The Fair Judge Leaves so Nasser Mandela Goes Back to Prison

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The fair Judge Leaves so Nasser Mandela goes back to Prison So up early for breakfast, farewell to the Judge then off to the Waterfront for a trip to Robben Island. But first....a 10km run snaked its way around the city and needed to be crossed twice. No problem for the boys filtering into the runners and sidestepping back to the pavement on the otherside. We got to the Robben Island museum to ready ourselves for departure but first the safety brief: "This is a life jacket, if the time calls, put eet on." Puck became the Capholder as our guide demonstrated. "If the call comes to abandon ship, you have no choice." "We will come and get you, I maybe late, if so sorry but you have a whistle so blow it and it means 'I want to come home', well you might even get home one day". Fortunately there was a modern catamaran parked by the harbour wall, unfortunately it wasn't our boat. Yep it said the good ship Susan Kruger on the back but with 4m waves, would it bring back memories of the Titanic? As it happened, no......it was named the good ship chunder after one of our half-backs who shall remain nameless!! So on arrival at Robben Island we boarded our bus for an Island tour with our guide Gillian and the driver Joe. We went past a leper's graveyard and Captain asked a sensible question, "what is leprocy?" A little further down the line we were told the story of a church which flew blue flags when a boy was born and pink when a girl. Cue Plumshot; "where do babies come from?" the guide looked suitably embarassed and her cheeks took on a pink hue. A call for respect ensued. We then stopped off at the tuck shop where Slodge got a cookie that he proceeded to paint his face with, good grief! The locust appeared again and attacked the fare on offer. We saw a rare Oyster Catcher, 2 fallow deer and a maasive gun before reaching the Lime Quarry featured in Invictus. Apparently they needed enough lime to sort the roads out which could be mined in 6 months but the hard labour went on for 14 years. There was a cave that parts of the modern SA constitution were written in complete with a pile of rocks left by former inmates that symbolise the Rainbow Nation. They spoke of the retinal damage caused by glare and the lung damage due to lack of protective apparatus. So onto maximum security cell block tour, Siepo our guide spent 5 years here from 1984. He talked of the immediate humiliation on arrival of being stripped naked while the rules were read out. He spoke of where Nelson Mandela wrote "The long walk to Freedom". We saw Mr Mandela's cell and Nasser took brief ownership for a while. Sadly there was a blast from the past when Boots and Sleepy locked Yoko in a cell. (All innocent fun!) There will be a special blog shortly featuring the trials and tribulations of Nasser on Robben Island fortunately not featuring any torture by the Security Police. So back on the boat for a video editing session whilst the boat pitched and rolled challenging the stomachs of steel. We then held the awards ceremony from yesterday and hit Quay Four for Lunch. You will now get a premonition of what will happen later due to a dodgy internet at the hotel. The boys will whinge about not having had enough food, we will have a video debrief followed by a defence training session. Yoko will get a cake and be sung Happy Birthday, someone (Kermit) will make an ar$e of themselves and end up wearing the sacred pink mankini. We'll update on what actually happened tomorrow.

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