Killer penguins, cold fronts and ‘mikkies’

Posted on 7 May 2010

The Coast 2 Coast 4 CANSA team, supported by SPAR and ACER, finally arrived in Cape Town today (5 May). It is cold and windy, and the predicted rough seas are rolling in as I write this. With two days of down-time ahead, the jet ski crew is already muttering about lost time. This is somewhat surprising, given how the guys are (secretly) aching after three days of really heavy going.

Although they are putting on a brave face, you can tell by the occasional revealing comment that there are some wounded soldiers out there. Apart from the textbook stiff legs, sore wrists and mild carpal-tunnel syndromes, there are a few unusual niggles, and a few unusual ways of dealing with them.

Jay Ribbink, who the other day was talking about “lucking into a three cold front system” had slightly less of a swagger after jet skiing 440km+ in the last two days. He smsed Bazza Lewinsky from Durban earlier this evening (Jay flew home for the rest day to check in on his new surf shop at Gateway), saying that it might be ‘game over’ for him. A few hours later Barry gets another sms from Jay, who now seems to be over his bad patch from earlier in the day and is talking of how it is now ‘game on’. Jay was seen hobbling towards Cape Town International Airport with nothing but a few ‘mikkies’ grasped in his sweaty paws, so simple deduction suggests that his speedy recovery might have something to do with his dwindling supply of this trusty remedy.

Since Mossel Bay, there have been an abundance of Great White Shark cage diving companies operating along the Southern end of our coastline. Which leads me to think that there might be an abundance of Great White Sharks along the Southern end of our coastline, a scary thought if you spend up to 10 hours a day riding a jet ski at over 60kmph in dodgy ocean conditions! Mark Addison, during a discussion about the tendency of these apex predators to breach at speed whilst attacking their prey from beneath, suggested that we try and set up a video shoot towing a decoy seal from one of the jet skis. Great idea – affix a fake seal to a jet ski, with the intention of inducing a 5 metre Great White shark to attach itself to said fake seal. Surprisingly, not many volunteers for this particular task.

Despite the potential threat that White sharks and gigantic surf could pose in the water, there is another animal which is at the core of my earliest memory of Cape Town, a memory so harrowing that this is my first visit to the city for over a decade. It was a sunny summer’s day at Boulder Beach during a family holiday. Little Lobe was trotting about on the beach, probably with a side parting and some pink zinc on his nose. I decided to try and pet some of the local wildlife (which in those days actually referred to wild animals). What I did not anticipate was the once friendly-looking penguin attaching its razor sharp beak to a finger on my innocently outstretched hand. At the time of going to press Mark Addison was not aware how many people die from penguin attacks each year.






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