The Cape of Storms

We visit a few hundred seals

Cape Town, South Africa, proved quite the pleasant surprise. it’s a beautiful city on a beautiful coastline surrounded by beautiful scenery and wildlife. When Portuguese ships first rounded the southwestern tip of Africa in 1488 on their way to develop trade routes to India, they named the location “Cabo das Tormentas,” or Cape of Storms. As you might imagine, the name didn’t exactly inspire sailors or settlers, so a few years later a smart PR rebanding campaign took place and it got the name we call it today: the Cape of Good Hope.

Our first day in Cape Town was spent on an excursion that we booked on our own, not with Viking. It was a whirlwind adventure that lasted almost 12 hours! Our guide led about a dozen of us around the city, down to the cape and to the top of mountains. Cape Town has so many impressive sights within driving distance.

We started our tour at the brightly hued Bo-Kaap neighborhood. This historic enclave used to house enslaved people, and the area expanded after emancipation in 1834. Under Apartheid, non-Malay people were removed from the neighborhood. The Bo-Kaap neighborhood has since become a National Heritage site, as well as a sought-after neighborhood.

From there we took a short but picturesque boat ride.

Our destination was a series of small, rocky projections populated by hundreds of noisy — and smelly — Cape fur seals that were busy sunning themselves. The seal population in the area has exploded. Great white sharks used to regularly feed on Cape fur seals, but ever since a pair of orcas named Port and Starboard began killing and eating sharks, the great whites have stayed clear of the area. This has allowed the seal population to thrive. The orcas’ habits also ruined what used to be a thriving shark-diving industry in the area.

The waters around the island were teeming with seals as well. We noticed something odd: Many of the seals in the water had flippers out of the water.

We learned that this behavior helps the seals regulate their body temperature. If they’re cold in the water, the sun will warm their flippers up. If they’re too warm in the water, the flippers might catch a cooling breeze.

The following photos were taken the next day, but you get the idea.

Watch for more posts about Cape Town in the coming days.