| Main centres: | 1-3 business days |
| Regional areas: | 3-4 business days |
| Remote areas: | 3-5 business days |
Lowry Publishers, 1988, hardcover, illustrated, index, 123 pages, condition: as new.
The extraordinary story of the wrecking of the Sao Goncalo in 1630 and the fate of her survivors.
It seems that a group of about 100 sailors off the Portuguese trading ship, São Gonçalo, were the first Europeans who spent any significant amount of time in the area we now call Plettenberg Bay.
They were en-route back from India to Portugal in 1630 carrying a cargo of pepper.
They had actually stopped in the bay to make some repairs to the ship, when a huge storm hit the bay and claimed the ship as well as 150 of their crewmen.
The 100 survivors managed to swim ashore and made the Piesang Valley their home for about 8 months, befriending the Khoisan as they did so and building a church. They spent their time here building 2 boats from the remains of the São Gonçalo and the timber supplied by the surrounding forest.
Just before they left the Bay, they erected a stone marker (padrão) on the shore. This was the first Plett beacon
The padrão was re-discovered in 1980. It bore the inscription (in Portuguese) Here was lost the ship São Gonçalo in the year 1630.
