Tours in Cape Town

Posts Tagged ‘Table bay’

Table Bay with the harbour taking up a large portion of the bay

We are just about to host the world cup and are expecting many foreign visitors to our shores.

Just a few years ago there were  people living in parts of the world who thought South Africa was a backward country where lions and wild animals roamed the streets. These days the only lions roaming anywhere near the cities are dandelions.

Fans arriving in Cape Town for the world cup who still think we are a backward country are in for a big surprise.

Khayelitsha Township Housing

Yes we still have many poor people living in shanty towns, and you will see these places as you travel from our airport into the city. The reason for the shanty towns is that Cape Town has become a ray of hope for many African people. They come into our beautiful city looking for work and as they have no money and no jobs find their way into the townships and a life of squalor.

It’s a sad situation which is very difficult to solve.

However we have many more positives which I would like to tell you about.

Groote Schuur Hospital

On the way into the city of Cape Town from the airport on hospital bend you will pass Groote Schuur Hospital. So what is so important about this old teaching hospital that has been there for years.

Groote Schuur Hospital is the first hospital in the world where a heart transplant was performed. It not only put Groote Schuur on the map but it boosted the career of Professor Chris Barnard from a heart surgeon into a well known celebrity.The technologies and skills that he acquired from his pioneering work have been exported and  have saved the lives of countless thousands of people all over the world.

While visiting Cape Town take some time to visit the world renowned hospital and the Heart Transplant museum that has been established to celebrate what South African medicine has given to the world.

As you pass the hospital and make your way down into Cape Town along the eastern boulevard you will look down onto the most stunning view of Table Bay and the city. In the distance you will see the harbour which juts out into the bay. (see picture at top of post) This harbour is built more or less in the centre of the original bay which van Riebeeck entered when he arrived to colonise the Cape in 1652. The walls of this harbour and along the Woodstock coastline are protected by another South African first, the Dollose.

Dollose protecting the jetty at Yzerfontein

Dolosse are large, unusually shaped concrete blocks weighing up to 20 tons. The structures are designed to break up wave action and protect harbour walls and coastal installations.

Designed by Eric Merrifield and first installed in East London harbour they are now used all over the world. The recently completed upgrade of the Yzerfontein harbour has a couple of hundred of these large structures breaking up the waves that hammer the old jetty that protects the important fishing harbour on the west coast.

Another first for South Africa is the speed gun used in cricket these days but also used on our roads and along the eastern boulevard to trap speeding motorists. If you are hiring a car on your visit beware of speeding on our roads as either a speed gun or camera will spoil your holiday when you are pulled over to receive a large fine.

Kreepy Krawley

On arrival at your hotel you are likely to find a beautifully blue swimming pool waiting for you. It might be a bit cold in June to use the pool but if you look into the pool you are more than likely to spot a funny looking contraption attached to a pipe climbing the walls of the pool. This invention is known to us South Africans as a Kreepy Krawley. It is also a South African invention and has been exported to all parts the world.

Before 1994 when the whole world was against South Africa for our political persuasions South Africa was punished by the international community by cutting off our access to oil supplies. Of course there were ways and means of obtaining oil from foreign countries which we used to get oil, but one of the main benefits that the oil embargo caused South Africa was to allow us to build the technology to make fuel from coal. This was another world first and this technology is now being used by other countries of the world who have large stocks of coal at their disposal to produce fuel.

Did you know that a South African invention went to the moon on a manned American space probe. Who will forget those words “ The eagle has landed” ? I know I won’t as I was glued to my radio as the landing of the “Eagle” on the moon was broadcast to the world.

The Eagle was stuck together with glue known as Pratley’s putty which was invented by George Pratley in the 1960s while looking for a sticky substance that would hold components in an electrical box together. Amazing!

APS M achine

Are you a person who suffers from muscular or arthritic pain and stiffness. Have you visited a physiotherapist and been massaged and then placed on a machine that sends electrical impulses into your body and relieves your pain. If so you have experienced another world first, the APS machine invented by a South African named Gervan Lubbe.

So you see when you visit Cape Town and South Africa you are not visiting a backward country. You will enjoy a modern city with many new hotels, a brand new soccer stadium and scenery to die for and much much more.

With a lot fewer people coming to South Africa than expected there is likely to be a lot of space in our hotels and guesthouses. We expected 400000 people and are only likely to get half that number attending.

As is our want, we have once again over catered and over supplied. That is what we as South Africans do. If you want to come to South Africa it’s not too late to get here to join in the fun of an African World Cup. Stadiums might be full but fan parks will definitely be able to host you if you want to watch the games live on television.

While you are here visit some of our star attractions on a tour arranged by Turtle SA. We are waiting to show you around.

Click here to find out more about our day tours.

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St Helena Bay

About 150 kilometres north of Cape Town is a large bay which was named St Elena after the mother of Constantine the Great. It was named by a Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama who was sailing down the coast of Africa looking for the sea route to India following the yet unknown route around the southern point of Africa. When he sailed into the bay on the 8^th November 1497 he was struck by the beauty and tranquility of the bay.

Today the name has changed slightly and it is known as St Helena Bay.

