Riding the waves around Table Bay deserves to be on every visitor’s list
Moored just a few metres from the V&A Waterfront’s Clock Tower, the Mirage Catamaran is difficult to miss. Mind you, if you need that landmark to find the boat, you may need to visit an ophthalmologist. It’s a huge luxury craft that can carry 30 passengers (with plenty of space to spare) out into Table Bay or down along the coast towards Camps Bay, depending on where the marine life action is.
Today, there is no need to put in all that work, as a superpod of dolphins – someone murmurs that there might be as many as 1,000 of the creatures swimming and breaching and splashing and feeding – has swum into the middle of the bay, close to the harbour exit. An equal number of seabirds adds to the sense of energy and scale and excitement, blurring the air above the parts of the bay where the dolphins are most concentrated, intent on snapping up any scraps the predators leave behind as they plough through unfortunate schools of fish.
With all of that happening, a lone sunfish goes almost unnoticed on the other side of the boat. When it’s pointed out, passengers coo and aah – for many, it’s an exotic sight, with its bulky body and small dorsal fin. That fin looks like a seal’s flipper, which makes seeing a few seals a short while later momentarily confusing.
Seating Options
The upper deck offers unencumbered views of Table Mountain and the city below it, as well as a hint of the Green Point Lighthouse and the Sea Point Promenade beyond it in the distance. Look the other way and there is the low presence of Robben Island, a few massive, moored tankers, and, in the distance, the hazy massif of the Hottentots Holland Mountains.
The lower deck, where there is shelter from the sun – and, if you are unlucky, the rain – looks and feels like a comfortable restaurant with an open bar, with all of the views still available through large picture windows.
Out front, between the catamaran’s twin hulls, taut, tough fabric offers a different place to relax. Closer to the water and with air cooled by the Atlantic Ocean flowing through the fabric, it allows passengers a more acute sense of the speed and movement of the boat – exhilarating on a reasonably mellow day, but only for the brave if the wind is up and the waves are rising to meet it. Some folks position themselves right on the fabric at the front of the boat, almost getting an unintentional headbutt from the dolphins frolicking just ahead of the craft.
The whole experience is relaxing, with genial skipper Mark and a crew of affable, sure-footed youngsters milling about between passengers to take and deliver drinks orders. It’s an offering that’ll be different every day as the weather and sea conditions change and, with them, the behaviour of the fish, birds, and other wildlife. Both family-friendly and engaging on a number of levels, it’s the sort of activity that could become a holiday tradition for visitors to Cape Town.
Text and photography by Bruce Dennill
For more information, go to miragecatamaran.com.
