Bluebottles and bitter cold beaches

Have you noticed the seawater along the Garden Route has gone from pleasantly swimmable to painfully cold?

- Jeff Ayliffe

And bluebottles suddenly started appearing in surprising numbers along our beaches?

Many residents and visitors have been asking the same questions, and the answers lie in natural ocean and weather processes.

When strong southeast winds blow along our coast, something called upwelling occurs.

The wind pushes the warmer surface water offshore, allowing much colder, nutrient-rich, deeper ocean water to rise and replace it at the shoreline.