With a a coastline stretching more than 2 500km from Namibia to Mozambique, it’s understandable than in 2015, we witnessed some pretty bizarre incidents one these shores.
Among these were:
1. When a message-in-a-bottle was discovered along the Garden Route
When a 13-year-old Angela Harris filled a glass bottle with a few personal items as well as a letter telling the recipient how to get hold of her and buried it on Dana Bay beach just outside Mossel Bay, she probably hoped for a much speedier return.
14 years down the line – the 27-year-old from Meyersdal has been notified of its receipt after a beachcomber using a metal detector came across it over the weekend.
In the letter she describes herself, shares her address and telephone number and encourages whoever finds it to contact her. Along with this she put her favourite necklace, a ring belonging to her little sister, the wrapper of her favourite chocolate as well as a sachet of the shampoo she used at the time.
2. SA got its first official nude beach
South African nudists let it all loose over this year’s Easter weekend when the continent’s first official naturist beach opened despite objections from some locals.
A 500-metre stretch of Mpenjati Beach, which lies on the Indian Ocean, received local government approval to become an official nudist venue.
3. When a Great White Shark jumped straight out the water in Mossel Bay
Filmed in Mossel Bay, a video taken and shared by YouTube user, Remo Sabatini, starts with rather chilling footage of one of these massive predators chowing on a rope dangling from the side of the boat. It’s all teeth and gills and beady little eyes.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, another shark breaches spectacularly in the background, stealing its hungry mate’s toothy show.
4. When beachgoers saved a Great White in Plett
Footage of a dramatic rescue effort of a Great White shark that had been hooked by a fisherman on a Plettenberg Bay beach showed how locals saved the apex predator by grabbing it by the tail and dragging it back into the ocean.
5. When an alien-like fish washed up on Melkbos beach
A very strange-looking fish washed up on Melkbos Beach along Cape Town’s West Coast in February.
Katherine Small took a picture and posted it to Facebook saying she found the fish lying on the beach, half alive, as seagulls poked its eyes out.
Small said beach goers managed to chase the birds away and throw the fish back into the water, but it seemed unlikely that it would survive.
