Cape Town is now touted as the best city in the world to visit. In the summer, the temperature in the city can reach 42 degrees Celcius, driving locals and tourists to the beaches and tidal pools to cool down. The pools around Cape Town have become tourist attractions, featured on numerous websites.
The city developed after 1652 when the Dutch East India Company (the VOC) decided to develop a waystation for ships travelling to the East Indies. In 1795, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire invaded the Cape due to its strategic location on the sea route to the East.
There is no evidence that pre-colonial inhabitants (Khoi, Strandlopers, or San) of southern Africa swam in the sea. The VOC left extensive records of its activities at the Cape, but made no mention of any recreational sea swimming by its employees. There is, however, a mention in a footnote in a VOC document, 28 Januarie 1690 Dagregister. It records that a convict named Johannes Rijkman van Weij escaped by swimming to shore! So, swimming was not unknown to the Dutch settlers at that time, and perhaps they did swim, but left no record of it.
The British introduced sea swimming and tidal pools in the Cape. For context, the first English Church service of which we know was held in Cape Town by a naval chaplain of the fleet returning from India on April 20, 1749. The British military, which invaded the Cape in 1795, brought with them their love for water sports (and gambling). Ornate water festivals, which included swimming races, water polo, diving and other entertainments, were popular in England since the middle-1700's. At the Cape they swam in the rivers, vleis, Table Bay and in the harbour and the graving dock. , and also in indoor swimming pools, like the Claremont and Long Street Baths. A 1869 British newspaper article mentions a floating pool in Table Bay, which survived a big storm. Such floating structures were (and still are) popular in Europe.
In the late 1700's, a concrete wall was built across a gully in the rocks in Sea Point. This became part of a thriving social scene before it washed away in a storm, as the northwesterly winds can create enormous waves in Table Bay. Today, the location is known as Broken Bath Beach. See number 7 below.
