#600 Kirstenbosch - most beautiful garden in the world

After the excitement of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s visit, we now return to our regularly scheduled blogging. 

When last we visited Kirstenbosch in 2011, we proclaimed it to be the most beautiful garden in Africa.  We must have been short-sighted.  It is certainly the most beautiful garden in all the world. 

On a sparkling spring day in Cape Town, we dock early, clear immigration, and walk straight to the Pick-n-Pay at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront that we remember from our previous visit.  With picnic ingredients stuffed in our backpack, we hop on the hop-on-hop-off bus (the blue route), savor the front row seats on the upper deck, and make our way around to the opposite side of Table Mountain to the Kirstenbosch National BotanicalGarden.

The 89-acre garden within a 1300-acre nature preserve enjoys a striking setting against Table Mountain full of birds of paradise, orange pincushions, and the king proteas.  Four hours of strolling are not enough.  Magnificent!

 

Yours in enjoying the majesty of Kirstenbosch,

Mary

#599 Archbishop Desmond Tutu revisits the MV Explorer

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Semester at Sea are a natural match.

We are so fortunate, so blessed on our last day in Cape Town to hear the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Archbishop speak and share his thoughts on Ubuntu and the value of young people. 

None of us is an accident. There's no one else like you. 

You have come to a country [South Africa] which today is free and it has been in large measure because of the success of the anti-Apartheid movement in which young people played a very signal role changing the moral climate in your country.

You are dreamers.  You're idealistic.

God sees Syria, Palestine, Somalia, Nairobi, 9/11.  It can't be nice to be God because these are all His children.  God weeps. Then God looks and sees Semester at Sea.  And God looks and sees you at the orphanage in Ghana.  A smile breaks over God's face like sunshine in the rain.  God says, I have no one except you and you and you to help me make this the kind of world it can be.  A compassionate world.  A caring world.  A world where no one dies from starvation.  No one dies because they cannot afford an inexpensive inoculation.  God says, I depend on you and you and you.  Help me to make this world the beautiful world it can be.  Please help me.

Yours in appreciating the idealistic dreamers of all ages on board the MV Explorer,
Mary

#598 Hugging the African Coast

We keep an eye on the wave heights map when traveling on the MV Explorer.  On this map, dark blue is good.  Any other color is bad.

Heading south from Ghana to Cape Town, a small patch of green appears on the wave heights map off the Namibian coast, our first clue that rough seas are ahead. 

So Captain Kingston alters our route drastically closer to shore to avoid the higher waves and to stop in Walvis Bay, Namibia for refueling.

We hug the coast all the way to Cape Town where we arrive safely without crossing the rough seas that require tying the library books to the shelves as we've seen on previous voyages.  

Yours in smooth sailing,

Kelly

#597 Semester at Sea - back into the future?

I'm still thinking about Semester at Sea's first 50 years and wondering what they might do in the next 50.

This terrific article, Celebrating 50 Years of Education at Sea, included the spring 1972 itinerary with a stop in Australia.  Now wouldn't that be fun?  Maybe add New Zealand too?  

 

The most recent Semester at Sea voyage that visited Australia and New Zealand was summer 2003 during an itinerary which included Vancouver, Sitka, Kodiak, Petropavlovsk, Osaka, Brisbane, Auckland, Suva, Honolulu, and Seattle.  Let's do that again!

 

Yours in looking back into the future,

Mary

#596 Pollywogs to Emerald Shellbacks

Crossing the Equator at the Prime Meridian is a special day for all - not just for map nerds.

For more on the ceremony of crossing the line, see Line-Crossing Ceremony.  On board the MV Explorer, we assemble a special court that includes King Neptune, Queen Minerva, and the cutest Master of Arms you ever did see.

Pollywogs (those who have never crossed the Equator) are initiated and become Emerald Shellbacks after completing just a few simple tasks.

'fish guts' dowsing

Fish kissing

Head shaving

Yours in enjoying nautical traditions,

Mary

#595 Happy Founders Day

Happy Founders Day, Semester at Sea!

I'm so glad Semester at Sea first set sail on voyage #1 in October 1963 and again on voyages #91, #96, #104, and #114!

Summer 2008

Spring 2011

Fall 2013

SAS has changed a lot of lives in 50 years, including mine!

Yours in SAS celebration,

Mary

#594 Ghana maps

To better understand Winneba, Ghana, we need maps.  Ideally we would find locally produced geographic datasets showing roads, streams, and elevation contours along with point locations for important sites like schools, clinics, and drinking water sources.   

But in conversations with Winneba government officials on the first day of our visit, we learn the creation of local scale GIS datasets has not yet happened.  So we use a printed Google Map with minimal landmarks to orient ourselves as we tour Winneba.

On our second day, our colleague Benjamin Akuetteh with the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services at the University of Ghana, Legon, works the phone and finds a lead at the Ghana Survey Office in Accra, Ghana's capital. 

Ghana Survey Office

A series of meetings there lead us to a private office where amid stacks of paper maps, those very detailed Winneba GIS datasets we seek appear on the screen!  Cue big smiles all around.

Although these geographic datasets are created by the government, they are not freely distributed.  

Since we are not prepared for a large data purchase on the spot we make some notes, snap a photo, and opt temporarily for a less-detailed paper map from the analog “Map Sales Office”.

Yours in map sleuthing,

Kelly