Women's Golf Blog From South Africa With Blumenherst & Lee

Hi everyone!! Amanda and I were selected to go to South Africa for the 2006 World Amateur Team Championships. So the 12th of October, we started out from Raleigh Durham International Airport to JFK in New York. We landed in New York and rechecked ourselves in to receive our boarding passes and decided to chill out for a bit in the business class lounge (thanks to our business class seats for our trip over the Atlantic).

There we met our captain from the United States Golf Association, Jeanne Myers, had a nice little chat and headed over to the gate to Johannesburg. Expecting our 17 hour flight, we packed loads and loads of homework and our laptop and lugged them around, prepared to finish our homework before we arrived in Cape Town. We boarded our business class seats with our other teammate, Kimberly Kim from Hawaii, and the rest of the crew supporting the United States.

The Swedish team sat in Economy and kindly offered to exchange seats with us; I told her, “Nah~~ you're back there.” I settled into my seat testing out every button possible: leg rest down, leg rest up, seat down, seat up, bed (which the seat makes a 180), upright, and more and more and more.

There were personal television screens with a selection about 20 movies and pretty good food for us, dinner, breakfast, and lunch. Of course, as the flight departed and for the first eight hours to Dakar, Senegal, I did about 30 minutes of my chemistry homework and spent rest of the way watching Just My Luck and sleeping.

And as we headed downward towards Johannesburg from Senegal, I finished my chemistry homework in about 15 minutes and slept, then watched The Serenity and slept some more. I figured 17 hours of flying is pretty nice...when you're in business class.

We arrived in Johannesburg, found our luggage, went through customs, and rechecked our luggage. Cutting it close to our connection flight to Cape Town, our captain told Amanda and I to go ahead and board because Kimberly and her aunt were slightly behind. Amanda and I, thinking we're going to miss our flight, ran towards security...who would have thought we'd be running across full sprint in an airport in South Africa? And of course, something has to happen as Amanda's backpack rips open and out falls her Darkness of book as people are just staring at us like... ?O these Americans...'

We luckily got to the gate just in time to make the bus that took us to the plane, and met the others at the plane to depart for Cape Town. We arrived, after two hours to New York, eight hours to Senegal, one hour reload, eight hours to Johannesburg, two hours to Cape Town, met our driver to The Village at Speirs, our hotel and arrived safely.

Surely this wasn't bad, considering Amanda's parents got here in three days, due to mechanical problems on the plane, our luggage arrived safe and sound and on time. This is it for today. Amanda's got the next blog and I assure you, the good stuff is yet to come.

Take care,

Jennie Lee

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So far the trip has been amazing! The cliffs, oceans (Atlantic and Indian), vineyards, and rolling hills are breathtaking. This will be a golf tournament that we will never forget.

Especially because we almost died last night. No kidding. We went on a sunset cruise around the point of Cape Town, but we were only out there for 45 minutes (instead of the 1 1/2 hrs.) because our sailboat almost capsized.

And when I say almost, I MEAN almost!!! The entire right side (we were on the left, thank goodness) went underwater! Our group was hanging on to the railing and our feet were dangling into thin air. I almost lost my roommate's bag (inside were my tickets, passport, ID, and Dark Side of Democracy history book) to the Atlantic, but my mom saved it in the nick of time. Everyone was screaming (out of fear, not excitement) and they crew couldn't give us life jackets because there weren't any to give. My dad and another passenger forced the captain to turn the boat around (oh, I forgot to mention that I have never been in such wind before, hence the huge waves and almost flipping the boat) and as the boat turned, our side started going underwater, so we had to swim through the water on board to get to the other side.

Jennie, our captain and third teammate were able to jump into the cabin, but my parents and I were forced to the other side. I got a glimpse of Titanic. The water was freezing. They said that if we had fallen in, we would have lasted about 15 minutes!!!!

I probably have never been so cold or wet in my life....oh, and by the way, this is the Great White capital of the world!

By the time we got back to the dock, my hair was standing on end and I had to pry my fingers off of the metal railing. All of our clothes were soaked through and we had drank about a gallon of salt water each. Lovely. Anyway, that was my near death story.

Besides this, we are having a wonderful time and enjoying dry land.

Amanda Blumenherst