Few Things Have Made My Heart Happier

When we walked through the gate to Boulders Beach, I was beaming! Ever since we arrived in Cape Town I have been looking forward to visiting this beach; my heart was racing as I scanned the coastline. When my eyes met their first little black and white creature standing on the shore, my heart almost burst! Rob and I continued down the wooden walkway and more and more of these tiny creatures came into view. Penguins! Penguins on the rocks! Penguins on the shore! Penguins swimming in the ocean! Penguins everywhere! I was overjoyed! They were even cuter than I imagined they could be. I could hardly stand how cute they were! I almost couldn’t believe my eyes.

We stood on this wooden walkway among a flock of other tourists taking in the surreal scene. After a few minutes we realized that there were people swimming near the penguins – that’s where we wanted to be! We found our way to the beach and ran down to the shore, anxious to get up close to the penguins. Giddy, we spotted our first penguin. We had read that you are not allowed to feed the penguins and their beaks are razor sharp, but we were too curious about them not to get somewhat close. Rob reached down to touch it, but just before he could, the penguin opened its beak and stretched out its neck to bite him! We were both surprised by how flexible and long its neck could get. It moved like a snake. Fast too! We were both a bit taken back, but Rob moved in slowly for a second attempt. The penguin followed Rob’s every move with his head as he inched closer. Rob wasn’t bold enough to try again. The video below is after the penguin snapped at him. Sadly I didn’t get the snap on video. Listen closely to the video though, Rob cracks me up! 🙂

We continued down the beach and the further we got from the crowd of people, the more penguins we saw. So many penguins! It was crazy! If we weren’t watching where we walked, we would have stepped on one. They littered the beach.

The baby penguins bodies were covered in feathers. They were so scruffy and cute!

We brought our GoPro to get a few action shots. We waded into the water, trailing behind two penguins at what we thought was a reasonable distance. I was a few steps behind Rob. As he put the GoPro in the water, I looked to my left and the penguin within a few feet of me had its beak WIDE open ready to attack! I could see inside its entire bright pink mouth. I didn’t even know a penguin could open its beak that wide! Penguins are much faster in the water than they are on land, so I was terrified! I scrambled out of its line of fire as fast as I could! It darted right past me. I have no idea how I escaped that one! Wish we would have gotten the whole scene on camera, but with all of the commotion, Rob was also fearing for his life, so we’re happy he caught the tail end of it; both terrifying and hilarious.

Sad penguin does the shlumpy penguin walk.

We left Boulders Beach more than satisfied with our penguin experiences that day. My heart was happy. Still hard to believe that we saw penguins in South Africa! These are the kind of experiences we will never forget. What an incredible day.