Cape St Francis

The village of Cape St Francis sits near Jeffreys Bay on the Eastern Cape coast, and its most prominent landmark is the Seal Point Lighthouse. First lit on 4 July 1878, the circular masonry tower stands 27.75 m tall, with its light some 36 m above the sea; St Francis Tourism describes it as the tallest masonry lighthouse in South Africa. It was built to warn ships off the treacherous reefs of this stretch of coast and today also houses a small museum.

Just along the shore lies Bruce's Beauties, the right-hand point break immortalised in Bruce Brown's 1966 film The Endless Summer, when surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August crested a dune to find what the film hailed as one of the most perfect waves on Earth. In reality the wave is famously fickle, firing only on rare, precise combinations of swell and wind — part of the mystique that still makes it a pilgrimage for surf-history enthusiasts. The name itself honours the filmmaker, Bruce Brown.