Early morning

The days are drawing in here in Kommetjie. No longer are the mountains across the bay bathed in early sunlight when I wake at 6am. The scent of autumn is all around and the water coming through the pipes to the shower is cooler than it was in midsummer.

After some mountainous seas during the week caused by a forerunner of the winter cold fronts, the sea is like a lake today. On our early morning walk with the dogs, we could see numerous tankers and cargo vessels strung along the horizon, taking advantage of the calm water to round the Cape of Good Hope as quickly as possible. Closer inshore, the skiboats are heading down towards Cape Point, where good catches of healthy snoek are being made every day, bringing cheap food to the tables of the people of the Peninsula. These large predatory fish, weighing up to 5kg, can sometimes go for as little as R15 if too many are caught. The boats go out to sea in any weather when the snoek are running, as no one knows when they will just disappear for a while, cutting off the income of subsistence fishermen. They range up and down the West coast and generally are caught further north in winter.

It's nearly full moon and the rocks down at the lighthouse are fully exposed to the point where they drop off into the sea as a ledge and the kelp forest begins. This is where the best black mussels may be picked off the rocks to take home for steaming on the fire and a quick meal with peri-peri or garlic butter. The mussels grow in such thick beds that some of the shells are deformed as they squeeze each other out to get the best position to feed from the currents. Sometimes the animal inside is small and hardly worth eating, indicating a season of poor nutrition, but at the moment they seem particularly healthy, which is a sign that perhaps all is well at the bottom of the food chain.

I'm off to potter in the garden now, before the day warms up.