I’m sitting on the stairs of the Kalk Bay Harbour breakwater, watching people with smiles on their faces, walking along the harbour wharf. Couples are holding hands and walking towards the lighthouse at the end. Leisure fishermen and women cast their lines from the harbour wall into the sea. A man and his wife amble with their children licking ice creams. A photographer sets up a shot of the boats. Cars and buses stream into the harbour parking lot, with visitors off to the harbour eateries.
Kalk Bay Harbour has been in the news this week because of the visit of Prince William and his ecological interests. In recent years, Kalk Bay Harbour has become a very popular attraction. It always was popular, but the number of visitors has increased. Local and international visitors come to the harbour to relax, walk, eat, and enjoy themselves. The harbour itself has a couple of eateries that act as a drawcard for many.
Kalk Bay was once a thriving small fishing harbour where the boats would bring in tons of snoek, yellowtail, and cob (also known as Cape Salmon). These were the days when the boats would come alongside, tipped towards the harbour because of their great catches, but sadly, those days are gone.
In 2024, there was no annual snoek run. Of all the fish that were caught from Kalk Bay Harbour, snoek was the largest catch. When the snoek came, the boats would go out into the bay day after day, week after week, catching boatloads. It seems that the snoek have disappeared from the bay and haven’t been in abundance for many years. Will the fish ever recover? It’s not a question I can answer. All I know is that False Bay has been overfished for many years. And it’s not only the local fishermen who run their boats from Kalk Bay but mainly the large commercial fishing operations that have netted catches outside of False Bay before the fish have a chance to shoal there.
Now, I must say that there are very few fishing boats left in Kalk Bay Harbour. These days, they need a government license to catch hand-line fish. Very few licenses are granted, and they come with a whole lot of requirements, skewed mainly toward certain groups of people.
Anyway, the heydays of fish being caught and brought to Kalk Bay seem to be over. I think everybody knows that the fish you see on the quayside have been caught elsewhere and brought to Kalk Bay on ice, or frozen and thawed.
Yes, the fishing boats that are left in Kalk Bay still bring in catches, but these are mainly what are called bunch fish, which are small, mainly Hottentot fish, and the odd larger-sized Red Roman, which unfortunately are dwindling, whereas they used to be in abundance decades ago. But it’s not only the Red Roman that is endangered; some species are no longer caught, such as seventy-fours, white stumpnose, milkfish—eradicated by the skin divers off Miller’s Point—and even stockfish. When was the last time a stockfish, or hake as they are also called, was caught fresh in False Bay?
Last Sunday, 3 November 2024, religious leaders came down to the harbour to bless the fishing boats for the new season. It was an interdenominational affair. I detected from their talks that the religious leaders were quite aware of the plight of fishing from the harbour and in False Bay. They mentioned the dwindling stocks, sustainability, and the need to protect the bay from marauding commercial fishing interests who, as I’ve said, scoop up all the fish before they enter the bay. Kalk Bay Harbour and its fishermen and women need all the blessings they can get. It was poignant when, after the religious leaders walked to the boats and sprinkled water on their bows, the heavens opened and it rained. We all ran for cover. It’s certainly going to take a miraculous event to bring life—and what I mean by life is the fishing life—back to Kalk Bay Harbour.
