gordon's bay/cape pt

whale sighting at gordon's bay
















This was the installation of an atmospheric sampler at Cape Point on June 21



































Collecting water samples off cape point, june 22nd

Atop Table mountain

Tuesday, June 19th, 2007: Sampling the reservoirs atop Table mountain was an adventure. We left CSIR at around 8.30 am. We took a scenic route that took us through touristy Muizenberg, a little town on the coast but not before we saw Khayelitshe an informal settlement. We arrived at the foot of Table mountain around 11 am and had to get clearance to go up the mountain from the officials in charge of the park. Part of the group went up the mountain in a 4 x 4. The rest of us were to be picked up afterwards. That was not to be, after waiting for a few minutes we got a call from the first group saying we should walk up on one of the trails. Harvesting of trees was taking place, and we could hear the crashing of trees in the distance, big cranes that looked more like dinosaurs had already made the trail we chose almost impassable. Nevertheless we trudged upwards along the muddy path. There was one scary episode when Vernon from the CSIR yelled for us to run, a tree had just been felled. The only problem was we didn’t know which direction to go to. In retrospect it’s kind of funny to think of Chantelle, Susan, Vernon and Rob Jr. trying to run in sticky mud with arms flailing in a panic. Luckily, we didn’t have to walk all the way since Joy picked us up in the car when we were almost halfway up. And she was right on time because we were quite exhausted by then.

The view as one goes up the mountain is lovely, Cape Town is down in the valley with the mountains in the distance. The land is green, red roofs are visible and white washed cottages dot the landscape. A haze hung above the city, smog presumably.
The reservoirs at the top of the mountain are pristine ponds nestled among the craggy rocks. They were built in the 1900s and they provide fresh water to certain areas in the Cape region. We sampled Hely Hutchinson and De Villiers. We collected water samples, sediment cores and some biota. The water especially at the shores looked a lot like Rooibos tea. Rooibos is a wild shrub whose leaves are used to make tea. Rooibos is Afrikaans for Red bush. The tea is said to have antioxidant properties. It’s really good and Terill and I have become huge fans already. The drive and walk (for some of us) down the mountain was uneventful. On the way home, we had a late lunch of fish and chips at a little eatery called Fish on the Rocks right on the shores of Hout Bay.

The crater

Sunday, June 24th, 2007: Today we visited a crater from an earth-chrondrite interaction near pretoria. It was amazing, and warmed my stone cold little geologist heart. We saw a Southern Yellowbilled Hornbill, a herd of Kudu (a meat which Susan actually ate a couple days earlier), and a bunch of monkeys making the experience all the more exquisite. Pictures to come soon!! Other notable but unrecorded recent events include an episode of baboon aggression at cape point, sampling the reservoirs on top of table mountain, and our fond farewell to Stellenbosch for Pretoria. I will include these stories when I upload some pictures.

Robben Island

Sunday, June 17th, 2007: A visit to South Africa without going to Robben Island is hardly complete but that goes for so many other things that can hardly be crammed into our weekends. We took the ferry out Sunday morning. Lucky for us it didn't rain. The sun was out and table mountain was visible. It took about half an hour to get to the island and when we got there, there were 2 buses waiting take us round. There were various buildings and of course the prison.

Each with a story of its own. The most notable ones for me were the Robert Sobuke house where Sobuke, a political activist was kept in solitary confinement for 4 years. He was not allowed to speak to anyone during that time, not even the guards. The house is enclosed in a small compound, and he could within walk that area only but speak to no-one. Other prisoners would file past the compound, they would salute him and as a result get punished for it. His way of communicating was to walk to the perimeter fence, scoop some soil and as they walked past, he would let the soil filter through his fingers to the ground.

Sampling the Kuils river

Wednesday, June 13th: We set out to collect water, sediment and biota samples on the Kuils river, Thursday. It was a chilly and slightly windy day. The Uconn group and staff from the CSIR worked together on this trip. There were 3 sampling sites covered. We collected lots of crab, most of them small, some fish, snails, mayflies and other little critters, sediment cores and water.

