Langebaan Lagoon

The lagoon is a sixteen-kilometre arm of shallow water behind the Langebaan peninsula, and its colour is the surprise - a genuine Caribbean turquoise on a coast otherwise defined by cold grey Atlantic. It is warm because it is shallow and tidal rather than fed by a river, which also makes it calm, and that combination has turned it into a watersports lagoon: kitesurfing at the northern end where the wind funnels, flat-water sailing, and long wades where you can walk hundreds of metres from shore and still be waist deep. The southern part lies inside West Coast National Park and is a Ramsar wetland, with tens of thousands of migratory waders feeding on the mudflats from about September to April - curlew sandpipers and knots that breed in the Arctic. Human footprints found nearby, dated to roughly 117,000 years ago, are among the oldest known of modern humans.

History

The lagoon was proclaimed a marine reserve in 1973, became part of the Langebaan National Park, now West Coast National Park, in 1985, was declared a Ramsar site on 25 April 1988 and became a marine protected area on 29 December 2000 (Wikipedia, Langebaan Lagoon Marine Protected Area).

What you'll find

• The turquoise water - a warm shallow lagoon on an otherwise cold coast.
• The kitesurfing end - the northern shore where the summer wind funnels through.
• The wader flocks - Arctic-breeding shorebirds on the mudflats in summer.
• The wading depth - shallow enough to walk hundreds of metres out.

When to go

October to April for water and birds. A day. The wind is strongest in the afternoon.

Practical notes

Wind that makes the kiting also ends beach afternoons for everyone else. The park section has gate hours and a fee. Boat access is zoned - much of the lagoon is closed to motorised craft. Langebaan town itself is holiday development, not a wild shore.

Nearby

West Coast National Park runs south; Paternoster is up the coast.

Key facts