Table Bay (Afrikaans Tafelbaai) is a natural bay on the Atlantic Ocean overlooked by Cape Town (founded 1652) and is at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula, which stretches south to the Cape of Good Hope. It was named because it is dominated by the flat-topped Table Mountain.
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 badly exposed to gales from both the SE and NW. Many sailing ships seeking refuge in the bay during the 17th and 18th centuries were driven ashore by storms. (See article about Wolraad Woltemade).
The Dutch colonists nevertheless persisted with their colony on the shores of Table Bay because natural harbours along this coastline are scarce and the only realistic alternatives- Simon's Bay and Saldanha Bay - had almost no fresh water. Eventually a harbour was built in Table Bay by a process of land reclamation and defended by breakwaters to protect shipping. The older part of this structure is called the Victoria Dock. The newer part is called the Duncan Dock.
Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for decades, is in this bay.
Read more about Table Bay: Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words table and/or bay:
“The best thing about Sassy Seats is that grandmothers cannot figure out how they work and are in constant fear of the child’s falling. This often makes them forget to comment on other aspects of the child’s development, like why he is not yet talking or is still wearing diapers. Some grandmothers will spend an entire meal peering beneath the table and saying, “Is that thing steady?” rather than, “Have you had a doctor look at that left hand?””
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)