January presents the ideal time to set mindful goals for the year ahead. The need for mental and emotional intelligence is on the rise in modern day lifestyles and the practice of meditation, yoga and having daily reflections can help you deal with stress and daily demands. Meditation and mindfulness can also lower blood pressure levels, and even improve your sleep patterns.
Practicing these rituals indoors brings value to your life, however, exposure to nature and the outdoors can bring a further advantage to its benefits. Increased energy levels, reduced feelings of anger, fear, and stress hormones, as well as a feeling of general physical wellbeing are a few of the added advantages you can experience when your exposed to the outdoors and nature more often.
The Sibaya Coastal Precinct presents the ideal setting to start your journey of mindfulness and daily reflections. As a resident of Pebble Beach, you have direct access to safe walking trails and the beach, where you can easily pick the ideal spot to steal a few moments to yourself. Taking a mindful walk or practising yoga along the shore can bring you added physical benefits such as having the natural exfoliation for your feet and a sense of relaxation with the gentle sounds of the waves breaking in the backdrop. While restrictions are in place for beach visits, use the Pebble Beach rooftop areas to find the perfect view of the ocean, and listen to the sound of the waves crashing while you find your zen.
There are a plethora of spots that are ideal for alone time with your thoughts. No matter your choice of practice, or preferred spot to self-reflect, use this year to set intentions and make it a successful one.
A restaurant and recreational mecca
Sibaya’s ultimate design will include a multitude of experiences for recreation. With its own retail piazza, people will be able to dine and dwell at a selection of eateries. Just beyond the Pebble Beach perimeter, you can enjoy coffee, sandwiches, pastries and wood-fired pizza from French Zulu.
A short drive or a leisurely walk from Sibaya, you can enjoy eating out at a variety of places like FOAM Café, SandBar and Bel Punto. Umdloti offers revellers endless sea views, and its restaurants certainly make the most of these amazing natural assets.
Fresh coffee at FOAM Café
Savour classic crepe-style pancakes, sweet stacked waffles and fresh coffee at this popular venue. Its 180-degree sea views, fresh coffee and friendly vibe have created an unofficial community of FOAM followers. Needless to say, you can also enjoy regular daytime fare like fresh juices, eggs and homemade granola.
Sushi at SandBar
Rumour has it that the burgers and sushi are menu favourites. This seaside café boasts 180-degree views of Umdloti beach. Sit on the terrace and watch weary beach-goers waft into the restaurant as the day wanes while you enjoy the warm weather.
Tagliatelle Scampi at Bel Punto
Bel Punto has pride of place in Umdloti with an elevated view of the ocean. This legendary restaurant is all about the finer things like imported bubbles, chic décor, crisp white tablecloths and professional service. Expect to find a lot of seafood on the menu which is fused with Italian-style cuisine. Tagliatelle Scampi is a must-try classic and pairs beautifully with a crisp Méthode Cap Classic.
With a wonderful variety of restaurants close to home, you can choose to eat-in or go out for a meal. You can reach many of the North Coast’s finest restaurants, Umdloti’s included, quickly and easily from your home at Pebble Beach.
Aside from the relaxing resort-like atmosphere, living at Pebble Beach means you can spend time perfecting your putt on the estate’s putting green while enjoying fresh air, sunshine and sea views. Even if golf is not your game it’s certainly thrilling to see the golfing pros of the world knock a tiny little ball into a hole from hundreds of metres away! Here are some of the most unbelievable golf shots of the last decade.
Tiger Woods – European Tour
In a feat that almost defies belief, Woods manages to bounce the ball across a body of water, to land on the green, move past the pin and then curve round and drop perfectly into the hole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDWRyU5yFxU
Rory McIlroy – The Honda Classic
Setting up his shot from the left side of the green, McIlroy has his work cut out for him, even the commentators are heard saying that this is a challenging position to be in. From 235 yards (roughly 215 metres) away, and in one smooth move, the ball flies gracefully over the water to land only centimetres away from the hole – you could say, the eagle has landed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwNcCX_3zBo
Charl Schwartzel – Volvo Golf Champions
The greats of the golfing world possess not only skill but immense confidence too. In this incredible shot, Schwartzel blindly hits the ball from a tar road and over the line of trees, to land the ball perfectly for a birdie or an eagle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z70XlpjnEb8
Golf is known for being a game of skill and patience, and the golf masters of the world didn’t get where they are without hours of practice. Either way, practice makes perfect, and you can hone your swing in the comfort and safety of the estate. The putting green also gives you the opportunity to teach your kids the art of the sport or challenge their concentration to get the ball in the hole as quickly, and smoothly as possible.
You can catch more breath-taking moments from the golfing greats, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMAMhGuhXDw
Sharks are a valuable part of the ecosystem and their existence is crucial to keeping it in balance. Statistically the number of shark attacks are low- more people are killed by car-related deaths annually.
If we are going to save our seas and ourselves, then we need to change our relationship with sharks. I know many of us cant even begin to think about a ‘relationship’ with these savage predators, but herein lies the rub: it’s our thinking that’s the problem. Blame Hollywood, blame your relatives, blame hearsay but most of what we, the average person, know about sharks is possibly wrong. How many of us can name more than 3 species of shark? How many of us truly understand shark behaviour? How many of us can say we know for sure why sharks may attack humans in the ocean? Not many of us, that’s for certain.
These creatures are certainly beguiling; they have pretty complex social systems; some migrate hundreds of thousands of miles and some species have yet to be seen giving birth. Most of what we know is based on rumour and it’s time we separate the fact from fiction. Let’s look at the facts on shark attacks globally. In 2019 there were 64 confirmed unprovoked attacks, which statistically was lower than the average for the last 5 years. Furthermore, of those 64 attacks, only 5 were fatal, and 3 out of the 5 attacks were provoked. That means us humans made ourselves vulnerable to attack0 that could be chumming the water to attract sharks, spearfishing or even intentionally touching or prodding them in the wild.
If we compare the annual fatalities to motor vehicle-related deaths the difference is staggering: 1.35 million people are killed, on average annually. But that wouldn’t stop most of us getting into a car and you’ll likely never hear people spreading rumours about what causes a fatality in this regard. Here we tend to stick to the facts; wearing a seatbelt can help save your life, a vehicle with airbags is good and we must look left and right before we cross a street. So why can we apply the same logic to sharks? There’s a whole heap of fact out there about these creatures so let’s rather lean on that.
