Mariner's Wharf

Mariner's Wharf can be seen in the distance across Hout Bay harbour

Mariner's Wharf is a wharf on the shore of Hout Bay, near Cape Town, in South Africa. Built by a local family, the Dormans, whose predecessors farmed the Hout Bay valley in the 1900s, the wharf lies between Hout Bay's beach and the busy fishing harbour.

It has an open air bistro, an upstairs seafood restaurant and a shop that sells marine-related curios and a substantial fish and shellfish market. A little farm on the Hout Bay Main Road is now used as a bakery store selling breads, biscuits and also vegetables; and is named Oakhurst after the original family farm. The wharf runs along by the main pier in the town, flanked by moored fishing boats.

Mariner's Wharf thrives on tourism and has a number of tour operators who regularly launch cruises in small boats to watch local sea birds and to photograph the Cape fur seals on Duiker Island. The wharf is also a center of a local game fishing organization which regularly organizes expeditions off Hout Bay shores to catch fish such as Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus Albacares), longfin tuna (Thunnus Alalunga), yellowtail (Seriola Lalandi) broadbill swordfish(Xiphias gladius), and marlin (Istiophoridae).^[1]

Coordinates: 34°02′51″S 18°20′54″E / 34.0475°S 18.3482°E / -34.0475; 18.3482

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