Hangklip to Hermanus

We stayed the night before at the legendary Hangklip Hotel, the wind howling around the mountain and the sea covered in spray. The forecast promised the wind would start subsiding by 11am, so we drove to Bettys Bay to scout the slipway as a backup exit, then waited it out at a coffee shop until the wind began to ease around 11h30.

Back to Hangklip and onto the water by 12h15. Leaving Masbaai had a few interesting moments avoiding the big swells breaking on the outer reefs. Once around the point I headed toward Bettys Bay, and along the rocky shoreline the sea got very lumpy with bounce-back, progress a little slow with what I think was a bit of head current.

There were lots of penguins around, and the water had dark patches on it, some as wide as 50m, schools of bait fish. I do not like paddling over bait fish. Before reaching Hawston I decided to push on to Hermanus while the going was good. Warren told me Louise Fick from the Kleinmond Tourism Bureau had tracked him down at the slipway and given him a Cape Whale Coast cap and Kogelberg Biosphere Guardian T-shirt for me. A schoolmate I hadn’t seen in years, Kevin Weaving, also joined Warren at Hawston and followed us the rest of the way to Hermanus.