Between the Rocks is a Hard Place

My surf-angling friend really wants to catch a fish. He stands atop a seaside bluff overlooking the Atlantic between the Western Cape’s Gordon’s Bay and Betty’s Bay, points to a rocky outcrop far, far below, and ponders the long hike. It’s a great fishing spot, he tells me.

I size up the precipitous slope of loose gravel, soggy orange sand, bony tree snags, heavy boulders and fynbos thickets, then do my best to calculate distance. “Are you serious?” I ask.

The dedicated surf angler unloads from his truck a large, white box with shoulder straps, stuffs it with fishing gear and loosens a set of long fishing rods from the roof carriers, all the while ignoring me. If only he would stop and look at my