livin the beach dream

saturday was a day spent at big bay, another beach town just about an hours walk or a 20 min bus ride to a rocking beach break with waves that can be small and easy going or as thick as a prairie house, bigger than one too. we, the two sophies and i, went down to go support the slew of body boarders (or boogie boarders as some of us know them as) that have been staying at the backpackers with us for the past week. they are a professional team sponsored by reef and a whole truck full of legit companies called the boland team. the boland boys are truly leka fun with the most leka attitude. they taught me this word "leka" - the slang version of "lekker" - which essentially means everything from "great", "chill", "perfect", "hilarious", "interesting", "delicious", "huge", etc...  i think. Anyway, we had a leka day on the beach cheering on the boys and just having a good time to celebrate their 7 riders in the South Africa Bodyboarding Championships. the swell was huge and crowd was so good. the boys did great and we had a great time just hanging on the beach, followed by a night of celebration and fun. today was super fun and mellow. we just went to the beach again, ate some bomb pizza, gave the dogs a bath at salty's and generally had a nice mellow day after a first week of work peppered with celebrating, 30 bodyboarders in tiny salty's and getting used to life in south africa. i already love it here and dont wanna go back... anywho bed ways is best ways so leka slaap

cape town and big bay

this guy was great

 eastern bizzzzzzare for lunch

beautiful flower market in downtown

chillin with canada and germany in big bay to support the boys

boland boiiiis!!!

the boland boys for the win! 

simon's town

the penguin rocks in simon's town

the kids seeing their first penguins!

please look under your car for penguins

a lesson on the beach taught by canadian sophie

a pretty leka pool if you ask me 

harbour day and pool day

the cape town harbour 

a day at the pool with the kids

lunch at the pool 

the first week

The first week at Salty's and with the kids has been great. After arriving on Monday, we started working with the kids on Tuesday by taking them on a harbour of Cape Town ("we" refers to Adaliade and Sophie, two Canadians, then Marie and Camilla, two Norwegians plus myself and Jennifer the project organizer). The highlight of the tour was not the howling wind but the seals that decided to swim next to the boat for the majority of the time. Wednesday was a better day, weather-wise, and we took the kids to the public pools in Sea Point. The water wasn't much warmer than the ocean but the kids so enjoyed the time to swim and play in the water, which most now can. Thursday was a day of driving to Simon's Town, a more southern town on the Cape. The ride was not the best because of continued traffic all the way from halfway there thru to Simon's Town. We saw the penguins which was nice for the kids, none of whom had seen one before. Then we went and swam in the best pool I've ever been in. It was part of the ocean, just on the beach with a cement wall enclosing the pool area, to keep out sharks mainly and it did its job because apparently that side of the cape is warmer and is definition shark heaven. After a hard week of work, which is different than what we are normally doing because the kids are on holiday, we all came back to Salty's and ended up going out with the body boarders who are staying here with us. Soo much fun; it will be sad to see them go. And yesterday we girls all went into Cape Town, downtown that is, and did the markets and all that good stuff. I bought some really beautiful but unnecessary jewelry for myself and for presents, or so I tell myself, and that filled most of the day. Today we are all getting ready to go watch the body boarders in their competition, the nationals for South Africa, and it is the finals today. Should be fun. Bring on the SUN!!! 

birthday adventures to lion's head and the cape town sev

stop on the way up lion's head to take pictures on the rocks with brent and chris

made it up! 

no matter the country i find my late night sev cravings never fade