An early morning walk on Fish Hoek beach with a submarine, a grey battleship and a stricken Chilean cargo ship out on the stormy water. There were also lots of dolphins moving along the coast - you can just see some white specks beyond the breakers. I didn't get to see what type but the fact that they were leaping right out of the water and twisting and turning in the air makes me think they may have been Dusky Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obscurus). But they could also have been Common Dolphins (Delphinus delphis) or Bottlenosed Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus).
Several subdivisions later it was bought by the formidable Hester de Villiers, who was the owner when this photo was taken in the early twentieth century. The scar made by the stone quarry (opened in 1896) in the hill above can be seen even to this day. 
Today, a hundred years later. The blue arrow marks the spot of the naval mess, hidden behind the ugly beach buildings.
Monwabisi Strand is a resort on the edge of False Bay with wonderful views across False Bay from Cape Point to Hangklip. It is famous amongst surfers for its surf 
But is has a chequered past. Monwabisi Park is the the southernmost division of the township of Khayelitsha (home to between 500 000 and 1 000 000 residents of which about half are unemployed) about 30 km from the centre of Cape Town. The resort on the windswept coast of False Bay (look at the trees in the left of the photo to see how hard the Southeaster blows here!) was built by the apartheid regime, about thirty to forty years ago, for the black inhabitants of the informal black settlements on the Cape Flats. (The "coloured" population was awarded the windswept Strandfontein Pavilion further south and the whites got the pick of all the other beautiful beaches!) The surf here is also quite treacherous and the resort remains a rather dodgy spot - don't even try going there on your own out of season as the crime rate is HIGH.
Cape Town Time
11 years ago
