Page 82 - Bulletin 18 2014

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thousands of fishermen and others used the facility annually, though numbers fluctuated

according to availability of fish and weather conditions, particularly south-easters.

Not represented here is the tonnage of war materiel that passed through the port. Throughout

the war years the breakwater was used as a transfer point for heavy naval equipment coming
down by rail for Simon’s Town dockyard, or vice versa: it was more practical to run a

trainload of guns, gun-mountings, and torpedo nets onto the breakwater and load them by

steam crane into awaiting lighters and tow them across directly into Simon’s Town harbour,
than to off-load them onto lorries at Simon’s Town station and truck them to the dockyard.

This echoed Kalk Bay’s role as a transhipment point for Simon’s Bay goods during DEIC
times, 1742 - 1795.

Furlong foresaw a bright future for the little harbour:

“Small coasters, not seen in these waters before, began to arrive, and trade

opened up with the bays in the vicinity. …before the harbour has actually been
handed over by the Construction Department 6,600 tons of cargo, excluding

fish, have been landed and shipped, and well over £5,000 has been collected in
the way of wharfage and dock dues etc. Its geographic position places it nearer

than Cape Town to the Agulhas Bank …… Trawlers based on Kalk Bay would
save 50 miles of steaming each trip ……. The possibilities of using Kalk Bay

for loading S.A. coal into lighters for use of H.M. ships and dockyard at

Simon’s Bay might be well worth considering. Moderate sized pleasure
steamers based on Kalk Bay, making trips to all the small bays and watering

places that surround False Bay, would be quite an attractive and payable
proposition during the summer season.” (Furlong: 1919: 54, 58-59.)

But after 1931 Kalk Bay was no longer listed as a Minor Port, the customs office probably

closed, data on usage became scarce, and many of Furlong’s speculations were not fulfilled.