Instead of succumbing to fear and anger after losing her sight, surfer Michele Macfarlane is making waves

In 2006, Michele Macfarlane was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa – a deteriorating genetically inherited eye disease that erodes peripheral or side vision, resulting in tunnel vision and sometimes blindness. Over coffee, Macfarlane says that, at present, only 7% of her vision remains. She explains, raising an index finger in front of her face: “Now I can see it.” She then shifts her finger a few centimetres to the side and says: “And now I can’t.”

Macfarlane’s eyes are the startling blue of a chlorinated swimming pool. Her magenta lips are curled into a smile.

The 53-year-old mother of four, writer and advocate for visually impaired people, is also a competitive surfer representing South Africa abroad.

In June at Durban’s New Pier, Macfarlane was one of 46 contestants at South Africa’s Para Surfing Championships, where she came tops in the “blind and visually impaired” women’s category. This cemented her spot in a team of 15 set to represent SA at the International Surf Association’s World Para Surfing Championships in California in December.

Also in the team is Macfarlane’s friend, Noluthando Makalima, who has cerebral palsy and struggles with fine motor skills and walking. Macfarlane relays how the two train together at Surfer’s Corner: “I’ll ask Noluthando: ‘Would you like to hold on to me?’ And she’ll be like: ‘Careful, there’s a stop coming up!’ And so, with me supporting her weight and her giving me directions, we make our way from the Surf Emporium to the beach.”

Other team members include current SA champion Daniel Nel, who was paralysed from the chest down after a motorbiking accident, and Tyler Pike, who has right-sided hemiplegia. He attended school with Macfarlane’s eldest daughter, Hanna.

“When he was younger, I used to help Tyler,” says Macfarlane. “Now, as I’m going blind, he’s helping me.”

Macfarlane first noticed eyesight issues in her early thirties: “We would go for walks at night, and I was like: ‘Wow, it’s so dark!’ And: ‘The kids are so brave, running around even though it’s so dark.’ And I remember my then-husband saying to me: ‘Michele, it’s actually not that dark.’ See, you start losing your night vision first.”

She recalls her devastation when a test in 2006 revealed that she had only 40 degrees of her central vision left.

“This meant I had to give up driving,” she says. “I cried a lot, which is rare for me. I thought of all the freedom I would lose. How would I get my kids to school? What if I became rubbish company and no one wanted to be my friend any more? How would I know if there’s a bug in my food?”

Instead of succumbing to fear and anger, Macfarlane dug out her old judo suit and started training. She would compete at a national level. Meanwhile, Macfarlane and her husband appointed an au pair to help her get around and drive their children to school.

In her 2014 autobiography titled I Left My Husband for the Au Pair – which reviewers noted for its sexual candour – Macfarlane relays how she first felt attracted to their au pair as the two wrestled on a judo mat. The attraction culminated in a two-year marriage, during which the women adopted Emmy, who had been abandoned in Mandela Park in Khayelitsha at two months old.

Emmy, now 13, inspired Macfarlane to take up surfing in 2019 during a bleak time in Macfarlane’s life. “It was 2019, [and] I hit a wall,” she says. “Not literally. Although I had walked into a few too. I mean, the simplest things like shopping [were] exhausting, trying not to bump into people.

“In this time, I took my youngest daughter Emmy for her first surfing lesson; the sheer joy on her face as she came out of the sea...”

With cautious optimism, Macfarlane googled “disability surfing Cape Town” that night. Up popped the Roxy Davis Foundation, a non-profit organisation founded by SA surfing champion Roxy Davis that offers adaptive surfing lessons at Muizenberg. Surfing is modified to accommodate people with disabilities.

Gushing about the foundation, Macfarlane’s eyes light up: “You know, they coach every kind of disability. Whether someone’s mentally challenged or physically challenged or whatever challenged.

“Their mission is to make the sea accessible to everybody – for free. You see kids who don’t have legs out there on surfboards. It’s incredible,” she says.

Michele Macfarlane surfing in Muizenberg, Cape Town.