G Adventures West Africa: Day One – Cape Town

Day 1: Sail away from Cape Town

With many of us still in the grip of jetlag, our first day was spent

out and about, seeing the tick-box list of tourist sites around the

spectacular city of Cape Town. It’s been nearly 15 years since my

first visit and the evidence of change quite remarkable, but the

familiar round of shore excursion stops seems more-or-less unchanged.

Cape Point lighthouse, the Table Mountain cable car, the African

Penguin colony near historic Simon’s Town and the nail-biting, cliff

edge drive past Hout Bay all brought back familiar memories. Finally

aboard MS Expedition around 5pm, we settled in, registered and

gathered out on deck for a glorious sunset sail away around 6pm. A

fitting send-off from this epic journey which is being billed by the G

Adventures team as a ‘true expedition’. Telling in the fact that many

of the employed experts, several of whom are South African natives

have never ventured north of Namibia. To say there is a sense of

anticipation would be an understatement, not the least of which being

the installation of rolls of razor wire on the rear deck adding to the

effect. Let’s hope the extent of our tribulations extend to currency

quibbles and a few immigration and visa challenges which were foretold

in the introductory briefing.

Our complement of passengers is the predicable motley make-up of US

Americans, Canadians, English, Aussies and a lone Spanish gigolo by

the name of Jose. What is certain is that lashings of adventure and a

little bit of the unpredictable lies ahead.

[sent by satellite from aboard MS Expedition www.gadventures.com]