Thank God You Can’t Build Fences in the Sea
Posted on February 03, 2007 @ 2:57 PM
Hunting for gems on Africa’s ‘Diamond Coast’
By Ross Frylinck
“South of the Tropic of Capricorn, north of the meridian of the Cape of
Good Hope, 30° south, 18° east … In the Heavens of the Southern Cross
... below the sinister cycle of survival by killing and the endless sacrifice of
the weaker in order in make the strong stronger: There lies Namaqualand
and, north, the timeless prehistoric Africa, a world of primitive drives and
desires, inhabited by the Gikwe-Bushmen 25,000 years ago during the
Middle Stone Age. Their ancestors occupied the same territory continuously
for 25 million years, since the dawn of the world, when Man and Beast were
brothers. They are the oldest sitting tenants on Earth.”
– Miki Dora in Million Days to Darkness, Surfer 1987
Cape Town surfers have been enchanted by rumours of perfect,
uncrowded waves in the Namaqualand diamond reserves for
decades. Discovered by diamond divers, these are supposedly
some of the finest waves in a country known for an embarrassing
wealth of world-class surf. Over the years, a trickle of surfers have
made the pilgrimage, and their whispered testimony has slowly
seeped into our collective surfing consciousness.
The Namaqualand is a windswept, barren semi-desert
stretching up the Atlantic coast for over 1000 kilometres. Known for a fl eeting wildflower riot in spring, the region is dirt
poor, sparsely populated, and with disturbing town names like
Poffadder (puffadder, a deadly poisonous snake), mostly ignored.
But under the shifting, sunburned sands and restless waves
sleeps a staggering mineral treasure, a dragon’s hoard like no
other on our planet. With an incredible 98% gem quality, the
Namaqualand reserves are the richest source of alluvial diamonds
on Earth. Here be diamonds, “tears of the gods” to the Ancient
Greeks, and “splinters of fallen stars” to the Romans. Forged in
Earth’s flaming furnace billions of years ago, and borne by
blazing lava flows and grinding river action, these diamonds
crept to the sea, resting at last in coastal sands and shallow reefs,
patiently weathering the eons.
Until the late 19th century diamonds were found in a few
scattered riverbeds in India and Brazil, and the entire world
production of diamonds amounted to next to nothing. But when
huge deposits were discovered in South Africa, the market was
swamped and the perception of value plummeted. Investors
moved quickly to merge their interests into a single entity that
would be powerful enough to control production and perpetuate the illusion of a scarcity of diamonds, and so in 1888 De Beers
was born, proving over the years to be one of the most successful
cartels in the history of modern commerce. But the diamond
“invention” is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond
prices; it’s a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into
universally recognised tokens of wealth, power, and romance.
To achieve this goal, De Beers had to control demand as
well as supply. Both women and men had to be made to perceive
diamonds as an inseparable part of courtship and married life.
The illusion had to be created that diamonds were forever – even
though they can in fact be shattered, chipped, discoloured, or
incinerated to ash. And so in 1938, De Beers embarked on one
of the most successful advertising campaigns ever – practically
inventing mass media product placement on the way. Before De
Beers associated diamonds with eternal romance, the diamond as
the standard token of marriage did not exist. Seventy years later
the diamond engagement ring is de rigueur worldwide, and the
diamond by far the precious gemstone of choice.
Now that all the diamonds have been collected off the
beach, De Beers has tentatively begun to allow tourists into
their treasure chest. Limited permits are available, provided you
pass the thorough security checks to weed out the suspicious.
Not that there’s a great demand though; the only likely visitors
are occasional 4x4 nomads pitting themselves against the
Namaqualand trail, botanists fawning over the rare flora, and the
odd group of surfers seeking solitude and great waves.
Surfing conditions are infuriatingly capricious though, with
prevailing cross-shore southerly winds blowing for months at
a stretch, obliterating the heaviest swells. The notorious coastal
fog can shadow the coast for weeks, leeching all warmth from
the land and driving the hardest miners to despair, and the frigid
sea is a breeding ground for great whites. And then there are the waves: bloated, ravenous beasts that strike the jagged reefs like cannon fire, tormenting the
most deserving surfers, who can only gibber in anguish as they wait and wait for better days.
Ah, but when the shy, warm berg winds blow over the Karoo desert, lifting the fog,
caressing the sea and composing the swell, these lonesome waves are the choicest gifts from
old Neptune’s great sea-chest. And there are no crowds – ever. That’s because only one group
of surfers is granted access at a time, and to get a permit you need to know someone, and then
you need a guide, a 4x4 with a winch, GPS co-ordinates and a secret handshake. Bizarrely, you
also have to pay for a diamond detective to trail you incognito (well that’s what we were told).
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