Vasco da Gama after leaving St Helana Bay continued on his voyage and sailed on around the Cape of Good Hope and eventually found the sea route to India.

After discovering the sea route to India many other nations followed in da Gama’s footsteps and made their way to India along the same sea route. One of these nations was the Dutch who had the misfortune of one of their ships, the Niewe Haarlem running aground on the coastline in Table Bay. The crew managed to reach the shore and after salvaging the cargo of the ship had to fend for themselves on the shore until another Dutch ship on its way back from India entered Table Bay and found them living on the beach.

On board the rescue ship was a man named Jan van Riebeeck. He took note of the conditions at the Cape and when he got back to Holland advised the HereXVII that one could live safely at the Cape and that they the Dutch should start a halfway station to provide fresh meat and vegetables for their passing ships. This idea was eventually agreed upon and Jan van Riebeeck was sent back to the Cape arriving on the 6^th of April 1652 to start the vegetable gardens which were to supply the passing ships.

As ship’s captains found out about the halfway station at the Cape many of them sailed into Table Bay to look for fresh food and water. To enable van Riebeeck to cope with the demands he had to plant larger gardens and therefore required more labour to tend them.

The only way to do this was to introduce slave labour to the Cape. Even this did not solve his problems and eventually he offered his staff who had finished their stint of duty at the Cape farms if they stayed and farmed them for their own account. There were obviously conditions applied to the contracts and these farmers had to supply vegetables to the Dutch East India company for whom van Riebeeck worked.

It was these free farmers who were eventually sent to St Helena Bay to look into the potential of the bay and especially the fishing propects.

Fish Factory Stompneusbaai

As a result of this visit, many years later a fish factory was founded on the coastline of St Helena bay.

There are some interesting facts available on the bay. Not only is it the largest bay in Africa, it is one of only three in the world where the sun rises and sets over the same bay.

As the bay is relatively shallow there is little wave action and hence not much salt in the atmosphere which has the effect that things don’t rust in the area, something that happens eveywhere else along the west coast.

Because of the abundance of fish in the area there are no fewer than 11 fish factories along its shores today.

Stompneusbaai

The large bay of St Helena has a number of smaller bays along its coastline and it is on the edges of these bays that the new housing developments flow into each other almost unnoticeably. The area is not over developed as one would think it should be and one can find luxury homes and fishermens cottages standing next to each other and churches and factories competing for the same piece of the coastline. It all blends well together to enhance the beauty of the bay.

When we recently visited the area it was a beautifully warm day and we made our way down to a beach near the large factory belonging to St Helana Bay Fishing. This factory is situated on one of the smaller bays called Stompneusbaai. If translated into English the name would be stumpnose bay. There are no real features in the area for it to get such a name but being a fishing village I imagine that the bay is home to the white Stumpnose fish, hence the name.

Circular Beach Stompneusbaai

Once on the beach we decided to take a walk along the circular bay which to the west has a promontory with houses and a whole lot of palm trees planted along it. All very pretty, but, unfortunately for us it would not stay that way for much longer.

While walking along the beach a small fishing dinghy came motoring past and the people on board were very friendly and waved to us as they went by.

Gill net floating in the bay

As we walked further around the bay towards the west we noticed a gill net floating in the bay about 30 metres off the beach. The net was between a 100 and a 150 metres long and was set there to catch mullet which frequent the bay.

I did not know that these nets were still used today but the dinghy had obviously laid the net and so I imagine that they are still allowed.

Seal eating a stolen fish

Being a casual fisherman myself I wanted to see what they would catch so I positioned myself on the beach close to where the net was set. As I watched a seal came swimming along and when he found the net which obviously had fish caught in it, he started raiding the net and eating the fish which he pulled out.

Boat pulling in the net

The fishermen in the dinghy must have seen the seal and what was happening so started lifting their net. As we watched not many fish were landed as the seal swam ahead of the boat and took every fish it could out of the net before the fishermen could pull the net into the boat. This obviously annoyed the fishermen as it would have annoyed me if it was my net that the seal was raiding. I could see that there would eventually be some type of confrontation between the fishermen and the seal.

What happened next shocked me and my wife.

As the boat got to the end of the net, all the rest of it having been recovered and pulled into the boat the seal dived into the net to grab the last fish. As the seal did so the fishermen lost their patience with it and decided to sort it out. This they did by using a large plastic spade and a wooden club to club the seal with.

I was so taken aback by what I saw happening that I forgot to take photos as I had never witnessed anything like that before. The seal took the hint and swam away most probably with a number of large bruises on its body and head. Unfortunately this left us both a bit stunned as we made our way back around the beach to our car.

What however stunned us even more was when we came across a signpost on the beach that warned us that the bay we were looking at was polluted and that we should not walk in the water or swim in it.

What a pity that such a beautiful bay has met such a fate.

Fortunately as far as I can make out it was only Stompneusbaai that was polluted. The other smaller bays in the area seemed to be unpolluted with people utilising them.

If you are travelling along this stretch of the west coast do yourself a favour and visit the area. You might even find yourself a new home as there are many of them in the various estates that are for sale.

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