Aboard SA Agulhas

We sailed this morning at 08.00am Our hosts, the ship’s owners, SAMSA laid on a farewell breakfast for us. It coincided with a breakfast programme ‘Morning Live’ on television. The programme started at 05.30am and therefore so did our breakfast. In a harbour building just across the quay from the ship, a sumptuous array of delicacies was laid out on tables with exotic flowers and white linen.

Cape Town’s Table Mountain seen from the seas aboard the SA Agulhas. This morning’s departure from the South African city marks the start of the final leg of the journey to the ice. Next stop: Antarctica.

Cape Town is amazing. Beautiful scenery and fantastic weather, it is a much needed bit of holiday sun before we plunge head first into the deep freeze. It has been above 25 degrees here every day. As usual, I have managed to get sunburn straight away. Ian and I went out surfing a couple days back. Absolutely ruined my arms. I can’t remember ever swimming that hard. There was no pause in t…

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!! Thanks for all you lovely messages of support. Here’s Anton’s latest blog from the ship written over the last couple of days: We arrived on Friday evening. The approach to Table Bay and Cape Town harbour is special. After 3 weeks of isolation in the vastness of the Atlantic, suddenly marine life abounds and even though land is still some distance ove…r the horizon,…

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The doctor and I made our way back to our seats. I was close to passing out for real. My legs were like jelly. Technically, as the winner of our round, I should have moved on to the next heat but Londiwe was very sweet and said that I had done enough. The winners were engineer cadet, Kwasi Ampomah, jointly with deck cadet, Mzamoyakhe Mngoma, for the men and deck cadet, Priscilla Afful, for t…

So, what about Christmas? Well, the temperature was around 24°C. We were a little over three hundred miles to the west of northern Namibia and the sea was pretty calm although there was a freshening breeze from the south which made us pitch slightly more than we have recently experienced. Having said that, it certainly didn’t dampen the celebrations which were conducted with great energy and…

Christmas Day on SA Agulhas   It has been a long day, but what a day! Breakfast at 7.30 was a simple affair but included homemade bread and cakes. My admiration for the catering team under chef, Mogamat Khan, and chief steward, Clint van Rooy, is boundless. They have performed miracles every day and today they surpassed themselves. Before I go into a description of the day’s activities, it…

Merry Christmas everyone! Just had the treat of hearing Anton Bowring speak live from the ship on Radio 5 Live with Colin Murray. He did very well, but sadly the comms went down after about 5 mins just as he was about to mention the website and Seeing is Believing. It’s 25C and sunny where they are today, 300 miles west of Namibia. Due to arrive in Cape Town later in the week. Anton may b…

We are well south of the Equator now at a latitude of 7°S. They say that, in the northern hemisphere, water draining from a basin rotates in a clockwise direction as it goes down the plug. In the southern hemisphere it rotates in a counter clockwise direction. So what happens at the Equator? Well, I can tell you that it can go in either direction. Admittedly I didn’t try it on this voyage but on…