CAPE SWIMS

CAPE POINT

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GENERAL INFORMATION

Cape Point is one of Cape Town's main attractions and is home to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve, which is noted for its floral diversity and especially its wild flowers that bloom in the spring. The lighthouse at Cape Point is the most powerful on the South African coast. Cape Point (also known as Cape of Storms or Cape of Good Hope)

History
Bartholomeu Dias, the Portuguese seafarer, was the first to sail around the Cape. This was in 1488. On his return voyage, which must have been particularly stormy, Dias stopped at the south-western tip of Africa, and named it Cabo Tormentoso, or Cape of Storms. King John of Portugal later gave it the name Cabo da Boa Esperança, or Cape of Good Hope. Another Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, rounded the Cape on 22 November 1497 on his way to India.
The journeys of these explorers led to the establishment of the Cape sea route. This meant more regular sailings around the tip. It also indirectly to led to a number of casualties along these unpredictable shores. Today, shipwrecks and stone crosses bear testimony to the treacherous and challenging historic sea route.

CAPE POINT SWIMMING
The first successful swim around Cape Point was in 1979 by the world-renowned American swimmer Lynne Cox. She completed the 8km swim from Diaz beach to Buffels Bay in just under 3 hours. Lynne writes in her best-selling book "Swimming to Antarctica" about a 12ft Bronze Whaler Shark appearing from the kelp! The swim was only attempted again in the 90s by British-South African swimmer Lewis Pugh, who did a shorter route of less than 3km. The next attempt was only in March 2004, by 24-year old Capetonian swimmer Carina Bruwer. She swam with a "sharkshield" attached to her CLDSA support boat. Carina finished the swim in 2h20, breaking Cox's record by 40 minutes, and becoming the first South African to complete the swim. Her success received a lot of interest from the media and fellow open water swimmers, and 2 weeks later the first South African men - Capetonians Ram Barkai and Andrew Chin - rounded the Cape successfully in a time of 3h39. Three days later four swimmers were back in the water, swimming a longer route of 10.2km, and setting a new route they named "Three Capes" - rounding / passing Cape of Good Hope, Cape Maclear and Cape Point. Gill Stamrood, Lewis Pugh, Tony Sellmeyer and Kevin Anderson finished the swim together in 3h10. Christof Wandratsch, current English Channel record holder, took more than an hour off this time in February 2005.
All the Cape Point swims since 2004 have been done with an electronic shark repellent device.