Of Sandy Bay, Robert Mugabe and meerkats

My beach life started at the age of three when my father took me to Stanger on the Natal North Coast. I believed that the earth was flat and wanted to wave to the people sitting on the beach in England. Overseas always meant England and I was very disappointed to only see water and sky.

I was less disappointed when I grew up and moved to Capetown. There were many beaches and lots of people from overseas. It was not long before I heard whispered tales of a beach called Sandy Bay. During the apartheid regime nudity was illegal and there were rumours of police raids and people being thrown in squad cars wearing nothing but their birthday suits. All this sounded terribly exciting and it wasn't difficult to convince a few of my friends to visit the beach to study the behavior patterns of the homo sapiens in its most natural form.

One Sunday morning, like a delegation of United Nation observers, we set off on our mission. Picnic baskets were filled with biltong, Simba's Salt and Vinegar Chips, Flakes, Swartland Blanc de Noir, ice and coconut flavoured suntan lotion. Bottled water had not been invented yet.

Everybody knew that we would have to blend in with the crowds. Although I was no neophyte on tanning topless, I realized that true scientific observation called for more drastic measures. We had to shed our bikini bottoms.

It was a long hot walk over rocks, thorns and kleinbos before the Bay opened up in front of us in all its glory. On a universal scale everything seemed innocent. There were families and couples and singles not unlike Durban beach on New Years Day (before 1994). A group of muscular men were playing rugby and we decided that the perfect spot of observation would be next to them.

After a few hours and many glasses of wine we had successfully placed the sun worshipers into two categories. The perverts and the non-perverts. We were the non-perverts. The perverts were those who skulked up and down the beach like meerkats and then hide behind the rocks with only their sunglasses visible. Their most notable feature was their ability to rotate their eyes 360 degrees without moving their heads.

To categorize as precisely as possible we were forced to go there on more than one Sunday. We had to make sure that what we saw was real and not just a mirage or a hallucination induced by sunstroke or white wine. Admittedly I also grew fond of the fact that that my tan lines were disappearing.

There was however more to it than what the eye could see. In the bushes behind the beach was an area where even angels feared to tread. Luckily I had a Swiss friend who did tread there but on the back of a horse. He had the same inclination towards boy-on-boy sex as Robert Mugabe. From the safe distance of the saddle, he used his horse whip to separate sweating bodies from their entwined positions. It was rather a harsh method for coitus interruptus but in that sub-culture it probably added spice to the scenario.

I have now realized that there are many Sandy Bays in this world and that there are perverts everywhere. Sometimes they even wear clothes. Mostly they are into politics. I have also learned that crocodiles are great judges of perverts and non-perverts. There is a story about a beach gathering in Botswana where a whole village was partying on the shores of the Okavango River. Suddenly a crocodile appeared and crawled past everyone, heading straight for the Mayor, pulling him into the muddy waters never to be seen again.

If ever the desire arises to visit a nudist beach do it as far from home as possible. Perhaps not in Botswana but wherever you mercifully can't understand the language. You definitely do not want to comprehend the offers which you are refusing. Not speaking German is an advantage as they seem to be well represented in these circles. If you are multilingual, you are probably better off taking pottery classes or practicing bird watching.

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