Blue Flag

I might be on a nice little island with some lovely beaches, but are any of them Blue Flag Beaches?

Well, actually, no.

While Mauritius is making efforts to achieve Blue Flag status for its beaches, and some beaches have the potential for it, there are no universally recognized Blue Flag beaches listed in the search results for 2025.

Although the water here is stunningly blue and appears to be crystal clear.

Back home, however, Cape Town is full of Blue Flags:

Yep:

  • Bikini Beach
  • Camps Bay
  • Clifton 4th
  • Fish Hoek
  • Llandudno
  • Melkbosstrand
  • Muizenberg
  • Silwerstroomstrand

As ever though, (some of) the locals are accusing the city of “paying” for the titles (that’s not how it works), complaining that their local beach (not on the list) isn’t very clean, or quite simply inventing weird reasons why Cape Town shouldn’t have any Blue Flag Beaches.

Ah yes, the old “orange urine” thing.
And that “continuous” issue.

You might want to see a doctor, Johann.

But I don’t think there’s much danger of that sort of thing, really. Let’s say that 10,000 people each urinate 250ml into the ocean. That’s a total of 2,500 litres of wee. And that sounds a lot until you understand that the volume of the South Atlantic is 160,000,000,000,000,000,000 litres. (That’s 160 million km3).

I think that’s going to be pretty diluted.

I think we’re going to be ok.

As for me – I’m going to take my chances with the Indian Ocean outside my door.

Happy Swimming!

Last time out

I haven’t been out here for 9 years. But I’m hoping that at least some things won’t have changed.

Like this:

I’m not 100% sure what was in this particular cocktail, but I will have no issue in experimenting out here until I manage to get something like this shot again.

Perhaps with a little more light on the subject in question, although it depends how many subjects I will have gone through before taking the photo as to how successfully it turns out, I guess.

A travel day

I’m away for a few days.
Traveling all day today – well, the daytime hours, at least – for a few relaxing days away with Mrs 6000.

Actually, she’s already there, so there are plans for a romantic rendezvous on the west coast of a tropical island this evening.

As for the blog, well this is a holiday dedicated to slowing down (almost to a full stop), relaxing and enjoying the sunshine. So there is not much likelihood of any blog posts while I’m out there.

[audience gasps]

Which is why I am writing and scheduling (have written and scheduled by now, I suppose) a few before I go.

[audience sighs with relief]

But, you know, if the need and/or opportunity arises…. You know where to look.

(It’s here.)

See you on the other side. 🙂

Big Dreams

My plan for the next little while (in conjunction with Little Miss 6000) is to find some more female artists or female-led bands to listen to.

This because we’ve looked at or listening habits and discovered that we don’t have many of those demographics in our most-listened to lists.

I’m thinking more New Dad, more Wolf Alice, more Skunk Anansie and even a bit of delicious Australian punk from Amyl and the Sniffers:

A bit of naughty language in there, but then they are Australian and they are punk, so honestly what did you expect?

Anyway, hit me up with some suggestions via the usual routes if you wish.

I’m making some playlists today, because tomorrow… well… you’ll see.

Terrifying dinosaur

On our patio, nogal.

OK. Not so terrifying.

He’s a Cape Skink (Trachylepis capensis) and he’s completely harmless.

Not uncommon around here either. You may remember them from previous posts on 6000 miles…

We have a family of them living in the back garden, and with the warmer weather now with us, it’s nice to see them out and about, legging it between the woodpile under the braai and the bushes on the far side of the patio.

Always with a slightly knowing smile on their little faces.