Sea Day #5 Indian Ocean
March 20, 2025
We woke up to another beautiful day, but I did hear some pattering of rain last night. The seas are calm again and I kind of miss the gentle rocking. Again, we were back down to the promenade deck where I spent a lot of time educating myself on the fine points of my iPhone 16 camera. I’m going to be taking a ton of pictures in the next few days, and I definitely want to make the most of its features. It just doesn’t seem that long ago I thought my 3 MP (megapixel) camera was the be all end all and now we’re up to 48 MP from a phone? Wow – what’s next? Portable x-rays? HAHA
We dock at Richards Bay, South Africa (SA) tomorrow and apparently, they are very fussy about a lot of things. Normally, when we stop at a port, the harbor pilot (the local guy that knows the harbor like the back of his hand) comes on a tugboat about a mile out to guide our captain into his designated dock at the port. It’s fun to watch the tug pull up and with perfect timing, the guy jumps on our ship. This process is repeated in reverse when we leave a port. Anyway, for some unknown reason (per the staff) SA requires the harbor pilot to arrive by helicopter. That means a huge undertaking for the staff because they must clear the entire bow or stern (whatever they are directed) and must prepare all emergency procedures in case there were to be a helicopter crash or mishap. I can’t say it gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling but not much we can do about it, so we’ll just relax (well, hopefully) as the “big bird” approaches tomorrow.
The next nit-picky issue is that every single person on this vessel, including all staff and even people not planning to go ashore must clear customs. We’ve never had to do this at any other port and have heard that this can cause a huge bottle neck and lots of hot tempers as people wait in line to get off. Again, it’s out of our control so no worries from us. It’s a first world problem, as the saying goes.
Off to Lake Lucia and the iSimangaliso Wetlands cruise tomorrow. It is home to the largest concentration of hippos in SA (800) along with 2,000 Nile crocodiles. Needless to say, all things considered, it should be an interesting day!
Richard’s Bay is that little dip above Durban