Page 132 - Bulletin 7 2003

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they returned to continue fishing. At these times of the year Kalk Bay there would be
very few boats at Kalk Bay.

So many of the Kalk Bay fishing boats have been sent to Cape Town to take toll of
the shoals of snoek and mackerel are now visiting Table Bay, that only some dozen
or so remain, and the beach in consequence presents quite a deserted appearance.

The Wynberg Times, 21 May 1904

A further diminution of the number of fishing boats on the Kalk Bay beach is
noticeable this week, and all that remains of the usual fleet [approximately 50 boats]
is the paltry total of seven or eight boats. Consequently there is little life visible
either on sea or land, and the tradesmen are seriously thinking of “fleeing the camp.”
The fishermen, of course, are not to blame as a snoek or stock fish is worth half a
dozen bunches of silver fish, the only finny inhabitants of the waters of False Bay
just now, except “wrong” whales.

The Wynberg Times, 23 May 1904

It would have been foolish for these men to try to sail those small boats to Hout Bay
or Cape Town. Only in later years when the boats were bigger and had engines were

they able to do so. But I was told by an old fisherman that the first boat that went to
Hout Bay by sea, going round Cape Point, was one of those open boats which by that

time all had one cylinder 3 – 6 hp engines in them. And this boat was skippered by

the son of the fisherman Willy Orgill, who was also named William. By this time
most of the boats were decked and were also much bigger. All these happenings

occurred after the railway line had been extended from Kalk Bay to Simon’s Town in
1890.

Kalk Bay harbour

In the construction of the viaduct that carried the railway line to Simon’s Town a
portion of the beach was used where formerly the boats were dragged up by sheer

man-power. In bad weather with south-east winds and seas like we have seen from

time to time lashing the beach the fishermen had a very hard time to because they