.  She knows Kingston well and wondered if maybe there was a connection through twin brother Arnold who lives there.  Marianna has a “shack” on an island on the Hood Canal,which I found very interesting.


Today, Monday, Brenda and I set off on an ambitious project to take buses to the V&A waterfront, tour the place, then visit True Blue in the afternoon.  During a morning session with Diana in which I paid for my stay at the club until the end of February I learned that there are a couple of good supermarkets in the V&A area that I had missed during my first two visits.

Alice's "True Blue", in company with Condos owned by Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, and other luminaries

We set off shortly before noon and did as planned, including a visit to the Information center where we made tentative arrangements for a great all-day mini bus tour that will take us around the entire Cape peninsula but will focus mainly on a visit to Cape Point, known to the rest of the modern world as the Cape of Good Hope, and to the earlier world as the Cape of Storms.  Along the way we will pass through Hout Bay and Simonstown, which are of interest to me.

We made it to Alice's boat at about 2.30 PM but found nobody on board which was not a surprise because she had told us that she had an appointment during the middle of the day.  But never mind, as fate would have it, bad weather has postponed her departure from Cape Town from Tuesday (tomorrow) to about a week later, so we hoped to have a good visit with her later.

Brenda and I were very tired after all that so while Brenda waited outside on a bench I went into the Pick 'n Pay supermarket and purchased some essential items.  We then caught the bus and returned to RCYC.  We missed our stop because only the rear door of the articulated bus opened at the station, leaving us staring dumbly at the immobile front door.  Not to worry.  We got off at the next station, at Paarden Eiland, and a returning bus was waiting for us so that we were able to make a fast return.