No, because absolutely everything is very cool! Let’s start with at the place God designed purely for wave lovers … Muizenberg! Muizenberg sits in False Bay, so called because the early sailors used to often mistake it for what is now the Cape Town harbour area. It is a small bohemian seaside town that is spectacularly laid back.

Surfers and kite boarders flock to the beautiful beaches and one of our most enduring memories is sitting in a fish and chip shop on the front watching surfers vie for waves while the gentle ocean breeze took the edge off the heat. Lucky Fish & Chips is wonderful, absolutely fresh, and caters for gluten-free – yay!

Muizenberg Beach – Lucky Fish and Chips

Right in the heart of Muizenberg is the area called Surfers’ Corner, dominated by surf shops, surf board hire shops, surf schools, or restaurants and cafes where you can sit and watch surfing! Further along the beach (out of sight of the real purpose of Muizenberg) you can find the swimming area and then further along from that is an area designated for kite-boarding and wind surfing.

The Shark flag system

When in Muizenberg the first-time visitor will be very surprised to see flags with pictures of sharks on. Due to the abundance of sharks, in particular Great Whites, Muizenberg beach has a shark warning system. This starts with a green flag for All Clear, black flag – spotting conditions poor, red flag – high shark alert and white flag – get out, get out!

Apparently, surfers paddling on a surf board, look exactly the same as a juicy seal to a hungry shark.

Apart from the flags, there is another way of telling of the presence of a shark – a bloody loud siren goes off, scaring the living daylights out of you, quite possibly more than a shark would. Because Muizenberg is overlooked by a mountain, there are shark spotters who sit at various points up the mountain with binoculars watching the bay for shark shapes and alert the beach when one comes too close to the surfers. At the siren, almost everybody gets out of the water and waits for the all clear flag to reappear before continuing where they left off. The all clear flag doesn’t actually mean there are no sharks. It just means that they are not near the surfing area.

Sharkspotters have an amazing free app for your phone that shows the ‘shark conditions’ around Muizenberg and surrounding bays. This organisation does an amazing job of protecting both humans and sharks and deserve a lot of support.

Fishing

Fisherman at dusk – Muizenberg Beach

What many people don’t know about Surfers’ Corner is that the locals bring in their netted catch. On our first evening back in Muizenberg, a huge crowd gathered as the fishermen hauled in masses of yellow-tails. We grabbed our cameras and ran over as fast as possible as there were so many photo opportunities to be had. As it was dusk we were working at reasonably high ISOs and slower shutter speeds however as we were also photographing at the wider end of the lenses we could still hand hold ok. My rule of thumb is to never shoot slower than the focal length of the lens I’m using therefore at 24mm I wouldn’t hand hold slower than 1/25 th of a second – unless I’d had a strong Truth coffee of course!

There was a lot of excitement around the haul as some of the less salubrious members of the crowd tried to steal the fish. This is not terribly easy as the fish are almost two-thirds of a metre in length. One old fellow grabbed a fish and wandered back up the beach past us, muttering “This one’s mine”. It didn’t take long for him to be spotted, and he was promptly chased by about 5 men, he was stopped in the car park and relieved of his ill-gotten “fish”.

Such amazing photo opportunities even with the crowds

Crowd with haul of fish on Muizenberg Beach

Not a paradise to all

Muizenberg however, is not paradise on earth for everybody. There is a lot of poverty and some locals have to sleep rough. They do so mainly outside the government offices where they feel safest. A lot of people also sleep on the mountainside in sheltered areas or caves.

Muizenberg has many neighbours ranging from the super wealthy Constantia wine producing area to the north, to the large more deprived Mitchell’s Plain area on the east.  The township (Mitchell’s Plain) is home to many victims of forced removal, due to the implementation of the Group Areas Act dating back to apartheid days and has quite a big gang and drug problem. The road in and out of Muizenberg (Prince George’s Drive) is often used for street racing as well as the heart of taxi wars where burning tyres can litter the road. The police take care of this very quickly and warn the residents living nearby not to venture out for a while.

Having said all that, Muizenberg is just the most chilled area dominated by old hippies, younger surfers and hipsters with people of all colours and languages to be seen.

Kitesurfing on False Bay, Muizenberg

We spent a very enjoyable evening watching talented kite-surfers tearing up and down the surf, whilst performing the occasional trick and jump as the sun was setting. Some of the kite-surfers noticed us photographing them and performed beautifully for us with the mountains and the setting sun as a perfect backdrop. We met some of them afterwards. Claire, a spectacular kite-surfer, turned out to be a French business student who’d been there for 2 months, doing an internship at the local surf shop working in the morning and kite-surfing in the afternoons.

Kite Surfing Muizenberg

Zandvlei

Just inland from from Surfers’ Corner is the 200ha Greater Zandvlei Estuary Nature Reserve. It is a wetland, river system and estuary lake. On the one side of Zandvlei is the beautiful Marina da Gama housing estate. A lot of the houses back right onto the water so that the residents can visit one another by wind-surfer or kayak! Our friend Suzi lives here, who having been in the UK for 16 years had just returned to S Africa. Having been anglicised for all those years, she needed to be refreshed in the art of braaing. (South African for barbeque.) We thought our visit would aid that need.

