Paternoster Beach

Paternoster is on the Cape west coast, two hours north of Cape Town, one of the oldest fishing villages in South Africa. Whitewashed cottages with small windows stand directly above a crescent of pale sand, and the arrangement is protected by a local building code that requires the colour and the form.

The water is the Benguela Current at full strength: around twelve degrees, rich enough to support a fishery that has worked here for centuries and cold enough that almost nobody swims. Crayfish and mussels are the local economy; the wooden boats drawn up on the sand are working boats, and the catch is sold on the beach. Southern right whales pass close inshore between roughly July and November.

The bay is shallow and sheltered by Cape Columbine to the north, so the water is calm even when the coast is not. Kelp washes up in quantity and is left where it lands, which is correct — it is habitat rather than mess. The West Coast National Park an hour south holds the spring flower display that draws people to this coast in August and September. The bay faces north-west, sheltered from the southerly wind that scours the rest of this coast through summer.

Development is a village of a few hundred permanent residents with a disproportionate number of good restaurants, which is what the village is now known for. There is no promenade, no concession and nothing on the sand. Tietiesbaai in the Cape Columbine reserve just north has campsites on granite above the water, and Langebaan lagoon an hour south is warm, shallow and the region's kitesurfing centre.

Twelve-degree water in a working crayfish village where the boats on the sand are boats rather than scenery, and the whitewashed walls are a building code. Nobody swims for long. Southern right whales pass close inshore from July, the kelp is left where it lands because it is habitat, and the restaurants are the reason half the cars have Cape Town plates.