Paternoster: fishing boats, beaches and crayfish

By Roxanne Reid
Paternoster is one of the oldest fishing towns along the West Coast, a place of whitewashed houses, fishing boats, beaches and crayfish. Visitors come here for the tang of sea air, the sound of breakers, and the romance of long walks on the beach. 

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You'll find Paternoster on the West Coast Way’s Foodie Route – and I wrote about its restaurants in another post. But there’s more to it than that. The name means ‘our Father’ and it’s rumoured to derive from the prayers of shipwrecked Portuguese sailors in times gone by. Nowadays the village is a photographer’s dream with its traditional fishermen’s houses and colourful fishing boats, which still go out almost every day. 

Huge boulders overlook the bay and a long stretch of sandy white beach is perfect for early-morning walks and spectacular sunsets over the ocean. This is the Atlantic, where the water is pretty chilly most of year, so none but the brave or mad actually venture in. But there’s plenty of sun and loads of visitors keen to dig in on the beach and make the most of it.

We had breakfast at Paternoster Lodge, sitting on the stoep that overlooks the business end of the beach. Gulls were squawking, their only competition the locals who strolled past shouting greetings and teasing each other, or the thrum of a diesel engine as a tractor clanked along the road below. 

Fisherfolk were putting out to sea in little rowing boats to cast their nets. They pulled the boats along the beach without wheels – pretty hard on the wooden bottoms of the boats – or drove their bakkies into the waves to launch them. They have to row out through the breakers until they’re in water deep enough for them to engage the motor and putter past the rocks into open water.

Almost flat some days, like a calm lake, that day the waves were less compliant. The rowers struggled against the swell and the tiny boats rose almost vertically, looking as if they were going to topple over backwards. But they didn’t.

Exploring the beach
A pair of scruffy mutts adopted us on the beach as we fossicked among broken mussel shells and tide-ripples. Our sunken footprints rapidly filled with water seeping up from underneath and were soon obliterated as if by quicksand.

We watched locals collecting mussels on the beach, marvelling at their pluck in taking on those cold waters. Even in a wetsuit for body warmth, their heads, hands and feet were unprotected. Lizelle Pharo had planted a flag showing that she’d bagged a licence to collect white mussels here. Unlike the better known black mussel, which you prise off the rocks, you look for white mussels in the waves. 

Seven young men were working in the breakers, feeling for the mussels with their feet and then diving to retrieve them. Usually, Lizelle told us, they only do this at low tide and in calm water, though that morning the wind was starting to pick up. She said they can find a few thousand in a morning and she sells them to local restaurants.

We walked back through the village, admiring houses with their clean Cape fishing village lines and shutters of mauve, sage and blue. I love that there’s a building code here. You can do anything so long as it’s broadly in the Cape vernacular style and you paint the walls white. This has resulted in an attractive town reminiscent of a Greek island – way better than many small seaside settlements where anything goes, including buildings that look like ablution blocks or battered sheds.

In this harsh West Coast environment, water-wise gardens of hardy plants are popular, with crushed shell areas instead of lawns, and an old boat serving here and there as a garden ornament.

The crayfish story
On our visit a few years ago the crayfish promotion outside the Paternoster Hotel in the main road had more than a whiff of subversion and illegality about it.

​A clutch of leather-clad bikers were swapping stories and working on their beer boeps on the verandah. Exposing bald heads and scrawny grey ponytails to the sun, they watched the impromptu informal market that had popped up in the shade of the trees over the road.

There was a buzz of activity around hot tomatoes and tired peaches. Some protein peddlers were brazen, whipping out a fat crayfish and holding it up, feelers waving rhythmically to show how fresh it was.

Others were more anxious about being fined for what was essentially an illicit activity given that many of them were taking crays without the necessary permits or outside the crayfish season, which only runs from November to March/April. Their subtle technique was to raise their hand, palm facing you, and wiggle their fingers in the hope that you could decode the signs hinting at crayfish. Of course, if you turned out to be the crayfish police, they’d deny everything. 

​Coaxed into chattiness, one scallywag confessed through the gap in his front teeth that when Paternoster was humming with visitors in their self-catering accommodation, he could sell up to thirty of them on a good day. But we weren’t about to encourage this illegal activity; that way lies extinction.

On a more recent visit, the crayfish peddling was more understated but it was still there. A few men prowled the main road with crayfish bulging out of supermarket carry bags. Since this was almost two months before the start of the crayfish season, we knew they were contraband. 

Much as I love Paternoster, I find this aspect difficult. While I have sympathy for people wanting to make a living, I worry about the sustainability of our oceans. And it’s sustainability that’s the reason for the existence of quotas and permits, after all. After chatting candidly to a woman who has lived here all her life, I also worry whether the money the men earn in this illicit way is used for feeding their families or feeding an alcohol or tik habit, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

So here’s my advice.

• Never buy crayfish outside the season (November to March/April).
• In season, rather buy it at the fish market than from a hawker on the street.
• If you’re unsure whether a crayfish is legal, you have the right to ask to see the commercial or small-scale licence.
• Note that crayfish (rock lobster) is now red-listed by the Southern African Sustainable Seafood Initiative (SASSI). This means you shouldn't buy them because the population is not sustainable.

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