Kwaaihoek is a rocky headland on the coast of Algoa Bay

Algoa Bay

Algoa Bay is a wide inlet along the South African east coast, some 425 miles east of the Cape of Good Hope. It is bounded in the west by Cape Recife and in the east by Cape Padrone. The bay is up to 436 m deep...

, near Bushman's River Mouth in the Eastern Cape

Eastern Cape

The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...

 province of South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. It is here that the Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Dias erected the Padrão de São Gregório, his first padrão

Padrão

A padrão was a large stone cross inscribed with the coat of arms of Portugal that was placed as part of a land claim by numerous Portuguese explorers during the Portuguese Age of Discovery...

, or stone cross on 12 March 1488. First visited by Robert Jacob Gordon on 13 February 1786, remnants of the cross were rediscovered in 1938 by Prof. E. Axelson and transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand

University of the Witwatersrand

The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg is a South African university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University...

 in Johannesburg

Johannesburg

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...

.
34 kilometres (21.1 mi) away, shortly after midnight on 17 July 1755, the East Indiaman Doddington struck the south-eastern corner of the low-lying Bird Island (or Chaos Island as it was then known) . She went down within 20 minutes, with only 23 of the 270 passengers and crew surviving. They were marooned on the island for seven months, before they managed to make their way to India on a sloop they built on the island.