On the 8th October 1497 Vasco Da Gama Landed in St. Helena Bay at what is now the town of St. Helena, 26 Km from Velddrif. A monument stands there today.
In 1652 the Dutch started exploring the West Coast and in 1667 a ship called the Buydegom and two years later, the Grundel, were sent to the area. The Gouden Buys with its crew much weakened by scurvey ran aground near the river mouth in 1693. A boat named the Dageraad was sent to take off the silver she carried but supposedly two chests were never recovered and is believed to lie near the river mouth in the bay.
The Dageraad herself ran aground on Robben Island and the silver she salvaged was lost and is thought to be still there.
In 1715 The Dutch East India Company allocated loan farms to settlers and one of these, Theunis Smit, named Velddrif after a drift used to get cattle through the river.
The son of a German mercenary, Carl Stephan traded from a ship named the Nerie berthed at Rooibaai which became the Loading Place and later Laaiplek. His family graveyard can be seen right at the entrance to St. Helena Bay.
He became a major land and ship owner.A ship that he bought on auction and refurbished was immortalised in the Cape folk song Daar Kom Die Alibama.
She would ply between Laaiplek and Cape Town with grain, hides, tallow, dried fish and reeds from the river. The rise in the ground between the Port Owen entrance and Velddrif is called Totheuvel. The bottom of this would flood after rains and the goods would be left at the top to be collected later.
These reeds would be needed for the ceremonial marriage bed without which no self-respecting Malay girl would get married, so it was with delight that the yearning groom would spy the Alibama come over the sea.
Beacause of the shortage of fresh water the first village in the area was established at Olifantskraal which had a hotel, post office, police station and market. Lawrence Green brought his boat here from Cape Town to enjoy the excellent sailing conditions, as recounted in “On Wings Of Flame”. The local pub was the centre of local activities and is still standing. The last person to be killed by a hippopotamus, a young English farm manager is buried in the grounds.
During the second world war, Velddrif had the distinction of being the only town in the British Commonwealth where 100% of the able-bodied men enlisted. After the war African Inshore Fisheries was established to provide work.
An all weather passage to the sea was built in 1968 which was a great boon to the fishing industry and to sailing and boating in general. Sixty percent of the total Pelagic (Surface feeding) fish catch landed in South Africa is landed at the factories that line St. Helena Bay and the Great Berg River. It is from here that the products “Saldanha”, “Lucky Star” and “Glenryck” are made.
<Owen Wiggins Trust and Port Owen<
In the 1970s, Owen Wiggins would conduct auctions of properties around the Cape Coast, ending at Dwarskersbos at the end of the year. He knew the area well from many diving expeditions to St. Helena Bay.
Seeing the area between Velddrif and Laaiplek he deduced it would be suitable for a marina and ths Port Owen was born. After 18 years of dredging and moving a million cubic metres of ground, building 7 km of embankment and many jetties, Port Owen was the country's premier deep-sea residential marina. It offers berths, plots, houses, flats and timeshare.
The first house to be built in Port Owen was built as a temporary office and is now owned by Gideon Langart who was the development company's advertising manager and boosted the turnover from R 250 000 to a million in his first six months.
He entertained the local residents to sundowners on his yacht Absolutely every Friday for a couple of years until the Port Owen Yacht Club was formally inaugurated. A life ring from Absolutely hangs in the Yacht Club.