Visitors to Cape Town can book a boat trip to spend some time observing a seal colony in a natural environment, particularly in summer when the pups are born.

For a close-to-shore outing, advise your clients to head for Hout Bay in Cape Town, where boats take visitors to a breeding colony on a rocky outcrop called Duiker Island (sometimes called Seal Island).

Alternatively, they might wish to book a slightly longer marine safari from the naval port of Simon’s Town to the actual Seal Island in False Bay, about 16km offshore.

This island is famous for being the only place in the world where great white sharks are regularly seen breaching as they predate on the seals (although the likelihood of witnessing this is limited to early mornings in the winter months – May to August).

If time is short, then seals can often be seen basking in small harbours, like at Kalk Bay or Hout Bay, where they have become so tame some of them even have names.