Table Bay (
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gr ...
: ''Tafelbaai'') is a natural bay on the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
overlooked by
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
(founded 1652 by
Van Riebeeck
Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck (21 April 1619 – 18 January 1677) was a Dutch navigator and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company.
Life
Early life
Jan van Riebeeck was born in Culemborg, as the son of a surgeon. H ...
) and is at the northern end of the
Cape Peninsula
The Cape Peninsula ( af, Kaapse Skiereiland) is a generally mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Ca ...
, which stretches south to the
Cape of Good Hope. It was named because it is dominated by the flat-topped
Table Mountain.
History
Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to explore this region in 1486. The bay, although famous for centuries as a haven for ships, is actually a rather poor natural harbour and is exposed to storm waves from the northwest. Many sailing ships seeking refuge in the bay during the 17th and 18th centuries were driven ashore by winter storms.
The Dutch colonists nevertheless persisted with their efforts on the shores of Table Bay, because good natural harbours along this coastline are almost non-existent. The best of them,
Saldanha Bay, lacked fresh water.
Simon's Bay was well protected from westerly winter storms and swells, but more exposed to summer southeasterliy storms and difficult to access overland from Cape Town.
Hout Bay
Hout Bay ( af, Houtbaai, meaning "Wood Bay") is a harbour town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is situated in a valley on the Atlantic seaboard of the Cape Peninsula, twenty kilometres south of Cape Town. The name "Hout Bay" ...
was small and exposed to the prevailing southwesterly swell. Eventually a harbour was built in Table Bay by a process of
land reclamation and was protected from storm waves by
breakwaters. The older part of this development is called the
Victoria Dock; the newer part, the
Duncan Dock.
Robben Island, where
Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for decades, is in this bay.
The bay's beaches were oiled following an accident involving the Dutch tanker Sliedrecht in November 1953. The vessel moved offshore to pump out 1,000 tonnes of oil that had been fouled with seawater after the initial impact.
Image gallery
File:Aernout Smit Table Bay, 1683 William Fehr Collection Cape Town.jpg, Dutch ships off Table Bay in the 17th century
File:Pieter van der Aa Cape of Good Hope.jpg, Looking over sailing ships in Table Bay in 1727 with Table Mountain in the background
File:Cape Town & Table Bay 1882.jpg, Map of Table Bay (1882)
File:IMRAY(1884) p0707 TABLE BAY.jpg, Map of the Docks and Infrastructure (1884)
File:Capetown table false bay.jpg, Cape Town from space, looking south over False Bay with Hangklip Point (top left), Cape Point
Cape Point ( af, Kaappunt) is a promontory at the southeast corner of the Cape Peninsula, a mountainous and scenic landform that runs north-south for about thirty kilometres at the extreme southwestern tip of the African continent in South Afr ...
(top right) and Table Bay south and east of the clearly visible, circular Robben Island, February 1995.
File:Satellite image of Cape peninsula.jpg, Synthetic perspective with 2× exaggerated elevation, from satellite elevation and image data. Looking east over Cape Peninsula
The Cape Peninsula ( af, Kaapse Skiereiland) is a generally mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Ca ...
and False Bay (behind) with Robben Island (front left), Table Mountain (centre front) and Cape Point
Cape Point ( af, Kaappunt) is a promontory at the southeast corner of the Cape Peninsula, a mountainous and scenic landform that runs north-south for about thirty kilometres at the extreme southwestern tip of the African continent in South Afr ...
(front right).
File:Ship Defense at Anchor in Table Bay.jpg, Sketch of Cape Town from the East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
Ship Defense, en route from the Downs to Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
, anchored in Table Bay on January 24, 1739.
See also
*
False Bay
*
Eduard Bohlen
References
{{Authority control
Bays of South Africa
Maritime history of South Africa