A few hundred years ago — so the story goes — a crew of Portuguese mariners were shipwrecked off what we now call the Cape west coast. When they made their way miraculously to land, their first thought was a prayer of thanks: the “Our Father” or, in Latin, Pater Noster.
This is one of a handful of apocryphal tales offering an explanation for the name of Paternoster, which became one of SA’s most famous fishing villages. It has the ring of veracity to it because, over the centuries, plenty of sailors have been forced to abandon sinking vessels in these parts; there are almost 250 known shipwreck sites between Paternoster and Yzerfontein about 80km to the south.
What those bedraggled seafarers saw when they came ashore would have been very different to the laid-back leisure spot that greets visitors today. In between, Paternoster has tried on various identities: from smugglers’ hideout (facilitated by an extensive cave network) to lobster canning and fishpaste manufacturing hub.
In seaside resorts and port towns around the world, there is a hint of the shabby and the illicit along with touristic charm. Paternoster is not immune to this association — with the further complication that, as poaching researcher Kimon de Greef has written, it shares with other settlements like Hangberg, Hawston and Gansbaai “long histories of dispossession, often stretching back generations before apartheid”.
While abalone and crayfish poaching is spurred by the legacy of “coastal ghettos split off from the mainstream economy”, numerous community projects and development initiatives in Paternoster have started to shift these dynamics.
The village’s reputation received a boost from the international attention given to chef Kobus van der Merwe’s Wolfgat after it was named best restaurant in the world in 2019. Indeed, Paternoster is a gastronome’s paradise, and the culinary scene is arguably its main attraction, apart from the natural splendour of the bay and its modest but celebrated architectural aesthetic.
On a recent weekend visit, however, I went looking for something beyond the “fishing cottages and fine dining” combination (as lovely as this is) and discovered that there is also a thriving art scene. Stone Fish Studio and a crop of galleries near the Paternoster Hotel have an impressive range of ceramics and oil paintings on display. A wander along winding St Augustine Road takes you to the Paternoster Waterfront and the Art Shed at the former Crayfish Wharf.
I enjoyed learning about local artists like Wilko Roon, whose impressionist style lends itself equally to landscapes, seascapes and portraits. Father and son duo Gordon and Paul Munro are not from Paternoster but the realism of their acrylics — approaching photorealism — renders sand dunes and crashing waves in vivid detail.
In a bid to explore for ourselves the littoral vistas that have so inspired these artists, our group signed up for an e-bike tour of the Cape Columbine Nature Reserve. This astonishingly beautiful corner of the West Coast Peninsula is named after the good ship Columbine, which (you guessed it) sank not far from the headland in 1829.
It was not the last vessel of that name to disappear in these waters. In a quirk of naval history, the SA steam merchant Columbine was torpedoed by a German U-boat on the night of June 16 1944. Almost half of the crew of 50 men drowned; from their lifeboats, survivors looking in the direction of land would have seen the beams of the Cape Columbine Lighthouse, constructed eight years previously in the hope of ending the litany of watery deaths.
There was just enough time for us to reach Tietiesbaai — another place name whose origin is contested — before returning to Paternoster while the daylight faded. As it happened, we were staying in an old fisherman’s cottage, renovated and renamed Coral Villa (part of the Gonana Collection, situated on the western edge of town). We sat by a warm fire and opened a bottle of wine, admiring the thick, whitewashed walls and solid wooden beams.
The calm sea shimmered under a golden sunset. The next day would bring fish and chips on the beach. Perhaps, we thought, it wasn’t such a bad thing to embrace the cliché pleasures of a seaside holiday.
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