Explosive story behind Cave Rock

MY OLD mate Dave Schwikkard appeals to me for corroboration of the facts behind the naming of Cave Rock Beach, on the Bluff.

With a group of wet-behind-theears youngsters – under 40 – at a watering hole this week, the topic came up.

“They didn’t know the beach is named after a cave formation which once stood off the beach until blown up during World War II on the orders of the military authorities.”

This was met with derision. Dave (who is somewhat over 40) was accused of being the worse for liquor. Why would anyone want to blow up a cave in the rocks?

“I always understood the reason was to make Durban less identifiable to passing hostile shipping. However, on googling the topic, I can find only one reference to the reason it was destroyed. It was in the line of fire of gun emplacements protecting the harbour entrance.

“Can you shed any light on the matter so I can silence my accusers and claim the wager taken?”

Dave, you’re spot on about Cave Rock being blown up by the military, though I’m not sure about that reason.

The version I’ve always believed is that it was blown up because it could possibly have sheltered enemy submarines. My dad was stationed at the Bluff gun battery for a time during the war and it was probably he who told me that version – though I also heard it from various others.

So, yes, you may collect your wager. My fee: a pint of crème de menthe.

How’d it taste?

MY DAD also told the story of a fishing expedition from the Bluff. A group from the gun battery used to fish from South Pier, led by the OC, Colonel Nick Crowe. My dad was only a gunner or a bombardier or something, but on fishing expeditions rank didn’t matter.

In those days the sewers didn’t run out into the Agulhas current the way they do today. In certain tidal and wind conditions, the sewage used to collect in a small, stinking bay between South Pier and the Bluff.

’Twas on such a day, as the fishing party were returning, that the colonel slipped and went – plop! – straight into the sewage.

They fished him out with a gaff, but the colonel was in no condition to share a vehicle with anyone, of however lowly rank. My dad went to the Bluff Retreat – that hotel that used to be on South Pier – and phoned the base for another truck for Colonel Crowe.

“But Colonel Crowe has already taken a truck.”

“He needs another one.”

The colonel stood, dripping and alone, in the back of a separate truck as they returned. he story got about. Crowe said he would subsequently meet officers in army messes in Egypt and elsewhere, who he’d never clapped eyes on before. They would smack their lips and say: “How’d it taste, Nick? How’d it taste?”

THE Bluff Retreat became a popular din-dins destination in the late ‘60s. Launches would carry parties across and back.

But then the mad old woman who ran it shot a customer dead in the bar. The cops closed it for good.

TWO cowboys stagger out of the zoo, their clothes in tatters. Says one: “This lion dancin’ ain’t as relaxin’ as they make out.”

EDUCATION is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.