Beach Reach 2017

By Eleanor Yeld Hutchings & Jade Schultz, 14th December 2017

Every year, the December summer holidays in Cape Town are heralded by the Wavescape Festival – a celebration of all things beach, ocean, coastal, surfing, and sustainability! Save Our Seas Foundation is one of the sponsors and supporters of this festival, raising awareness around some of the threats to our oceans and engaging with communities to create healthy attitudes towards sharks.

Beach Reach 2017. Photo by Franc Finds | © Save Our Seas Foundation

This year we organised an event under the Wavescape Festival banner, called “Beach Reach”, on Muizenberg beach. The Save Our Seas Shark Education Centre team worked with 95 inspirational students from Waves for Change and 9Miles Project to introduce them to the diverse marine life found beneath the waves in False Bay through a number of fun and interactive activities like False Bay sea creature sand sculpting, a relay race “feeding frenzy” plastic pollution game, and a marine quiz game.

Sand sculpting. Photo by Franc Finds | © Save Our Seas Foundation

Creating a False Bay marine creature from sand. Photo by Franc Finds | © Save Our Seas Foundation

Plastic pollution "feeding frenzy" game. Photo by Franc Finds | © Save Our Seas Foundation

Marine Knowledge quiz game. Photo by Franc Finds | © Save Our Seas Foundation

We were joined in this initiative by Surfers’ Pledge and the We Care Collective, who educated the students about plastic pollution in our oceans and how each of them can help in the war against plastic waste. The Beach Co-op also joined us, donating copies of the Seashore book from Creative Nature to the graduating students.

Learning about plastic pollution in our oceans. Photo by Franc Finds | © Save Our Seas Foundation

It was a wonderful, windy Cape Town day and a lot of fun was had by all!