What a difference a day makes!

This is what I love about living in Kommetjie! You go down to the rocks and every day the scene is different. Yesterday the swells were huge and the wind was gale force South East. During the night, the wind seemed to gain momentum and trees fell all around us, but for some reason we had no damage whatsoever on our property. First time ever! The neighbour, who is away for Easter, is going to come home to find a tree lying in his driveway outside his front door, his braai arrangement demolished and his garden furniture underneath the tree. He is in his late 80s so I don't imagine he is going to be too happy.

Today we woke up to this scene - totally flat sea, not a swell in sight, but purple sky over Table Mountain heralding the thunderstorms to come tonight and tomorrow. The moods of the sea are always something exciting to look forward to, and I can never get tired of its untameable unpredictability, albeit from the security of dry land!

After a hearty Easter Sunday roast dinner, we tootled off to do some birdwatching down at the bay and were lucky enough to observe a gull catching itself an unusual dinner. A diver was sorting his catch on the rocks and threw an undersized crayfish back into the water. The opportunistic gull swooped in on the flotsam, doubtless expecting a remnant of fish bait, and picked the hapless crustacean from the shallows before it could flap its tail and reach the safety of the deep water. The gull brought the crayfish back to the rocks where it turned it over and over to see what to do with it. It soon found that the soft underbelly was no match for its massive beak and in no time the crayfish was a hollow shell. Not nice to watch but nature at its most basic, I suppose. Eating to survive.

I doubt whether that gull will ever be happy with a cast-off chip from a takeaway again!