Before the present all-weather harbour mouth was built to ensure the future of the fishing industry the river turned south-west from where the harbour entrance now stands and then turned north-west and into the bay over a sand bar.

To aid fisherman returning in fog or at night, a tower, which still stands, was built behind the rivermouth and a meter-high bell was hung there to guide the boats in.

In 1950 a Laaiplek lad arrived to ring the bell and found a whale and her calf stranded in the shallow water there at low tide.  To secure the whale there until he could return with help he tied the rope from the bell aroud the whale's tale and hot-footed it back.

When the clan arrived, armed with implements of dismemberment, the tide had risen, the whale had gone and the bell had gone with her.

But the bell reappeared in the surf of one of the bay's beaches somehw jettisoned by the whale.  So help was summoned to transport the heavy bell, but when they returned to the scene, the bell had disappeared again.

Over fifty years later the bell mysteriously reappered in Velddrif.  It was locked away for safe keeping.  Then when the powers that be checked on the bell, it had vanished again.  We live in hope that it will materialise once again.