Aug
2014
At first glimpse it appears to be a little hollow of a deserted fishing village. More so when you have travelled over 1400 km from Gauteng to Port Nolloth.
This remote town was a small commercial sea port when copper and diamonds where still in large reserves.
The town was recorded on that famous explorer, Bartholomew Dias’ charts in 1487, before his vessel was swept to sea and lost for 13 days in storms which are not uncommon in these super cold Atlantic waters.
Many years later, an adventurer named James Alexander discovered copper at Okiep, a town located some 160km away. Reports were sent back to the Cape Colony and the area was surveyed for copper.
The town was named after the surveyor, Captain MS Nolloth who did the initial surveying of the feasibility.
The somewhat protected bay was the resting place for many a commercial shipping vessel as the copper ore became cumbersome along with the increased size of vessels that were employed in the shipment of the ore.
The copper ore deposit was diminishing and with the discovery of alluvial diamonds on the sea shore the town experienced another mini-revival with the hopefuls flocking here in search of that elusive “big one”.
The mouth of this treacherous port is littered with wrecks of vessels that ran aground due to unpredictable weather conditions. The list of wrecks is prolific with ships like;
· The 205 ton South African Commercial vessel, the Border in 1947
· In 1950 the super freighter, 400 ton, the Bechuana ran aground
The port was never going to be sustainable, and with the decline in the alluvial diamond deposits the town was somewhat disenfranchised reducing it to mainly a fishing village and tourist destination.
Although large scale diamond recovery has declined there are some divers that make a living with finds of between R20 - R40 000 a month being brought to the surface.
The icy waters were rich with crayfish which was at some stage a reasonable source of income for fisherman prepared to confront these icy waters.
The town of Port Nolloth will suite those who prefer the tranquillity and basic conditions with not much impact as far as urbanization is concerned.
Take a tour of the MyRoof website, there are properties on offer from east to west coast and inland favoured holiday destinations.
