January 2010 in Cape Town

January 2010 finally arrived in glorious sunny fashion, and the atmosphere in South Africa is alive with the anticipation of the World Cup Soccer Tournament which will grace our shores from June 2010.
The count down started back in 2004, when we were awarded the honour of hosting this event. South Africans began to feel the fever rising in 2009 as it all suddenly became a reality, with the completion of the brand new stadiums.
The energy level rose to fever pitch on December 4th when the draw took place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The city was bursting at the seams with international dignitaries, sport celebrities and media from all over the world. The fan park in Long Street was rocking until the early hours and a great time was had by all.
Capetonians were unanimous in their opinion that the Mother City had handled the proceedings splendidly!
Last weekend we saw the opening soccer match at the Cape Town Stadium in Green Point. After listening to the radio talk shows on Monday it’s quite obvious that, although the soccer seems to have been a bit disappointing, the fans were blown away by the state of the art, architecturally spectacular and FIFA compliant brand new Cape Town Stadium, a landmark we can all be proud of.
A topic of plenty of heated discussion surrounding the Soccer World Cup is the Vuvuzela. An instrument which looks like an elongated plastic trumpet and individually sounds like an elephant in pain, or en masse, like a very large swarm of bees!
Fans of local soccer teams use the Vuvuzela constantly throughout the match, which has been irritating many people who are not used to this phenomenon. www.southafrica.info/2010/vuvuzela.htm.

After all the excitement, Capetonians were shockingly brought back down to earth on January 12th when a visitor, Lloyd Skinner, was enjoying a pleasant swim in the ocean off Fish Hoek beach in False Bay, and suddenly disappeared beneath the waves. Observers on the beach confirmed that all they saw was his hand above the water before he was dragged down a second time and wasn’t seen again.
The authorities tell us that even though there are always Great White Sharks in the False Bay area, this incident was most unusual as the Great White feed on fish and seals. They are not interested in humans and if they should come into contact with a swimmer or surfer, at most they would bite and release (a case of mistaken identity). The National Sea Rescue searched for days, but did not recover anything. Bathers have been warned to keep to the shallow waters. www.fishhoek.com/sharks.htmL
Prior to this incident, in 2004 Tyna Webb was taken by a Great White shark in the same area. This was the first fatality recorded in more than 100 years.
The media reported over the weekend that an International White Shark Symposium will take place in Honolulu, Hawaii in early February which our local experts will attend. They will be discussing White shark attacks and the controversial shark cage diving and chumming which is a very popular adventure sport in the Cape area. Let’s hope they come up with some innovative solutions.
www.whitesharkscience.com