Jay & Nicole's Adventures
Cape Town Area, South Africa - Jan. to Mar. 2003 

(click any picture to get enlargement)

Each year, Nicole needs to support the Swiss Ambassador from Cape Town, so he can attend the Parliamentary sessions.  Last year we came to Cape Town in January and left early in April.  This year we found ourselves in Cape Town for New Year's eve; we went to an outdoor concert with friends, which was nice.

When we last came on this 3-month assignment, we rented a furnished place.  Rentals like that became hard to find though, as tourism boomed; places became booked and prices went up past our budget.  We decided to buy a "loft apartment" in the downtown area so we wouldn't have to worry about finding a rental.  
We made the purchase in March and then hired a Contracted to perform a major renovation.  The work should have been completed by January 1st, but it wasn't.

We were able to house-sit for friends in Camps Bay, which gave us time to get 
the loft ready.  The Camps Bay area is one of the nicest places in the world, 
and we thought we'd be relaxing on the beautiful beach every day ...
... but Mother Nature decided to change our plans .. again! 



Camps Bay area.
The wind at Camps Bay can be quite terrible for days at a time; they are called "South-Easters".  One night it blew so hard that we had trouble getting to sleep. The following night we heard fire trucks racing to a grass fire. 
Smoke the next morning.


Fire starting up again.

The wind started again
and the fires flared up.  
It was more than the firemen could handle.  
For two full days we 
were on alert, watering down the roof; once 
we had to evacuate 
important belongings.

Fire-ball explodes. 


The fire-helicopters filled their buckets in the ocean.

They then flew, very loudly, over the house.

The water was dropped 
on any fire near a home. 


Luckily no houses were burned, but it was close! 


A rare beach day for us.

Doris & Nicole at winery.

For the next three months we spent almost all of our free time working on the loft.  We had a lot of new work to do, as well as
re-working many things that had not been done correctly.  At times we had 8 contractors in the loft! This was all new for Jay & wasn't very enjoyable ...

The Bedroom area 
was our first priority.

These closets took a long time to get designed/built.


The kitchen had to be done in stages and took the most  effort to work.

The bathrooms also took a long time to get totally functional. 

Temporary office area


The views from the loft & at the pool were nice ... 


... which made the work more enjoyable for Jay. 

 One afternoon Nicole
called to say she had
made evening plans for
us.  We went to the Waterfront area, and to 
my surprise we found 
her co-workers on a 
very nice sailing yacht.
The Swiss owner had invited the Consulate people for a sunset sail.

This Captain and his crew had sailed across the oceans multiple times.


In the harbor we passed many fishing boats. 


Tourism & commerce co-exist at the Waterfront.

The Waterfront with Table Mountain in the back. 


Co-worker Hans-Peter & family (Pia, Lea, Frank). 

"Where is that damn Lion's Head mountain?" 

Jay & Nicole enjoying the wine & warm weather. 


Rare view of Lion's Mtn.
 in front of Table Mtn. 


Heading north we pass Sea Point and Clifton. 

We then came to Camps Bay & the Apostle Mtns. 


Nicole feeling the steep 
list of the yacht's sails. 

 The nice & colorful
South African flag.

Sundowner time; crew discussing night sailing. 


Nicely developing sunset.

Explosion of late color. 

Waterfront lights at night.


We cooked at a charity benefit; the fried Swiss pastry tasted good, but wasn't too healthy!


We also attended Fabio's annual costume party.

The theme was Marco Polo & Arabian Nights. 

We ended up spending 
too much time working 
on the loft during this
Cape visit, but we did 
get to have fun too...... 
and most importantly, 
we replenished our 
wine supply at some of
the nicest vineyards 
in the world....


Jay at a Winery.

 
This page contained pictures specific to this trip.  You can also find links to the generic pages for Cape Town, the Cape area, and of our "loft" 
from the main page.



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