About Arniston

Our jagged coastline with its countless wrecks is a chilling tribute to the seafarers of yesteryear. Arniston derives its name from one of these wrecks, namely the British ‘Arniston Transport’ which sank here in 1815. The vessel was loaded with wounded soldiers to take them from Ceylon back to England.

Heavy winds had destroyed all the sails and it was eventually decided to cut away the three anchors and run the ship ashore. The Arniston broke up on the needle-sharp rocks of the Arniston Reef. Of the 378 passengers only 6 survived, rendering this naval disaster one of the most serious in the history of South Africa.

This is one of the last working fishing villages on the coast of South Africa. Kassiesbaai began in a makeshift way. The name is derived from the wooden crates or paraffin kassies (boxes) that washed up on shore from shipwrecks. These were often used by early fishermen as building material for their homes. Boxes were stacked on top of one another, the sides worked off with clay plaster and the structure covered with a thatched roof. In 1984 the fishing village of Kassiesbaai was declared a Grade One Heritage Site, to be protected for future generations.

In February of 1816, the Geils family travelled from Ceylon to the Cape Colony to erect a small monument in memory of their four eldest sons and Lord and Lady Molesworth. In September 1816 a monument was erected overlooking the wreck site. However, over time the monument, a stone tablet with an inscription fixed to a brickwork pedestal, weathered and crumbled. In 1905 the sand-damaged tablet was removed and its current resting place is in the Bredasdorp Shipwreck Museum.

In March 2010, a new monument was constructed by Robert Haarburger. It was built in the same style and form as the original monument. The new monument stands in an elevated position, with the backdrop of desolate sand dunes, facing the wreck site and the ocean where the Arniston Transport came to its tragic end.

For generations the fishermen of Kassiesbaai launched their small boats from the beach at Oubaai (now known as Roman Beach) and rowed out into the bay to fish for their catch. They used to fish within sight of the shoreline and would race one another back to sell their catch. It’s only in the last 100 years that they began using the area below Kassiesbaai to launch their boats. In order to get heavier boats in and out of the water, they used wooden rollers. It was a slow and cumbersome process – often in bad weather they could not get out into the bay. In 1936 a slipway was built and launching a boat became much easier. These days, a tractor is used to help the boats down the concrete slipway and into the waiting ocean. When the weather allows, the fishing fleet of old-school ‘chuckies’, carrying seven or eight men each, goes out to sea in hope of a good catch.