Whales !!!

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting out on our deck looking out over the ocean. It's a beautiful bright sunny day, not too much wind, and we are being treated to a circus performance of whales. There must be several dozen, maybe even more, breaching, jumping, rolling, flipping, and just having fun. People have been telling us ever since we arrived in Port Alfred to watch for the whales in October. Up till now, we've had our doubts, but today, they're here. There are humpback, sperm, southern wright, and even bottle nose dolphins. I'm not expert enough to tell the difference, but that's what we're told. What a treat! We hope they stick around for a while.

Water, Water everywhere and not a drop to drink !

As I've mentioned before, South Africa is a first-world country with third-world problems. Maintaining the infrastructure here has become a major challenge for both the National government, as well as municipalities throughout the country.

Water is an ongoing challenge here in Port Alfred. Most cities here I South Africa actually have very good water systems that provide excellent tap water....... certainly better than St George water. It's a bit of a different matter here however. The water here is full of a variety of noxious minerals which makes it very bitter. On roof that, the system of pipes is very old resulting in numerous "water outages".

Its the only water available in the township here, but most of the Port Alfred resident have large, 1,000 gallon "rain barrels" that they use for culinary water. Many homes have two or three rain barrels. It does rain here enough to keep the barrels full nearly all the time.

Unfortunately the water here in the complex where we live has only the municipal tap water, so it's off to the water store each week. Yes, that right....... the water store. That's all they sell. We go through about 20 gallons of filtered water each week for cooking and drinking. At first it was a bit of a drag, but I quickly realized that this was giving me for great exercise. You see....... everything has it's plus side.
Below is a picture of a typical rain barrel that you would see adjacent to most houses here.

Wednesday Walkabout

Our dear friends, Ruth and Tim Cockbain have a regular weekly practice of going on a "walkaout" every Wednesday. That could be a hike into any one of th many beautiful back-country spots here in the Port Alfred area, or along many of the pristine beaches, or maybe a visit to a museum, game reserve, etc. Last week, they invited us to spend the morning hiking the vast beaches south of the Riet River mouth. The beach is quite flat and several hundred yards wide, bordered by immense sand dunes, and punctuated by three huge rock outcroppings that jut out into the ocean called the Three Sisters. Tim and I climed to th top of one of the "Sisters" for a specutacular view of this magnificent shoreline . As we all climd around the front side of one of the Sisters at low tide, at a time when we tought we'd be safe, a couple of waves caught us by surprise and absolutely drenched us. Later we found a warm spot out of the wind to dry off and have a light lunch. We then made the long hike back befor the entire beach was reclaimed by the rising tide. What a day!

Pictures below: Dian through the hole in the rock drying off; Just befor we were all drenched by an unexpected wave; Dian with our good friend, Ruth Cockbain (our Relief Society President), and those majestic sand dunes.