Category: positive thoughts

Sea and Sky

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I was lucky enough to receive a voucher for a flight with Sea & Sky as a birthday present and I went up today. I wasn’t allowed to take my phone because it might have fallen to a watery or… earthy(?) demise, so no immediate photos, I’m afraid.

I did take up my new camera (and neck strap) though, but even those photos will have to wait because the speed of the  internet here is measured in terms of plate tectonics.

Suffice to say – amazing. And I’ll do a full report with the photos at a later date, but I saw whales – including a very rare albino calf – shipwrecks, flamingos, some amazing, breathtaking coastline and we even did a couple of loops over the cottage.

If you’re ever down this way, do this – it’s worth every single cent. Really.

Tablet Engagement

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You may remember last month when I wrote about how the kids’ school wants to introduce iPads into their learning programmes.

This weekend, I was reminded of this line particularly:

They cited the engagement that the kids had with the device (I’ve seen this with my kids and my tablet) and the way that that engagement facilitated learning.

We were at a birthday party for one of the girls in Scoop’s year, but having no-one to look after Alex, I took him along as well. I also took the tablet, because there’s probably limited interest for a 7 year old boy in a younger girls’ birthday party.

Here’s what happened:

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Alex and the (educational) Make Your Wild Self website was suddenly the centre of attention. And the kids came away having learned about bats and penguins.
The tablet came away covered in cupcake icing, but that’s not the point I’m trying to illustrate here.

Just having the device in front of them engages the kids. What’s on it is up to the parents and the teachers to sort out, but get it right and yes, it’s a fantastic learning tool.

Of fish

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Not a sponsored post, just another 6000 Recommends…

And today I’m recommending the Two Oceans Aquarium at the Waterfront. We were down there yesterday, and no, despite the rain, it really wasn’t as busy as you think it was. It’s not like it was our first time, we’re members and we go down there maybe every other month. But it’s great value and the kids love it. Every single time.

It helps that we spend as much time as we can exploring the rock pools around Agulhas and it’s a real bonus to be able to tie the two in together.

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Bonus for me this time around (aside from the smiles on the faces of my loved ones, obviously) was this Rockhopper penguin, which had set up his… her… its nest right next to the fence in the penguin enclosure.

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Not wanting to intrude, I carefully slipped the very end of my phone (just the tip) against the bamboo fencing poles and took this from all of 20cm away.

If anyone knows how to remove beak marks from a Sony Xperia T, I’d be obliged if you could get in touch.

Anyway, I suspect that I’m teaching Cape Town parents to suck eggs when it comes to suggesting the Aquarium as a good spot to take your kids. But just in case you were hesitating, go and do it.

Volvo Ocean Race names Cape Town as first stop

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The Volvo Ocean Race has named Cape Town as the first port-of-call for the 2014/15 event. The competing teams will leave Alicante in Spain on October 11th 2014 and are expected to arrive in Cape Town around the end of the month. There will then be an in-port race in Table Bay on Novmber 15th before they head off to Abu Dhabi on November 19th.

This comes after a first stop in Recife was abandoned when a team local to the port withdrew from the race.

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Cape Town has been on the route for 10 of the 12 VORs and it’s a big money spinner for the city:

Councillor Grant Pascoe, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Tourism, Events & Marketing, said he was delighted the City of Cape Town and the V&A Waterfront would host the event once more.

“Not only does this race offer worldwide marketing exposure for Cape Town and raise the City and V & A Waterfront’s profile as a top leisure and events destination, it also provides a valuable boost for the many local industries through visitor and organiser spend”

The total race distance is now just under 73,000km and will finish on June 27th 2015 in Gothenburg, over seven months after it started.