About Plettenberg Bay

Long before Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape, Portuguese explorers charted the bay in the 15th and 16th centuries, the first being Bartholomew Dias in 1487. Ninety years later Manuel da Perestrello aptly called it "Bahia Formosa" or the Beautiful Bay. The first European inhabitants were the 100 men stranded here for 9 months when the San Gonzales sank in 1630. In 1763 the first European settlers in the Bay were stock farmers, hunters and frontiersmen from the Western Cape. A stinkwood navigational beacon was first erected on Beacon Island in 1771. The original was a square block of stinkwood, inscribed with the latitude and longitude of Plettenberg Bay and erected to enable mariners to check their marine chronometers. It was replaced by a stone one by Captain Sewell in 1881. A barracks for the Dutch East India Company in 1776. The Governor of the Cape, Baron Joachim Ammena van Plettenberg, renamed the town Plettenberg Bay in 1779. In 1869 it was bought by St Peters Church and used as a rectory for the next 70 years. Today it is presently privately owned.