Cape Town’s boating community celebrated a rare milestone this week when the city’s biggest dam started overflowing – in stark contrast to the 10% level of three years ago when boating had to be banned for safety reasons.
Boating of all forms was banned at the Theewaterskloof Dam at the height of the drought in 2017/18, and then again during coronavirus lockdown earlier this year. However, dam levels rose steadily last year and again during the past winter season, resulting in the first overflow in nearly a decade. This is a remarkable turnaround compared with three years ago when Cape Town was just weeks away from ‘Day Zero’ and mandatory ‘water shedding’. Read on.