The Cape Doctor Wind and Sand on the Cornea

I have a bit of sand in my eye. The wind here is crazy. In our first apartment up on the north side of Cape Town, we were sheltered by the building. Our view looked away from downtown, following the wind north toward Bloubergstrand. We would sit in the calm of our balcony and watch people walk around the corner of the building. As they stepped from the leeward side onto the beach, the sand carried by the wind would hit them full force. Many would turn back, a few would continue, determined. Most of these would also soon face their backs to the wind.

Here in Simon’s Town, the wind hits our building unhindered. It blows across False Bay, creating white caps and spray, and broadsides our apartment patio door and windows. Needless to say, we’ve not sat outside as often as we would like.

Yesterday, we drove over to Hout Bay to eat at a restaurant on the wharf several people have told us about. The walk across the parking lot was an exfoliation treatment of beach sandblasting. The down side of the lovely soft white sand is that it is picked up by the wind easier than its course cousins. Not that a wind capable of flinging our patio furniture down the hill would have trouble with sand of any sort. While I love the feel of the sand pushing between my toes, in my eyes, not so much.

Today we heard on the radio that they call the spring and summer wind the “Cape Doctor,” or “die Kaapse dokter,” in Afrikaans, because it blows away all the smog and cleans the air of disease. I looked it up on Wikipedia, it says “Although the wind smites a wide area of the sub-continent, it is notorious especially in and around the Cape Peninsula, where it can be unpleasantly strong and irritating.”

We must be whimps. We frequently find ourselves sitting in the relative shelter of a beach bar having our coffees or wine, depending on the time of day, while wearing our Patagonia down sweaters and long pants. Watching others in their swimsuits splashing and running in the waves. I hear it is the ice melt in the Antarctic summer that keeps the water cold here, a balmy 62 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s OK. There are sharks in the water, anyway.

Of course, temperatures in the mid-seventies and wind speeds in the mid twenties are kept in perspective as I hit weather.com and see photos of lines of cars covered in snow back home where it is still winter. So, here in the early morning before the rest of the family wakes, I’m sitting here at my computer with one watering eye closed. I guess that is OK. At home, my eyes would be watering because my nose hairs would be frozen.