Beaches

My Zulu final today indeed involved several questions about the story of the Antelopes' Party, and I definitely passed. A 75 here translates into an A in the U.S., and in spite of completing missing the point of the Zulu political cartoon, it's possible I achieved that too.

Back to the Easter Vacation adventure... Along the way, we spent a lot of time at the beach.

I haven't been to a beach as awesome as this one in Plettenberg bay since I lived in Maine. That was just about 11 years ago, so I wasn't quite sure how someone who's more than 10 years old is supposed to behave at a beach. I decided I better enjoy it just as much as I did as a little kid. After we played in the very cold waves, Becky said a sand castle was too boring, so we made a sand hippo and a sand lion with a seaweed mane.

I also had a great time climbing on the rocks and looking at the cool creatures in the tide pools. I did keep hearing my mom's voice in the back of my head saying, "You need to put on shoes if you're going to climb on the rocks" and "The waves can get very big. Don't go in past your knees."

In Mossel Bay, I went on a beautiful hike with Caroline and Becky along the cliffs by the sea.

We also got to explore a cave. It was cool, except that I kept thinking of a book where some kids go into such a cave at the lowest low tide of the year to recover some ancient magical artifact and are nearly trapped in it by the rising tide. We avoided both ancient treasures and perilous situations, but we did get a lot of black sediment all over our hands and legs.

It was amazing to watch the power of the waves pounding into the rocks and to see the organisms that survive, and don't, in that harsh environment. When we went down closer to the water, I saw the broken shells of some seagulls' breakfasts, as well as the broken bones and battered feathers of a seagull who didn't make it. In the past decade, I've been to a couple of the commercialized beaches that are filled with sunglasses merchants and surrounded by fast food restaurants, but it was wonderful to be back at the real ocean smelling the salt, hearing the splash, and feeling the spray.