When Musa Zulu took a trip to the Durban beachfront on December 26, she did not go alone but with 15 family members who all were looking forward to a day of sea, fun and sun. "Sometimes we have to hire a Quantum taxi because there are so many of us," said Zulu, 50, this week.While she might only have to travel about 20km to the beach from her home in KwaMashu, a township in the north of the city, her family members come from much further away.Some make the trip from Johannesburg, some come from Nongoma and other parts of northern Zululand and others from Estcourt in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.mini_story_image_vleft1"You have me, right through to the kids. We take our food and drink, we take meat and we make a braai there. We will go early in the morning to find a nice spot, and will stay until 8pm or even 10pm," she said.Zulu's annual beach visit is not unique. Across the country over the festive period - particularly on January 1, December 26 and December 16 - hundreds of thousands of people, the majority of them black South Africans, make their way to the beaches.In Durban on New Year's Day, more than 100,000 visitors took to the beaches.This annual tradition, said Nelson Mandela Foundation chief executive Sello Hatang, was important to many black South Africans because they had been barred from visiting most beaches, but also because it was the only time of the year families were able to meet.When people complained about the number of black people on the beachfront, it was particularly hurtful, he said.story_article_right1During apartheid the Separate Amenities Act designated public facilities, including beaches, to different races. In the late '70s, more than 2km of Durban's beaches were for whites, 650m for blacks, 550m for Indians and 300m for coloureds.Hatang was speaking after comments on social media by retired Scottburgh estate agent Penny Sparrow - who called black people "monkeys" - and fitness coach Justin van Vuuren, who called for the Durban promenade to be made private because "it shouldn't be enjoyed by the scum of the nation".Such statements "remind black people where they come from", Hatang said."With these comments you are hitting people on two fronts. The first is reminding them that this was not their place ... [and that] black people were not allowed here, so they shouldn't be here now."Secondly, it reminds us of the economic injustice that continues. Black people save up a lot of money over the year just so that they can take the whole family to the beach so they can experience it.story_article_left2"For us as a country we need to remember - and we forget very quickly - that for most of the people who go to the beach it's the last cent that they have, but their families are happy."Omar Badsha, who runs South African History Online, said beaches were a thorny issue given their history of segregation. "Even in the 1980s, one of the first areas of public space where people defied the law was the beaches," he said.While beaches were now less determined by historical, class and racial divisions than other public spaces, and racial tensions "had subsided over the years", the situation did change over the festive season.story_article_right3"These spaces [beaches] are also becoming segregated because the majority of people who go to those beaches are black, and white people, in the main, stay away. Those who live nearby live with it. But now and then you get a person like Sparrow who articulates their resentment," said Badsha.Those resentful comments would not put Zulu off going to the beach."When I hear those things I feel very bad. But they can say whatever they want, I will still go to the beach," she said.savidesm@sundaytimes.co.za..