May 7 Warm Water

Finally, the Indian Ocean is warm enough to swim and snorkel (25 C). Also warm enough for the crocs!
Deb: Our trip to Cape Vidal was a huge success. We got to the reef just in time before the tides came in to spend a good hour snorkeling among the multi-colour fish. At one point we swam for over five minutes amongst a school of hundreds of black-tails – beautiful!

The boys loved the beach and jumping from the dunes. Brenda and Di loved lying in the sun. I went off and spent a half an hour with the ranger, Leo. The stories that he could tell. One was about how an elephant charged a safari vehicle. The ranger got out to shoot it but the bullet didn’t do the job. The elephant made quick work of him, killing him urgently. It then jumped aboard the truck injuring many of the Japanese tourists aboard. Two rangers were also killed by elephants in the park not long ago. Two males charged their vehicle and killed them by crushing and impaling them. Leo advised us to wait for Kruger to do our safaris and we gladly took his advice.

On the way back we drove through a variety of loops through the park. Although it was mid-day we couldn’t believe how much wildlife we saw –kudu, zebras, hartebeeste, warthogs, etc.

We went out to a lovely Italian restaurant for dinner. It was the first day that I could really eat after ten days and it felt so good to have a filling supper. My energy is returning quickly. Di and Brenda had pasta with spinach, mushroom, and garlic sauce.