Happy Women's Day, Part II

Katie and I celebrated Women's Day yesterday by going to look for whales. This is the time of year that whales who spend much of the year in the Antarctic make their way up to the waters around Cape Town. We're told, though we haven't seen it ourselves, that they come with a couple dozen yards or so of the shore, if you're at a spot where the water is deep enough for them to do that. We're also told that they stick their massive tales out of the water and frolic around quite a bit.

We wouldn't know, though. We've gone looking for whales three times so far, and failed each time. Granted, September and October are supposedly the best months for it, when you might see a group of a dozen whales just offhsore, but we thought we could at least spot one by now.

No such luck. Instead, we saw penguins.

Mind you, the penguins were amazing the first time we saw them, about a week after we came to South Africa. This was our third time, though. And what I noticed this time was, the penguins smell really bad. Somehow, amid our awe at standing on a beach about a foot away from a penguin, the smell had eluded us the other two times.

Not this time, though. Penguins smell baaaaad. Wow. And afterwards, in the car, Katie and I noticed that we smelled bad too.

I also shot a close up-of a sign that rivals the "Don't Speed in Baboon Areas" notice that graces the top of this web page.

I had shot this picture before...



But wanted to get this part of it in more detail...



A collection of our penguin pictures from our two trips to Boulders Beach is here. The third time we saw them was on Robben Island, and our pictures there didn't turn out great.