Where the Two Oceans Don't Meet

Most people who visit Cape Point leave believing something that isn't true.

They stand at the lighthouse, look out over the water and say: this is where the two oceans meet. It is a lovely thought. It is also wrong.

The real meeting point lies about 150 kilometres further east, at Cape Agulhas. That is the true southern tip of Africa, and it is where the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean officially meet. Cape Point is dramatic and beautiful, and it deserves every visitor it gets. It just isn't the place most people think it is.

They are in good company. Bartolomeu Dias made the same mistake in 1488. He rounded the Cape of Good Hope convinced he had turned the bottom corner of Africa. He hadn't. One of the great navigators of his age looked at this coastline and drew the wrong conclusion, and the belief has outlived him by more than five hundred years.

Even the first lighthouse here got it wrong. It was built in 1860, high on the point, where it seemed it would be seen from far out at sea. The height turned out to be the problem. Cloud and sea mist often hid it from the very ships it was meant to warn. In 1919 a second lighthouse was built lower down, closer to the water, where sailors could see it when it mattered.

I have been bringing guests to Cape Point for more than thirty years, and this place still teaches me something every time.

The first lesson is that the most popular answer is not always the right one. Thousands of people repeat the two-oceans story each year. Repetition makes it feel true. It doesn't make it true.

The second lesson is about height. The builders of that first lighthouse made a bold decision, and on paper it made sense. From the wrong height, though, the light was invisible on the nights it was needed most. Plenty of plans in life and business look impressive from above and fail in the fog.

The third lesson is the one I come back to most. The people who check the map for themselves are the ones who end up in the right place. They ask one more question. They look past the sign at the car park. They are willing to find out that what everyone knows is wrong.

That is as true in business and investing as it is at the bottom of Africa. A deal that everyone is talking about is not a good deal because people are talking about it. A market that everyone has written off is not a bad market for that reason either. You have to look for yourself.

I still love standing at Cape Point with guests and watching the light change over the water. I love even more the moment someone asks me, "Is this really where the oceans meet?" That question is where good journeys, and good decisions, begin.

Have you ever discovered that something everyone knows was wrong? I would like to hear it. And if you would like to see this coastline for yourself, with time to stand where Dias stood and then travel on to the real tip of Africa, get in touch. Visitors to Africa plans private journeys for one to six guests and small groups of up to twelve, and I plan every trip personally.

John Sparks