These two ladies might look chilled out there on their lilo, but let me tell you, they are in fact CHILLED, if you sense the difference in my meaning.

The water at Clifton is just a little on the icy side. When I say "a little on the icy side", I mean of course that you might lose a toe if you step too hard on the way out. Durbanites, who are accustomed to the bathtub waters of their own coastline, are often taken by surprise by this, and can usually be quite easily spotted: they're the ones wearing 8mm wetsuits at Gordon's Bay (which, in case you're wondering, actually has very swimmable water indeed - by Capetonian standards, anyhow).

Clearly these ladies are braver than I - the longest I've managed to stay in the water at Clifton is about 30 seconds. And that was just up to my ankles. Nearly lost a toe too, on the way out...