Waves, walks, wrecks and wine

St Francis is an Eastern Cape gem

- Jim Freeman

When a Portuguese mariner named the southeasternmost point of Africa after the patron saint of sailors in 1575, he had no idea the mayhem the coastline from Storms River to Shark Point would wreak on shipping over the centuries ahead. Manuel Perestrelo named it Bahia de Sao Francisco, an area that encompasses St Francis as well as Jeffreys Bay.

The former constitutes three separate villages – the original Cape St Francis, Port St Francis and St Francis Bay – that have effectively merged thanks to urban creep. Each has a different profile; the "Cape" is the original settlement around the Seal Point lighthouse built in 1878, the up-market "Bay" built around The Canals marina with the mixed-use "Port" separating the two.

Together the three constitute a holiday town even though there is effectively only one hotel between them; the five-star, five-room Sands @ St Francis Hotel operated by the Port Elizabeth Hotel Group (www.pehotels.co.za).

A visit to the St Francis Tourism website (www.stfrancistourism.co.za), however, reveals dozens of lodges, resorts, self-catering (including AirBnB) homes and apartments, guesthouses and bed-and-breakfast establishments of every possible level of sophistication.

By far the most exotic is the Seal Point Lighthouse (www.sealpointlighthouse.com) itself, which includes two luxurious self-catering wings that were the original lighthouse-keepers' quarters and the standalone three-bedroom Sand Cottage.

Also on the premises (owned by Transnet but operated privately under lease since 2019) is Nevermind, the only restaurant in the Eastern Cape to receive a star rating at last month's 2025 Eat Out Woolworths Restaurant of the Year awards.