Holidays at Sea

In spite of the fact that I'm kind of "living the dream" these days, holidays to me are family times and, as great as it is sailing half way around the world, I missed being with family over the holidays.  That being said, the Picton Castle team did a great job putting really nice holidays for us while we were at sea.  The captain actually prefers to be at sea for Christmas and I can understand why.  Aside from one week in Reunion in early December, I did not a see any commercialization of Christmas at all this year and I didn't miss it a bit.  I also haven't seen a snowflake and I don't miss them a bit either.  Maybe it is due to the horrible winter we had in Chicago last year or maybe it's old age but I was perfectly happy with a nice warm sunny holiday season.  I confess, I did sing along when I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas came on but I wasn't actually dreaming of a while Christmas.

We had a little 3 foot tall fake Christmas tree that we decorated on Christmas Eve.  Ship's work ended on noon on Christmas even and didn't start back up until the 26th.  We had to stand watches though.

Our young ladies from Sweden and Denmark spent a lot of time in the galley making treats and they also made a lot of Christmas ornaments.  They are a crafty bunch, those Scandinavians,  We had 2 gift exchanges that we were given the option of participating in.  No one was forced to buy any gifts but most people did participate.  On Christmas Eve we had a "White Elephant" gift exchange where everyone secretly puts a silly or funny gift under the tree.  Everyone then was given a random number and we each had the option, when it was our turn, to either select a wrapped gift or we could take a gift that some had already opened and then that person had to pick again.  It was a lot of fun and many gifts got stolen and traded around many times.  I had a plastic champagne bottle of chocolate for a few minutes but it got snatched pretty quickly.  Then, for Christmas morning we also had a Secret Santa gift exchange.  The ship and the captain's wife also give everyone something.  Everyone was in such wonderful spirits and I really believe everyone really enjoyed their holidays, though we all missed our loved ones.

About half of the crew had Santa hats and most wore them for a week or so leading up to Christmas.  As you can see, the weather was atrocious.  It couldn't have been more than 80° with about 10-12 knots of breeze but we survived!

We had to lash the tree to the hatch in case the swell got big, but it didn't.  The big hawser was to keep the gifts from sliding off the hatch.  The cat was was very into Christmas (her first).  She stayed on the hatch by the tree until all of the gifts were distributed.  Our other cat was hiding out the whole time.  This wasn't all of the gifts yet.  People kept bringing things up and we ended up with quite a pile.

Just before the gifts were handed out.  The 2 youngest crew members distributed the gifts.

We also had a very nice dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas.  All in all it was a wonderful Christmas.  We had a couple of days of cold rainy weather between Christmas and New Years but things cleared up in time for New Years.

We were still at sea on New Year's Eve but we knew we would be arriving in Cape Town some time New Year's Day so the captain said we would have a New Years Party after we got anchored at Cape Town.  Everyone did get up before midnight to count down to the new year.  A couple of the crew had gotten fireworks from the ship as Christmas gifts so we had a little fireworks show at midnight. There were also some more backed goodies.

Happy New Year!

I was on the midnight watch so we stood watch until 04:00 and then went to bed.  When I got up around 09:00 New Year's Day we were in sight of the Cape Peninsula,  Cape Town actually is on a peninsula that has Table Bay on the North and False Bay on the South.  It's rugged and mountainous and makes for a pretty dramatic landfall. Cape Town is well inside Table Bay and has a wonderful harbour.  We had Cape Fur Seals cavorting around as we sailed up the coast.  It's hard to catch a picture unless you are waiting for them but I was driving.  After we anchored we saw a whale come up for a breath but I wasn't ready for that either so I didn't get a picture...sorry.

One of the great things about sailing is that you get a completely different view of landscapes.  The best views of Chicago are from the lake and I suspect that the same it true for just about everywhere.  Here we may be 20 miles away from Cape Peninsula but it's exciting to see the mountains emerging from the haze after being at sea for 3 weeks.

We're getting closer.  I had this one take right before I got on the helm for my hour turn steering.  You can just start top make out the city skyline at the bottom of the mountains.  We're still about 15 miles away.  Most of the clothes I brought will never be clean again... 

This one is zoomed in to show the city under the mountains.  City in the foreground, then Signal Hill with Table Mountain behind it.  It's another view that this picture just doesn't do justice, it is amazingly beautiful.  Cape Town doesn't have any really big sky scrapers to block the view and the highest point of Table Mountain is 1083 meters above sea level.

Because we came in on a holiday, we couldn't get into the harbor and had to anchor out in the bay, which was just fine.  It was a beautiful day and everyone was excited about making landfall and was in the mood for a New Year's party.  The women decided that our party should be a formal occasion so most everyone dressed up and we had a lot of fun.

We had 14 people leave as Cape Town was the end of leg 2 of the voyage.  I tried to get a picture with each of them but I must have missed some.  This is Nathan .  Photo bombing was in full swing all night, as you can see.  That's Elias from Sweden.

Kelly

Elias

Terry (side note: Terry was one of the Elder Statesmen, anyone over 50.  We lost several of them at Cape Town and I am now the 2nd oldest crew member aboard, not including the captain.)

Monica, from Lithuania

Christan, from Denmark

Travis, from Canada

Kurt, from Texas (Elder Statesmen)

Karolina, from Denmark (not sure about the spelling)

Sunset behind Signal Hill on the first of January, 2015.