Well, we are relaxing comfortably in room 1 in Birkenhead House after a great day in Hermanus. Our trip started on the 14th out of JFK on SAA. All went smoothly. Usually it takes an hour 15 to get to the airport and it took us just under an hour. The lounge was nice. They served Bagels and lox, soup, fruit salad, cheese platter and the usual snack crap. We had no problems with security. The only negative was that we taxied for one hour at Kennedy before taking off. Food was surprisingly good JFK to Darkar, service good and the flight was good. Food was less than good Darkar on...We were running rather tight on time in JBG and a lovely man told us to follow him and he would help us make the plane. We followed him through short cuts and had time to spare for our flight to Capetown. Both our bags and we were out in minutes and our driver was there waiting for us and whisked us away to the Radisson. Doug wanted to eat at Baia, so we grabbed a cab for $4 and went straight over and had a great meal there before crashing in for a night's sleep.

Breakfast the next morning was surprisingly good. We saw Russ and Debbie and didn't realize we saw Andrea and Leonard and Bill and Gemma (because we hadn't yet met). Soon, Arlene and Gil arrived and introductions were made. Gil and Arlene compared notes with us regarding our flights as we took the same one a day or two apart and it seemed like they were different airlines. They had terrible food and service. However, they received boarding passes all the way through and we were told this wasn't possible and had to check in in JBG, which is what caused us so much angst. We were met with cold, blustery rainy weather and I was sorry I hadn't taken warmer clothes. I had considered doing this, but really wanted to pack light and didn't have any in between jacket for this type of weather except my leather one and left it home. I was really sorry I did that!!

We wandered to the lobby and said our hellos and introductions and piled into the bus and off to Hermanus. When we arrived, it was good to see old friends and say hello/good byes while being handed some wonderful hot chocolate with amaretto. Since our rooms weren't ready, we all settled down to a long lunch and then checked out one another's beautiful rooms. All the beds were covered in exquisite flower arrangements that looked like embroidery. The flowers were even arranged on the shower mats and the tub towels. There was tremendous attention to detail. We all received lovely gifts of Birkenhead hats which was a nice surprise. Our discussions were always punctuated with "ooh, look there's a whale over there. There's another one. And another one...." The whales come so close to shore. Doug, June, Cindy, MarK and I went to town to see what there was there and to pick us some sundries. I found a warm jacket, Mark and Cindy found some hats for the safari and then we wandered to the whale walk.

The shuttle picked us up and we returned to a fire in the fireplace and hors d'hoevres and then settled in for the night for all sorts of discussions that carried on throughout dinner.

Today, we awoke to a beautiful day...blue, sunny skies....just right for our shark trip. We had breakfast outdoors overlooking the sea. Jess, Dena and Grant drove up from Capetown to join us and we headed off at 11. We stopped off at a beautiful site to see some whales and then finally boarded the boat at 1pm. Within about 10 minutes we dropped anchor and within minutes of throwing in the chum, the sharks were circling us. We left about 4-4:30. So it was a fun afternoon. The dive master said that we saw about 6 sharks total and this was only the 3rd time this month that they had been able to go out, so we were lucky. We were even luckier, because he had gone out this morning and they hadn't even seen any sharks. We saw non-stop sharks. Once we arrived back, we were met with a fire in the fireplace again and snacks. The staff had set up a lovely table for some honeymooners in a separate room. They had sprinkled rose petals all over the floor and lighted a fireplace for them. It was so romantic.

This has been a great two days. It's been great seeing old friends and making new ones. We will be sorry to see this group leave. Doug and I are staying for another two days and we are glad we made the choice to stay longer. We're going to go to the wildflower festival and to the wineries and to walk along the the beach walk. We were supposed to go out on the shark tour on the 19th, but we decided to switch to today since the weather has been so iffy. Hope the weather stays nice for everyone else as it is really beautiful here.