Packed beach

By the third of January, you’d expect the crowds of visitors to start receding. We’ve had the festivities of Christmas and the excitement of New Year and there’s real life waiting just around the corner.

But no. Yesterday afternoon, the local car park was as full as I have ever seen it, with cars from Cape Town, Swellendam, the Free State and Limpopo. The reason, I suspect, was the fresh southeaster which had stirred up a sandy gunk, thus:

This “ginger beer water”, I have been told, makes for excellent fishing, and so a billion fishermen had descended onto what I quite reasonably call “my beach”. The rocks were suddenly full of Klipdrift and swearing, discarded tackle and raucous laughter.

I never saw these people when I was out there in the driving rain of two days ago winter.

Also out in full force were the SANParks officials, clipboards in hand, lanyards fluttering in the wind, checking permits and observing catch size. (Although for all the promise, I never saw a single fish being landed.)
It’s weird that the guys in green are never there when the perlemoen poachers are at work (now there’s a group that doesn’t care about the weather), but I guess they can’t be everywhere at once.

The wind is forecast to drop today, and so all the fishermen will likely disappear too, leaving the beach for just me and the beagle, as it should be.

Today, I saved a seagull

It’s the 5spesie in Agulhas this weekend, whereby anglers from all over the country converge and try to catch as many Belman, Galjoen, Kob, Musselcracker and White Steenbras as they can.
Sadly, they also leave the beaches in a terrible state, with beer bottles and fishing line everywhere.

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This little guy – probably not even a year old – was tangled in a fisherman’s line and was slowly drowning as the tide came in. The angler in question wasn’t doing anything about it (I’m not quite sure what his medium term plan was, given that there was a seagull attached to his fishing rod), so it was left to me to wade out about twenty metres, get pecked a bit and bring the gull to the beach for some cutting loose.

Tomorrow, we’re back down there to do some more clearing of fishing line, bait bags and beer bottles. But hopefully no more seagulls.