Seal Island and The Great White

Speedboat To Seal Island

A couple of days ago, I went to Simon's Town with a German guy who was staying at the same guesthouse as me.  We boarded a RIB (rapid inflatable boat) which speed off towards Seal Island, half an hour away in False Bay.  The boat was almost flying, it was going so fast.  It was going around 70mph.  We were airbourne a number of times and I was holding on to dear life.  As we approached Seal Island, it was strange that it was so black.  Approaching it closer, I noticed that the blackness of the island was due to the seals there.  The skipper of the boat was that at any one time, there were 70,000 seals on that island.  National Geographic have filmed that island many times and it is the most famous place on earth for watching seals.  The seals were having a great time, playing in the surf and jumping in and out of the water.  It felt like a waterpark for seals.

The Great White

The Great White sharks come to these waters in droves because they consider this area an abundant feeding ground.   With 70,000 seals, there is plenty for the sharks to eat.  There was a cage diving expedition nearby, with people watching the Greate White from an underwater cage.  They had a bait which they threw from the boat to lure the shark closer.  It was amazing to see the Great White lunging at this bate and circling the boat with its fin cutting through the water.

Hermanus

Hermanus, a small, quaint coastal village on the other side of the bay from Fish Hoek, Muizenberg, and Simon's Town.  It took me a couple of hours to reach it, along route R44, which is the coastal road.  The view was breathtaking along the winding road next to the sea.  During winter months one can see plenty of whales and Hermanus itself is a world famous location for spotting whales very close to the shore.

West Coast

I did a day trip up along the coast from Cape Town to Langebaan, Saldanha, and Paternoster.  These are very small towns along the coast.  I preferred Paternoster the most, with its whitewashed buildings and long beach.  This village has expanded rapidly in the past 16 years or so, with Capetonians building weekend retreats and guesthouses.