The people's kitchen

Thursday, June 14th, 2007: We had dinner at Volkskombuis-afrikaans for the People's kitchen, a restaurant in Stellenbosch. It was recommended by a local so we could sample the local cuisine. I had a country sampler plate with a small portion of 3 dishes i.e. Bobotie, Water-flower stew and a traditional chicken pie. Bobotie is a beef mince with a thin layer of egg and milk custard, the water flower stew is made from the water lily before the flowers open. For dessert, Terill ordered the chocolate indulgence- chocolate mousse covered with layers of chocolate and I had the amarula tiramisu, both were incredibly delicious. Rob had a grilled line fish and a cheese platter for dessert. This place is highly recommended if you are in the area. An absolute delight.

Visiting the Univ of Stellenbosch

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007: We visited the Univ. of Stellenbosch. Dr. Mason was giving a seminar on mercury and our host was Dr. Andrew Crouch. Afterwards, we got a tour of the campus. Its surrounded by the mountains with red tiled roofs white washed buildings and nice lawns and gardens. Its one of the oldest universities in South Africa, and Afrikaans and English are the languages of instruction. It's also one of the few places in the world where you can earn a degree in Vinticulture i.e. wine making. We got to visit the wine lab, where they have a green house and the latest in analytical instruments and many bottles of wine of course.....which would explain why we saw this notice in one of the labs. It reads "DO NOT DRINK THE STANDARDS"

They also have an impressive wine cellar, metal racks from floor to ceiling with wines from various estates in the country.

Morning tea

Ahh the sun is out. Finally, the end of the constant drizzle which had accompanied us up to this point. I awoke to the call of the ahdidah birds which make a sound like their name. The clear view of the mountains which greeted us upon driving out into the open was magnificent. Small clouds caught on the tops of the mountains. Amazing.

CSIR (working....)

Tristan- Today we worked all day getting ready to do some mercury analysis. Everything is well. I am very happy and really love this place. Life is great!!
Susan-Everything went great while working in the lab today. We got everything out of the boxes. We had to clean the surfaces in order to create a 'clean' area. We also set up the CVAFS detector and the integrator, hopefully they'll be up and running soon. At lunch, we found this quaint restaurant called the Blue Orange in Stellenbosch. They had interesting offerings on their menu, like avocado and bacon sandwiches which Rob Jr. tried, quite delicious he said. I liked the frothy cappucino too. A nice place for lunch if you are in the area. We hope the next week will be just as productive and fun of course.

Stellenbosch (here at last!)

We are now in Stellenbosch at CSIR. The weather is rainy. We are staying at a very nice little cottage. The place is surrounded by mountains and wildlife, including 4 very friendly dogs. We are eating delicious food and preparing for a very busy week after the weekend. We were driven home from the airport by our collaborator, Joy Leaner, and her husband Denver. We finally arrived in Cape Town at 8:30 PM, and to our cottage at around 9. We have satelite TV and a little fireplace(all the comforts of home). I feel absolutely no jet lag. I woke up this morning at around 8:30 and saw the sun shining through the clouds onto the mountains, it was quite magnificent. I am really looking forward to travelling around this weekend and then getting started with work on Monday. One funny thing, we were awoke to the call of a strange duck bird pictured below. He made a burping sort of sound. It was quite funny.

Almost time to go!

I'm all packed, the equipment has been shipped (Thanks Genevieve!) , and I think we are pretty much ready to go. We all meet up tomorrow morning at noon to load the last of our stuff into the car we are taking to JFK, and then off we go. This trip is to include:


Dr. Robert Mason-organizer, Professor of Marine Science/Chemistry
Terill Hollweg-Graduate student in marine science
Susan Gichuki-Graduate student in chemistry
Tristan Kading(moi)-undergraduate in marine science
Robert Busch-undergraduate in pre-med

See this page for more details

A large amount of the preparation for this trip was cleaning everything that would be used for sampling mercury with acid baths. Every bottle pictured has been scrubbed, rinsed with high purity deionized water, soaked in nitric acid, soaked in hydrochloric acid, and rinsed many, many times with high purity deionized water.