Port St Johns Stories

The Little Red Aeroplane The view south from Mthumbane Township, Port St Johns It had another wonderful Wild Coast weekend. Beautiful hot weather, good friends, fun things had happened. It was Sunday afternoon, Sunday brunches and lunches were over, people were relaxed, some taking afternoon naps, others catching the last bit of sun. Others had gone for constitutionals, walking along assorted beaches. One local was birdwatching, and was disturbed by a low flying helicopter. Idly she trained her binoculars on the helicopter as she watched it fly over First Beach and then disappear out of sight. She had no conscious memory of having memorized its ZA – number. A phone call came through to a local resident – a plane had just been seen crashing in to the sea, not far from shore. The description was ‘ a little red plane flying south’. Well, this was Sunday afternoon, the caller was known to enjoy a good many beers, and well, this sounded like he’d had one too many. ...

                                                         The Posting of Fish Both recreational fishing, and commercial fishing have been practiced in Port St Johns since humans first started settling here. Port St Johns as a tourism area, attracts all sorts of fishermen:  rock and surf, deep sea, fly fishermen, and many world records have been established in the area. Salt Water Fly Fishing Fish sources started dwindling in the 1990's, due to uncontrolled over fishing and exploitation. During the annual   ‘runs’ of cob (aka cape salmon or dagga), Garrick ( Leervis in Afrikaans) and spotted grunter, 100’s of these fish were caught, with catches of 10 or more per fisherman, per night, being common. The fish would be laid out on lawns for photographs, inspection and bragging by the fishermen.  Discussion...

Farming a la Port St Johns Dagga, weed, ganja, dope – Cannabis Sativa and Cannabis Indica are known by many names. It’s a robust annual, can grow up to 4m in height. It doesn’t need much water, and it does like hot weather.   It is a plant of many uses, it was grown in China as far back as 1500 BCE and   was supposedly regularly eaten by the founder of the Persian Sufi sect. The early jeans were made from hemp, and it was grown in America since 1606 and was an important crop throughout the 1800’s. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson farmed the crop. Today it is extremely fashionable (and green) to wear clothes made from organically grown hemp. Medicinally the plant is used as an analgesic and anesthetic. It is used for asthma, arthritis and epilepsy. It cures cancer. It is often used to ease the discomfort of terminally ill cancer patients. As was recorded by one cancer patient, not using cannabis was dying of cancer, using cannabis changed his life t...

                                      Second Beach - The most dangerous beach in the world? The most dangerous beach in the world, Second Beach, Port St Johns, wasn’t always the most dangerous beach in the world. A few years ago, before the phenomenon of shark attacks happened, it was one of the most relaxed, unspoilt beaches in the world. Port St Johns, the little village on the Wild Coast of Transkei, was a place that was on the top of most people’s holiday wish lists. A place that was difficult to get to, but that was relaxed, that when you did get to it, you forgot that the rest of the world existed. Its permanent residents were made up of an eclectic mix of artists, farmers, hippies, at one time the staff of the rebel radio station, Capital 604, at another stage; ex Rhodesian Selous Scouts, who trained up an elite army corps. Second beach, a picture perfect spot: whi...