Colors of the Cape: Blue

“It was blue, all blue, blue was the colour of the Cape.” –Marlene Van Niekerk, ‘To Behold the Cape’

Blue is the colour of the two oceans that surround Cape Town, twisting the little peninsula of land between Indian and Atlantic currents. It is the colour of Table Bay, which from certain vantage points, the whole city seems ready to slide into. It is the colour of the vast, empty sky that lies open above the city on clear days. And it appears even in the land, in the rocks of the flat-topped mountain that defends the city, so that seen from a distance, the city itself seems but a thin ribbon between blue water, blue earth, and blue sky.