Kalk Bay Langganna tallies the day’s catch. Original oil painting by Chesney Bradshaw.
Many people assume that the fish sold at the Kalk Bay quayside comes straight off the fishing boats in the harbour. That’s not entirely true. Yes, some of it does — in season you’ll see snoek, yellowtail, katonkel (bonito) and bank fish (locally called doppies, which include Hottentot fish and red Roman) coming in from the few remaining boats that still put to sea.
But most of the fish actually comes from fishing companies that sell frozen or iced fish to the Langgannas (fish hawkers) at Kalk Bay. There’s also a fair bit of trading going on up in the car park, where ski-boat anglers from across False Bay — Simon’s Town, Miller’s Point, Cape Point — sell their catch straight from their vehicles.
These days there are only a handful of fish dealers left at Kalk Bay harbour. In the heyday, say in the 1970s, there were many more. It’s a tough life selling fish every day, but with demand being what it is, the Langgannas manage to make a subsistence living.
And that’s the illusion — that fish bought from Kalk Bay harbour must be freshly landed from the boats tied up a few metres away. It’s a clever marketing picture: the harbour, the boats, the seagulls. To the unknowing buyer, even if the fish was frozen, it feels like it came straight out of False Bay that morning.
Kalk Bay harbour has a long fishing history stretching back centuries. Commercial-scale fish selling really took off after the railway line opened in 1883, making it possible for Kalk Bay to supply much of the Cape’s domestic market. By 1892, over 36 metric tonnes of fish a month were being sent from Kalk Bay to cities as far away as Kimberley and Bloemfontein.
In the early 1900s there were grander dreams. The Kalk Bay Fish and Land Company — successor to the False Bay Fishing and Cold Storage Company — tried to turn Kalk Bay into a bigger fishing hub. It failed, going into voluntary liquidation in 1907. Later, Kalk Bay Fisheries Limited leased the premises, but even they were gradually taken over by Irvin and Johnson between 1912 and 1914. Today only fragments of those ambitions remain.
Every now and then you hear of ski-boat anglers dreaming of hiring a freezer truck and driving their catch up to Johannesburg or other inland towns to sell at a better price. It sounds romantic, but it’s costly, and there are already plenty of operations doing just that. I remember for years buying fish from the Seven Seas fishery in Blackheath, Randburg — much of their stock came up from Port Elizabeth in small freezer trucks.
In some ways, it’s probably a blessing that the fish-selling trade at Kalk Bay is small-scale. If it were run on a bigger, industrial scale, consumers would be paying a lot more. As it is, a yellowtail today will cost you anywhere from R150 to R200, and when they’re scarce you can easily pay close to R300 for one.
Still, Kalk Bay is rich with fishing history and atmosphere. It’s part of the magic. Buying fish there feels different — more special — than just grabbing something from a sterile retail fish counter. Even if you know that some of it has been sitting on ice since yesterday or came out of a freezer truck, the experience is part of the charm.
And, as some locals will tell you with a wink, “The freshest fish you’ll buy in the Cape comes from the back of a Nissan bakkie.”
