Cape Town's Visible Shipwrecks: A Guide for Explorers

By Clare Lindeque

The Cape of Storms has claimed many ships since explorers and traders discovered the route to the east around the tip of Africa. Many of these shipwrecks are lost to the sea; other wrecks are accessible to scuba divers and technical divers; and some are high and dry on shore, and can be visited by anyone with curiosity and a sense of adventure. Explore Cape Town's rich maritime history with this illustrated mini guide to the visible shipwrecks along the coast of the Cape Peninsula. Discover where the visible shipwrecks along the Cape Peninsula coastline are, how to reach them, and something of their history. Supplementary material about museums and additional shipwreck artefacts around the city will enable you to craft an itinerary of historical substance and outdoor experiences as you delve into the links that Cape Town has to the historical ocean economy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clare Lindeque
• Release date: Oct 28, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310447365

Clare Lindeque

I am a lapsed mathematician, intensely curious about almost everything, and with a great love for words. My favourite things are order, photography, being out in nature, scuba diving, travel, and being at home. I work in investments, using my mathematical training, and try to add as many ocean-related elements to my life outside of work, as possible.

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Introduction

The turbulent weather and exposed coastline of the Cape Peninsula, combined with its erstwhile importance on the Europeans’ trade route to the east, has long made it a hotspot for shipwrecks. Cape Town is a paradise for wreck diving, although strong winds, cold water and the fecundity of the marine ecosystem (resulting in plankton blooms that colour the water green for weeks on end) can make scuba diving a challenge here.

A fascination with and love for shipwrecks is not the sole preserve of those who go down into the ocean to explore them. There is something arresting about the sight of a ship, high and dry on land, or close enough to shore to be seen without getting one’s feet wet. This guide is for travellers to Cape Town who wish to experience something of her maritime heritage without donning scuba gear.

A surprising number of Cape Town’s shipwrecks can be seen from a viewpoint on the beach, a road, or a boat. I have arranged the wrecks in this guide geographically, beginning with the long, sandy beaches north of the city centre, traversing the western edge of the peninsula in a southerly direction, and concluding with the peninsula’s eastern edge, inside False Bay. Unsurprisingly, most of the visible wrecks are on the more exposed western (outer) edge of the Cape Peninsula.

The co-ordinates of each wreck are listed all together at the back of this book, as well as some suggestions for other ways to appreciate Cape Town’s rich maritime heritage.

A companion map for this book may be found at https://goo.gl/5QA1A7.

1

Cape Town’s maritime history

Cape Town is situated at the junction of the Cape Peninsula with the African mainland. It sprawls north, south, east and west of the low lying strip of land known locally as the Cape Flats. The Peninsula, to the south west of the Cape Flats, is rocky, bisected by a band of mountains stretching from the ocean at Muizenberg in the south east, to Hout Bay in the north west. Perpendicularly intersecting those mountains to the north are the Twelve Apostles, a string of peaks which abut Table Mountain at the northern end of

Reviews for Cape Town's Visible Shipwrecks

[Rosemary Harvey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A simple guide to help one find a few of the best known shipwrecks around Cape Town. Handy GPS references, photos, and valuable safety tips.