Ocean & Coast
The cold Atlantic is the first thing the Cape teaches you. We start most mornings here, paddling out before the wind, while the city is still half asleep. These are the days we would take ourselves: low light on the mountain, dolphins where you least expect them, and the kind of quiet you only find offshore.
Ocean Kayaking on the Promenade
We put in off the Sea Point Promenade at first light, before the south-easter has decided what it’s doing. The water is usually glass at that hour and the mountain goes pink behind you. Dolphins move along this stretch in pods. Some mornings a handful, some mornings a hundred, some mornings none at all. Seals are more reliable and considerably nosier. No experience needed: the boats are stable and we stay close in. The Atlantic sits around 12°C, so you will wear a wetsuit and you will still notice.
Private guide · Our own kayaks · Gear & safety · Half day
Penguin paddle at Boulders Beach
A sheltered cove of granite boulders in Simon’s Town, and a protected colony of African penguins that has been there since the eighties. We paddle in from the water rather than walking the boardwalk, which is quieter and closer, and we go when the wind is right rather than when the schedule says so. On the way there and back the bay usually has something else in it.
Private guide · Our own kayaks · Gear & safety · Half day
Surf the local breaks
Muizenberg is where most of Cape Town learned, and for good reason. Long, slow, forgiving waves in water several degrees warmer than the Atlantic side. If you already surf, we will take you to the heavier corners on the Peninsula that do not appear on any list. Which one depends entirely on the wind and the swell that morning, so we pick it on the day rather than the week before. Boards and wetsuits are ours.
Private guide · Boards & wetsuits · Vehicle · Half day
Cape Point & the wild coast
South down the Peninsula to where the land runs out. Cliffs, shipwreck coastline, and a lighthouse you reach by a funicular named after a ghost ship. Baboons on the road, eland and bontebok in the reserve, and the Atlantic doing as it likes several hundred metres below. We go early before the coaches arrive, or mid-afternoon once they’ve gone. It’s a full day with a lot of driving, and the driving is most of why it’s worth it.
Private guide · Vehicle · Entry & lunch · Full day
Ocean safari with a wildlife specialist
By boat from Hout Bay out to Duiker Island, where several thousand Cape fur seals live on a rock barely bigger than the colony. They are loud, curious and entirely unbothered by you. On the way you pass the wreck of the BOS 400 at Duiker Point, and in season there’s a fair chance of whales in the bay. Short trip, big return, and it suits almost any age or level of fitness. On a big swell it doesn’t run. The sea decides that one.
Private guide · Boat charter · Half day
E-bike the Cape Point reserve
The south-western tip of Africa, ridden rather than driven. Inside the Cape of Good Hope reserve the roads are quiet, the fynbos runs to the cliffs, and the climbs that would break a normal ride are handled by the motor. Baboons on the verge, eland and bontebok in the scrub, and the Atlantic doing as it likes several hundred metres below.
Private guide · E-bikes · Reserve entry · Full day
E-bike the Sea Point Promenade
The flattest, easiest way to see the seaboard, straight from our base at the lighthouse end. Three kilometres of open path along the water, past the tidal pools and the swimmers, with Lion’s Head over your shoulder the whole way. It is the ride we give people who have an hour and want to be outside for it, and it pairs with a paddle better than anything else we run.
Private guide · E-bikes · From the Promenade base · 1–2 hrs
Down into the kelp
A few metres off the seaboard the Great African Sea Forest begins. Sea bamboo standing fifteen metres from the rock to the surface, with octopus, pyjama sharks and cuttlefish living in it. The water sits between nine and sixteen degrees, and that cold is the reason the forest is there at all. Our freediving partner leads the time under the surface and stays in the water with you. Nobody goes down alone. We build the rest of the day around it. Best November to April, once the visibility settles.
Led by our freediving partner · Wetsuits & weights · From the Atlantic Seaboard · Added to a half or full day
Sandstone & fynbos
Old vines, long tables
The Cape, up close
Further afield
Penguins, whales, fynbos
Get on the water.
Tell us when you are here and what pulls you. We will shape the day around you.