A group of sea kayakers from the `Paddlers’ network based in Simon’s Town ventured onto the inland waterways in support of the Peninsula Paddle on World Environment Day 2011. In addition to escourting the Peninsula Paddle team on the Zandvlei leg of their awareness raising expedition from Muizenberg to Milnerton, we were all set to experience Zandvlei waking to a new day. Although significantly modified by urban development, Zandvlei is still an important nursery for juvenile marine fish and a habitat for 150 species of water birds.
A reticent dawn greeted a collection of craft and paddlers including white water enthusiasts, stand-up paddlers, an assemblage of river paddlers and sea kayakers including one towing a large canadian canoe to be filled with floating plastic found on route. Half way across Zandvlei, the sun struggled through the clouds and we were treated to the sight of the Peninsula Mountain Chain through a veil of pink rain.
The sea kayakers left the Peninsula Paddle team as they headed up the Sand River Canal to Princess Vlei. One of 
our objectives was to raise awareness about the amount of litter in our inland waters, which also impacts on the coast and marine life. Within a short space of time, we filled the canadian canoe lent to us by Aquatrails in Fish Hoek with plastic bottles, buckets, ice-cream containers and computer casings. It represented a miniscule fraction of 1% of the litter washed down canals draining into Zandvlei .It more than raised our awareness. “Having seen this I can believe that there genuinely is an island of plastic floating in the Pacific”, commented a disgusted fellow paddler.
It seems that the national flower has gone aquatic. Team Scenic South will send this photo on to the Peninsula Paddle team as well as to the Zandvlei Trust, the City of Cape Town Waste Management and Plastic Federation of RSA. We will post their responses here.
3 Comment
Peninsula Paddle on 3 June takes back City of Cape Town Waterways | The Scenic South, May 19, 2012 at 9:59 am
[...] In 2011 a group of Sea Kayakers from the Simon’s Town Paddlers group did a litter clean-up of Sandvlei as they escorted the Peninsula Paddlers along the start of the take back our waters paddle. To get into the spirit of the Peninsula Paddle event, click here to read their account. [...]
ReplyDavid, August 2, 2011 at 11:10 pm
June 16th, 2011
Dear Kim
Although it’s all over the papers it’s about papers that I write to you and your team who appeared in the Echo yesterday and the Constantiaberg Bulletin, not forgetting your brilliant website. Well, it’s about the litter problem occurring wherever we look today.
Many many thanks for the great work you did two Sundays ago filling that canoe with litter or rather waste. Your contribution to this ongoing challenge will no doubt motivate more and more men and women to follow suit and remove this infestation which is clogging every nook and cranny of our lives. Not least the Greater Zandvlei Estuary Nature Reserve which finds itself understaffed therefore ill-managed and in dire need of support from the likes of you and me.
In March I wrote a letter to the City asking that something be done and more recently others on the executive committee of Zandvlei Trust have written to Councilor Dave D’Altpn asking for more staff to assist Cassandra Sheasby. Your passion for doing the right thing to sustain our environment for our children will help towards this end. Somehow it seems to be all coming together.
On Monday Edwin Genade and some of his people filled 200 bags of litter from Park Island during a cleanup; on Tuesday Cassy went there with her team and continued and last Friday Greater Good sent eight volunteers who spent two hours picking up litter along the banks of the estuary from Thesen’s Bridge to the vehicular bridge. When the City and politicians hear about all this they may just realize and come an board as we have begged them to. If not I trust you will stand behind me when I go to them with “gun’s blazing” to make sure they do something pro-active soon.
In the meantime keep up your good work in getting the word out there that our environment needs caring for before imbalance seeps in.
Kind regards & keep warm and dry.
Yours sincerely
David Muller
ReplyKevin Winter, June 7, 2011 at 9:23 am
Thanks for the work you did – super initiative. As a result of the Peninsula Paddle, I am writing to the Minister for the Environment pleading for legislation to ensure that all plastic bottles are made to be recyclable or reuseable, and most importantly that a deposit is attached to them. We simply have to get this right! Its worked well for plastic bags, it can also work for plastic bottles.
Reply