I often hesitate to write about my adventure days on the World Race, simply because it’s not what I’m here for and I don’t want to portray the Race as a vacation, since it’s not. That being said this month I’m been truly blessed in both ministry and location. Plettenberg Bay, locally known as Plett, is an amazing little seaside town and I’m far to excited about it to not share.
Month six of my race is definitely different from my previous months
A) Because we’re in paradise, not to say my other months weren’t beautiful too, but imagine you’ve been told you get to go on a mission trip to Hawaii or Fiji, yep that’s Plett.
And
B)Because our contact gave us a week off for Christmas
I’ll be the first to say having a week off of ministry is bittersweet. It’s been hard not to have ministry, especially since our ministry window in South Africa is only 3 weeks long but at the same time having a week to just rest after 5 months of go, go go and to enjoy this great opportunity God has given us has been so good.
So, in the spirit of taking advantage of all opportunities here’s a little glimpse into the excitement of this last week.
This first choice and cheapest form of opportunity in Plett is the beach. The’s beautiful, accessible and FREE! They sell slush puppies in the parking lot and fish and chips along the board walk, and best of all, the water is super refreshing! There’s even a lagoon area that turns into a natural lazy river during high tide, it’s amazing.
A little more pricey, and definitely out of my budget is bungee jumping off of the highest bungy bridge in the world, the Boulkrans Bridge. When 7 of my squadmates decided to take the plunge I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go along and watch. There’s a restaurant situated on the cliffside next to the bridge which both gives you a panorama of the jumps and a TV screen with closeups. So while the 7 headed out to what some would consider their certain deaths, the rest of us stayed up in the restaurant to watch. At one point a man in the restaurant saw us cheering for our friends as they jumped and asked us if we had gone as well, when we replied no he said “oh, you are the scared ones,” well actually sir, we are the poor ones, although I might have been a little scared too. Just watching the others brought forth a bundle of feelings but mostly my feet would go numb every time I saw someone jump, imagining I was in their position.
Even greater than my fear of falling is my fear of sea creatures…touching me while I swim. So on Wednesday, as I boarded the boat that would take me out to swim with the seals I wondered what the heck I was thinking when I signed up, but the fact that I was sitting in a seat that required me to sit as if I were riding a horse I knew that this day was not only going to be fun, but I was going to stare straight into, and possibly be touched by one of my greatest fears. A tractor pushing a boat trailer quickly launched us into the water and soon we were bumping along toward the Roberg Peninsula singing the Gilligans Island themesong as we went along.
You could spot the seals lining the peninsula a mile away, not by sight necessarily, but by sound and smell. Seals are both loud and smelly creatures. As we pulled closer you could see hundreds of flippers pointing out of the water and the first two thoughts to run through my mind were 1) That’s a heck of a lot of seals and 2) There’s a sign on the beach that says beware of Great White Sharks, don’t sharks eat seals? This is going to be fun.
So I slipped on my flippers, strapped on my mask and attached my waterproof camera to my wrist then reluctantly jumped into the water. Very first thing my mask goes flying off my head as soon as I hit the water. That’s a good sign, at least I want to be able to see a seal if it’s going to try and come eat me. But still, I put on my mask and swam toward the mass of seals, and I have to admit it was pretty cool. Seals swam all around me, jumped over me, stared at me and I was loving it, until one decided I looked like a good snack and swam toward me bearing it’s teeth. Ya, I was so out of there. Still, swimming with seals in the wild is a pretty wicked and once in a lifetime experience, I totally recommend it.
And finally, while seals are pretty cool creatures they aren’t exactly what you picture when you think of Africa, more likely you picture the big 5, Lion, Cheetah, Water Buffalo, Rhino and the Elephant. Our very first day in Plett, when we road into town to buy groceries I noticed there was an Elephant Park within walking distance of the farm. Excitedly I went back and told everyone about it so we made plans to visit on an off day. As the time grew closer I went back and forth about it, seeing elephants would be cool but I want to go on a safari later… I’ll see them then and I don’t really want to spend the money on it, South Africa is super expensive as is…. but getting up close with the elephants would be so cool…. Finally I gave in and decided when in Africa, go see elephants, and I’m so happy I did. We learned a lot about elephants, apparently males and females don’t like to be around each other, once the little boys get to they’re sent away from the herd old and also there are apparently wood elephants that live in the forest around our farm, so cool!
We took a tram out to the elephant area. The elephants were up in a field as we drove out but as soon as they saw us they came running after the tram, they knew we had food. So, we fed the elephants, walked with the elephants, kissed the elephants and of course took pictures with the elephants. The two little boy elephants played around a lot, but the older ones, especially the matriarch sod still and calm, ready to eat and eat and eat!
I’m so thankful I’ve been able to have all these opportunities this month. I know that the coming months will probably be long and hard, so it’s been great to have this little bit of time to relax and enjoy.
