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Mossel Bay, South Africa (spelled Mosselbaai in Afrikaans) lies along the Indian Ocean east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of Humansdorp.
Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Diaz arrived Mossel Bay on February 3, 1488, thus proving to his sponsors that Africa had a southern tip; making it theoretically possible to sail from Europe to India. Originally called by Diaz Aguada de Sào Bras ("Bay of St Blaize"), the village/harbour was renamed Mosselbaai (translated: Mossel Bay, "Bay of Mussels") in 1601 by Dutch navigator Paulus van Caerden, as he found the bay to be abundant with mussels. He also called a nearby bay, where he found cattle herders Vlees Bay (Afrikaans: Vleesbaai, "Bay of Meat").
The first trading between inhabitants of Europe and Southern African in Mossel Bay was in 1497 between Vasco da Gama and the local Khoi-San tribe at what is now Mossel Bay. In the following years, Portuguese sailors would use Mossel Bay as a halfway station where the KhoiSan offered them food. A small stream was used for fresh water (it now only flows beneath the surface).
Another notable historical landmark in Mossel Bay is a large milkwood which served as a post office with Pedro de Ataide's 1500 posting of an important letter in a shoe under the tree. Important letters would be left in a shoe by sailors and later picked up by anther ship.
In 1500 or 1501 Joao da Nova erected the Mossel Bay Stone, which marked a chapel dedicated to St. Blaize. The original stone has been moved to the Natural Cultural History Museum of South Africa, but a cast is in the collection of the Diaz Museum Complex.
The Diaz Complex in Mossel Bay marks the spot of the historical landing of Diaz. The 500 year old Post Office Tree, a national monument, can still be seen at the site, now harbouring a post box shaped as a shoe.
Also located in the complex are the remnants of the Spring, the Maritime Museum (which houses a duplicate of the Caraval on which Diaz arrived, which arrived in Mossel Bay in 1987, a gift from the Government of Portugal.
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