At the edge of the land lie the watery places – the ocean shore, the salt marsh, the black-bellied pond. And in them and upon them: clams, mussels, fish of all shapes and sizes, snails, turtles, frogs, eels, crabs, worms, all crawling and diving and squirming among the sea weeds and grasses.’ The American poet Mary Oliver was writing of a very different shore, but her words also describe ‘the edge of the land’ at the mouth of the Kowie River as it existed before the marina development. As with much so-called development, the commercial value of the land trumped its ecological value.

Both the nineteenth-century harbour development and the twentieth- century marina are often portrayed as ‘one man's vision’. In October 1985 Justin de Wet Steyn began negotiations with the municipality of Port Alfred for his company to acquire land adjacent to the Kowie River to build a marina consisting of 355 plots on five constructed islands placed in a complicated set of canals within a 45-hectare private estate near the mouth of the river. This led to an advertisement in the Sunday Times, inviting proposals for the development of ‘the most valuable and centrally situated tract of land in the town’ as a small boat harbour and marina (see Appendix). Subsequently, after the proposal of the Port Alfred Marina Corporation (PAMCOR) was accepted, the municipality transferred 45 hectares of this ‘most valuable land’ to the developer in what was later described as a ‘joint venture between the municipality and the private sector’ or, as a municipal councillor said, a ‘swap, a quid pro quo’. In return for the land the developer had to pay an ‘endowment levy’ to the municipality on each marina plot sold, and he also secured a lease on the small boat harbour for 20 years at a nominal R1 a year with the option to renew until 2028. According to a longstanding resident, there was an ‘outcry’ when these terms were announced.