Marina De Gama

Durban or Muizenberg waves?

There are so many amazing surfing areas around South Africa. We also spent a lot of time in Durban waters and they are very different experiences but both amazing. Durban waters are much warmer but for a total seaside chilled experience, you need to visit Muizenberg. It doesn’t matter if you are a surfer or even like waves. It is an experience not to be missed and shows a different side to the Mother City. If you’re in Cape Town and want to see a different view of Table Mountain, check out our Table Mountain sunset post and a trip to Robben Island is a must.

The post Cape Town – Muizenberg – Surfers’ Heaven appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Sand, sand, sea, surfer, sand, surfer, sun, sea, sand, surfers, surfers …. and sharks?
Known as the Golden Mile, Durban beach front stretches for what seems like miles of golden sands with experienced lifeguards, in front of a vibrant esplanade of hotels, restaurants and market traders.

Firstly, the water is warm – really warm! Result! Secondly the waves are superb! Double result! And we spent many days along the seafront either in the water, on the beach or sitting in our favourite café or restaurant, watching the waves and the many surfers.

So what can you do there?

We were mainly on Addington beach, South Beach and UShaka beach. It is a hub of activity with cyclists, runners, joggers, skaters, of all ages and a mix of nationalities.

We had surfing lessons from the fabulous Xpressions Durban, who come highly recommended. Garry and Josh were amazing instructors. Josh is one of the premier South African swimmers and we hope to see him in the next Olympics.

Josh is an excellent and knowledgeable instructor

Due to the exchange rate of £ or $ to South African Rand everything was so very affordable. Surfing lessons for example are about £14.50 / $21.00 an hour (depending on exchange rate at the time) for private 1 to 1. Plus they do a buy 4 get the 5^th free. Where else can you get that?

Just downstairs from Xpressions is our favourite place for coffee, Surf Riders Café, where you can sit and watch the world go by.

Then there is UShaka. It’s like being 6 years old again. Water slides, tube rides and our favourite – the lazy river. Float down this man-made river for 10 mins on a tube passing rocks, trees and huge windows onto various tanks housing anything from penguins to sharks all whilst enjoying the 20-30 degree Durban beach front heat. Bliss!

It’s all about being a kid again

Awesome rides at UShaka

The Elephants

Now let’s address the elephant … I mean the shark … in the room! Are you going to meet one while swimming or surfing on Durban beach? Well, statistics say that you’re more likely to get struck by lightning, killed by a falling coconut or fall off a cliff whilst taking a selfie than to get attacked by a shark. The real fact is that shark attacks are exceptionally rare and because of their rarity they hit the headlines when they do occur, which makes them seem more commonplace than they really are.

Now, that’s not to say that we didn’t look out for fins whilst on our surfing lessons. The film ‘Jaws’ and subsequent movies, have done a lot of damage to the reputation of these beautiful animals although the work of conservationists, especially someone we know (Dan aka Sharkman Dan instagram: @Sharkman_Dan) has helped abate that fear.

The real threat to watch out for are from muggers. In Durban 99.9% of the people are lovely. However, there is a small criminal element who like to take advantage, so just be careful and watch your stuff. As one of our surf coaches told us, they’re often very well dressed and look very respectable. So, don’t walk about with expensive equipment, keep your purses and wallets well-hidden and never leave valuables on the beach.

Enough of the bad … back to the exceptionally amazing.

For an amazing sundowners drink or coffee try Moyo – this is a restaurant on the very end of the pier (in the photo below in the distance) with spectacular views of the entire Durban sea front. The pic below is at Piatto.

A really cool restaurant with very good food, and with stunning views of the ocean.

So what is the link with Durban beach and photography?

Well it’s the camera. We use a Nikon underwater camera but this is our 3rd underwater camera. The first was a Fujifilm XP that stopped working 2 days into our Egypt Red Sea trip (spectacularly annoying as we’d gone there for the snorkeling). Our second was a Canon Powershot D10 . That worked for a year or 2 but stopped working on our second trip to the Red Sea. Spectacularly annoying doesn’t even come close!

We bought the Nikon second hand on Ebay as we weren’t sure how long it would last but it’s been amazing so far.

We just throw it in our bag and it gets really beaten up and keeps working. You are not going to create amazing landscapes with it but for fun images it can’t be beaten. Most of the images on this page were taken with it.

Whatever underwater camera you buy, do make sure it has some form of manual override or exposure compensation, otherwise you might end up with the exposure problems we mentioned in our “Why your camera lies to you” blog post.

To fit in you need 3 things. A tan (or in Ally’s case, a few million freckles), to call the city “Durbs”, and a very laid back approach to life.

How can you not love it!

The post Durban Beach – Sand, Surfers, Sea, Sharks & Elephants? appeared first on ImageExplorers.