St Francis Bay is named after St Francis of Assisi – the name was bestowed in 1575 by a Portuguese seafarer called Manuel de Mesquita Perestrelo, who was tasked with mapping the coastline of southern Africa, noting safe places to anchor.
“A storm forced Perestrelo's ship into this bay,” says local resident and history buff David Lundon as we cruise around the canals on his boat, Matilda. “He was impressed by the dunes and named the bay after the patron saint of animals and the environment.”
Little did Perestrelo know that the name would stick and 400 years later it would be one of the most popular places for South Africans to spend their summer.
Despite being only about 7 km apart, St Francis Bay and Cape St Francis developed separately in the 1960s. St Francis Bay is bigger and more modern compared to the smaller Cape St Francis.
St Francis Bay is famous for its canal system, which owes its existence to Leighton and Ann Hulett of the KZN sugar dynasty. They saw an advertisement in Farmer's Weekly in 1954: “Fisherman's paradise. Lonely and isolated, well wooded and watered. Two miles of private beach. 273 morgen. £1750.”
“The land advertised was on the farm Goedgeloof,” David explains. “People thought the Huletts were crazy to buy a marsh with dunes! It was almost impossible to farm crops or animals so he farmed with houses…”
A year later, Leighton and Ann built the Hulett's Cape St Francis Fishing Camp – seven rondavels with white walls and thatched roofs, used by holidaymakers, families and fishermen. (The Blue Bottle liquor store is roughly where the original fishing camp once stood.)
In the 1960s, construction began on the canal system and the dunes were stabilised with rooikrans and Port Jackson branches. More fishing cottages were built.
The double-storey mansions of today look nothing like the rondavels from that era, but the Huletts’ dream of uniformity is still being maintained. All the buildings between the canal system and Harbour Road have white walls and black roofs. If you want to
