False Bay is a 35-kilometre-wide arc of ocean between Cape Point in the west and Cape Hangklip in the east. It's shallow enough at the margins to support extraordinary concentrations of marine life, and deep enough in the middle to remain mysterious. Standing on the stoep at Longboard Cottage watching the water, you are looking at one of the most biodiverse marine environments on the southern tip of Africa.
The bay is shaped by the meeting of two major ocean systems: the cold Benguela Current that flows northward up the Atlantic coast from Antarctica, and the warmer Agulhas Current from the Indian Ocean that sweeps south and west around the Cape. False Bay sits at their boundary, which is part of why it hosts such a variety of marine species, cold-water and warm-water creatures living unusually close together.
You are looking at one of the most biodiverse marine environments on the southern tip of Africa. You're also looking at it from a terrace with a cup of coffee.
Kelp
The rocky reefs along the False Bay coast, from the tidal pools at St James down through Kalk Bay, Simon's Town, and beyond, support some of the densest kelp forests in the southern hemisphere. Cape kelp (Ecklonia maxima) grows to heights of several metres, its holdfasts anchored to the reef and its fronds swaying at the surface. The forests are a complete ecosystem: they filter the water, produce oxygen, shelter fish nurseries, and support the seal and shark populations above them.
You can snorkel through the kelp along the tidal rocks at St James on a calm day. The water will be cold. The light filters through the fronds in columns. If you're lucky, you'll see an octopus.
Great White Sharks
False Bay was once world-famous for its Great White Sharks. Seal Island, a small rocky outcrop in the middle of the bay near Muizenberg, hosts a colony of approximately 64,000 Cape Fur Seals, and for decades the Great Whites hunted them in spectacular fashion: the famous aerial breaches, documented by wildlife photographers from around the world, became iconic images of the Cape Peninsula.
In recent years the dynamic has changed. The sharks are still in False Bay, the bay remains important habitat, but their patterns of behaviour have shifted in ways that scientists are still studying. The presence of orcas, the changing ecology of the bay, and other factors are part of a complex picture. If you're on the water and lucky, you may still see one. If not, the knowledge that they're out there is its own kind of thing.
Southern Right Whales
Between June and November, Southern Right Whales enter False Bay to mate, calve, and nurse. They were hunted to near-extinction in the 19th and 20th centuries, they were called "right" whales by whalers because they were slow, floated when killed, and were rich in blubton. Since international protection began in 1935, their numbers have recovered steadily. Today, watching a mother and calf in the shallows of False Bay is one of the most moving wildlife experiences on the southern African coast.
They can be seen from the shore at Simon's Town and beyond, and sometimes from the beach at Muizenberg. During a good year they come very close to the coast path between St James and Kalk Bay.
Penguins and seals
The African Penguin colony at Boulders Beach, Simon's Town, has been there since the 1980s and now numbers in the thousands. They're 20 minutes south of St James. The penguins are surprisingly unbothered by proximity to people and can be approached quite closely on the boardwalk. They breed in the dune vegetation and come and go from the sheltered cove all day.
Common and bottlenose dolphins move through the bay regularly, often in large pods. Sunfish, leatherback turtles, and various species of shark besides Great Whites also inhabit the water. The bay rewards patience: spend enough time looking at it and something will always happen.
