Four Days at Sea and the Unexpected End to Our Tristan da Cunha Expedition

After everything it had taken to reach Nightingale Island, four and a half days at sea didn’t sound particularly exciting.

We didn’t care. We had seen the northern rockhopper penguins.

That changed everything. Instead of spending the sea days wondering whether the expedition would deliver the one thing we’d travelled all this way to see, we could finally relax.

So that’s exactly what we did.

Settling Into Four Days at Sea

Our first day was wonderfully uneventful.

We did some laundry, backed up our photos and went for a walk around the deck. After the uncertainty of the previous few weeks, we were completely content doing very little.

The following day I went to another watercolour class, this time painting a rockhopper penguin. I have to admit, I was pretty pleased with this one.

While I was waiting for it to dry, I quickly painted an iceberg seascape. It took about five minutes. And it was probably the best watercolour I’d done on the entire trip. Apparently the secret was not trying so hard. At some point (earlier than you think) you just have to decide, “This is done,” and stop messing with it.

 

We photographed passing seabirds.

Meanwhile, there still wasn’t much information about what would happen when we reached Cape Town.

We did learn one thing though. Because of the medical diversion and resulting itinerary change, Silversea was giving everyone a future cruise credit equivalent to four days of the voyage. Considering we’d already booked the expedition on a screaming Black Friday deal, that seemed pretty generous.

Coming Up With a New Plan

There didn’t seem to be much reason for us to stay on Silver Wind after Cape Town. The ship was scheduled to continue for another two days at sea before reaching Namibia. We were supposed to disembark there, only to fly straight back to Cape Town. If Silversea allowed us to leave the ship early, we’d suddenly have five unexpected days in South Africa before our existing booking in Simon’s Town.

There was just one complication. It was Easter. A lot of places were already booked.

Plan A was obvious: MalaMala.

MalaMala is one of our favourite places in the world and somewhere we return to whenever we get the chance. We hadn’t been since 2019. April isn’t our preferred time of year to visit, and a few nights there would certainly not be the cheapest way to fill an unexpected gap in an itinerary. But MalaMala is always good.

Plan B was Addo Elephant National Park. We’d never been, and a park known for elephants certainly wasn’t a bad fallback.

Plan C was to stay closer to Cape Town and spend a few days around the wine regions of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek.

We could make any of them work. We just needed to know whether we were actually allowed to leave the ship.

That night, we moved the clocks forward an hour, again.

An Unexpected Return to MalaMala

By the third day, the weather had noticeably improved as Silver Wind continued north toward South Africa.

We woke to sunshine and eventually found ourselves sitting in lounge chairs beside the pool. It was a considerable improvement over the South Atlantic weather we’d left behind.

Then, at the evening briefing, we finally got the answer we’d been waiting for. Silver Wind had secured a berth in Cape Town, and passengers who wanted to end their voyage there would be allowed to disembark. That was all we needed to hear. We pulled the trigger on MalaMala.

The ship was still making around 17.5 knots into the current, with approximately 760 nautical miles left to Cape Town. We essentially had another full day at sea before arriving the following afternoon.

Another hour disappeared from the clocks that night.

The next day was mostly spent getting everything organised. We did more laundry and confirmed availability at Sable Camp at MalaMala. We couldn’t get one of the river-view rooms we normally prefer, but there was a waterhole room available. Good enough.

We booked flights from Cape Town to Skukuza and a room at the Victoria & Alfred Hotel on the V&A Waterfront, where we could also leave some of our luggage while we went to MalaMala.

Our hastily constructed plan was coming together.

That evening there was a big gala dinner. Somehow we ended up sitting with the same group we’d eaten with on our first night at the Four Seasons before this entire expedition began.

It felt like an appropriate way to finish.

Land Ho!

On our final morning, the ocean was remarkably calm.

There were seabirds everywhere, along with seals and dolphins as we approached the South African coast.

We packed and took our bags down to Deck 5.

We were grateful for everything the expedition had ultimately delivered, particularly the northern rockhoppers. But after four and a half days at sea, we were ready to get off the ship. It was pretty amazing to realise we had crossed the Atlantic Oceean.

This was our first time in Cape Town, and we couldn’t have asked for a better day to arrive by sea. The views became increasingly postcard-like as we approached the continent.

A harbour pilot boarded Silver Wind to guide us into port. At one point the ship made a sharp turn near a green channel marker, sending the swimming pool sloshing from side to side and one of the jacuzzi jets spraying water into the air.

For passengers continuing with the expedition, there were two options in Cape Town: a coastal drive or a bird walk around the port.

The instructions were for those of us disembarking to line up first. People did not follow those instructions, and instead, a huge crowd formed.

I couldn’t really blame them. Silver Wind had to leave the dock again by 7 p.m., which meant everyone staying aboard had only a few hours to see Cape Town.

As soon as the gangway was in place, the disembarking passengers were called forward. There were probably only about twenty of us.We went through immigration, collected our luggage and walked off Silver Wind.

And just like that, our expedition was over.

A few days earlier, we’d expected to still be somewhere at sea on our way to Namibia. Instead, we were heading back to MalaMala for the first time in seven years. The expedition was over. The surprise side quest was about to begin.