I was wondering if anybody knows of a Lyman (or Lysman's) Bay off Cape Town South Africa.
I am presently researching the voyage of the convict ship Guildford which travelled between Portsmouth and Sydney Australia between 14 May 1820 and 30 September 1820.

The ship stopped off for 14 days in August 1820 at Cape Town to resupply. The surgeon's log indicates that the ship anchored off Cape Town in Lyman (or Lysman's) Bay. He repeated this name 4 or 5 times during the 14 entries in August.

I have looked at every map I could find in Australia and have tried again and again to see if anyone on the web has any idea where this Bay is (or was?) positioned in reference to the present Table Bay. I have had no success.

It might be that he got the name wrong (and I could understand this if he wrote it once in the journal) but its repeated use stresses on me that he was convinced the ship was anchored in Lyman's Bay rather than some other Bay. The Bay must be close to Cape Town proper as the sailors appear to have rowed across to the Town.

I would greatly appreciate anyone who could help me with this.

Thanking you

Khanno01

There is a Lyman's Bay near Kailua Kona on the Hawaii Big Island...

Well, Googling it did no good, and a quick visual of the Cape Town area with Google Earth didn't show it, but I could have missed it. You might want to try a closer look yourself. You might keep in mind also that the name may have changed over almost 200 years... perhaps reverting to the original African language name, say, or Mr./Ms. Lyman fell out of favor with the locals and they changed it to another name, meaning you need to find an old chart. Perhaps it is simply too small a bay to merit notice now.


If you really want to go nuts over it, try searching with this. Maptech : Topo Maps Charts Navigation Software GPS and Online MapServer (http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/index.cfm?lat=-33.93758943180545&lon=18.39305657984093&scale=100000&zoom=50&type=0&icon=0&width=498&height=498&searchscope=dom&CFID=3249230&CFTOKEN=97836637&scriptfile=http://mapserver.maptech.com/homepage/index.cfm&latlontype=DMS) it's a bit clumsy, but (bless Maptech's heart) free and detailed.