Why did it take me 20 years to find this spot?” With bits of tape peeling off each spectacle arm, Jo Sinfield looks a little like a mad professor, only better looking. “I mean, look at that.”

Shaded by the spreading branches of a 500-year-old milkwood, we look across the lake-like estuary – the salt marshes striated with purple and lime; a pink streak of flamingos etched into the blues – to the steep slopes of Maanschynkop nature reserve.

“Estuaries are, generally speaking, one of nature’s most productive ecosystems,” Sinfield explains. “This one is particularly important, with lime-rich soil producing incredible plant diversity, and phenomenal bird life. When it breaches, it spills into the Walker Bay nature reserve, the most important whale nursery in Africa.” 

Yet to date, he adds, this entire south bank has been unprotected. “The Coot Club will not just be about discovering something this untouched less than two hours from Cape Town, or about creating a new kind of holiday experience; the real heart is about conserving this unique part of the world.” 

Sinfield points to a cluster of buildings on the opposite bank: tiny Lego dwarfed by the Cape Fold mountains that belt Africa’s south-western coastline. “That’s the Hermanus yacht club. We want to collaborate with them on sailing courses, regattas… And over there, that’s Maanschijn winery. Imagine, you’ll be able to sail over, pop open a bottle, polish it off with a cheese platter, then head home.” He grins. “Into the sunset, the sound of the halyard clinking against the mast.”