Morgan Bay sits below its cliffs on sand cover over Beaufort Group rock, a small coastal village just south of the Great Kei.
Limited village infrastructure and real holiday-season peaks, which is what the design has to carry.
What Is Under Morgan Bay
The formations below are what a rig actually meets on a Morgan Bay property, and between them they govern the depth, the casing requirement and what the hole will realistically give you.
| Formation | Where it sits | What it means for drilling |
|---|---|---|
| Schelm Hoek Formation dune sand | The modern dune cordon behind the beaches | Genuinely unconsolidated and shallow. The one wellpoint target on this coast, and it needs screened casing and a gravel pack if drilled. |
| Nahoon Formation aeolianite | Beneath and inland of the dune sand, often on a wave-cut platform | Consolidated calcareous aeolianite with thin calcrete and palaeosols. Looks like sand, behaves like rock, and needs a drilled and cased hole. |
| Beaufort Group rock with dolerite | Below the coastal cover, and at surface where the cover thins | The fallback where the sand is thin. Fracture-dependent and dependent on a dolerite contact. |
Send your street and what the water is for, and get an itemised quote for Morgan Bay.
Get a Morgan Bay Borehole QuoteWhat That Means for Your Borehole
- Sand thickness decides what you are buying, and it varies sharply over short distances along this coast. A shallow screened hole and a deep hole into rock are different products at different prices.
- Salinity here is an abstraction problem more than a distance problem, because over-pumping draws the saline interface toward the hole. The tested sustainable rate is the protection.
- Screen slot size and gravel pack grading are what keep a sand hole running clear. It is the biggest quality difference between quotes on this coast.
Where We Work Around Morgan Bay
- Morgan Bay village and the beachfront
- The cliffs and the lagoon side
- Kei Mouth approaches
- Double Mouth and the coastal reserve
- Holiday homes and guest properties
- Larger plots on the inland edge
What to Watch For Here
Holiday-season demand is several times the off-season figure, so the system is sized for the peak week rather than the average month.
Proximity to the lagoon and the sea makes the sustainable rate the number that protects the hole from going brackish.
What the Water Is Used For
- Irrigating coastal gardens and lawn
- Rinsing salt off paving, walls and vehicles
- Pool top-up, subject to what the analysis says
- Standby supply through restrictions and outages
- Keeping mature planting alive through summer
Wellpoint or Borehole?
Yes on the dune cordon and the river alluvium at the estuaries, and this is one of the better stretches of the province for it. Not in the Nahoon aeolianite, which is consolidated despite looking like compacted sand.
Water Quality in Morgan Bay
Coastal sand water here is vulnerable to whatever happens at surface, because recharge is quick, so bacteriological testing belongs on the list. Saline intrusion is the other constraint near the estuaries and the shoreline, and iron is a common nuisance that stains rather than harms.
A water analysis is what turns that from a general expectation into a number for your specific hole, and treatment should be specified against the result rather than against the area's reputation.
Registration and Abstraction
Groundwater itself is regulated nationally rather than municipally, and we could not find a published borehole by-law for this district municipality. As the water services authority it can still require approval before a property draws on an alternative supply, so we confirm the local position before drilling rather than assuming it. Separately, the National Water Act governs how much you may abstract. Reasonable domestic use and small-scale garden watering generally fall under Schedule 1 and need no licence or registration, but taking more than 10 cubic metres a day from groundwater on a property must be registered, and irrigation or commercial volumes usually require registration or a water use authorisation from the Department of Water and Sanitation.
Related Services
For the drilling process itself, the geology across the rest of the country and how a quote is put together, see Borehole Installers South Africa.
Borehole Prices in Morgan Bay
Drilling is charged per metre, so depth drives the total. The ranges below are framed for local ground conditions and access.
| Item | Indicative range | What moves it locally |
|---|---|---|
| Drilling, per metre | R450 - R1,000 /m | Sand drills fast and shallow, so drilling is rarely the biggest line on a coastal quote. Where the hole goes into rock, that changes. |
| uPVC casing, installed, per metre | R450 - R800 /m | Screened casing and gravel pack through the producing sand. This is where the cost sits on a sand hole, and where corners get cut. |
| Mobilisation and site establishment | R2,500 - R14,000 | Access, distance and site conditions move this; a site visit settles it before quoting. |
| Water survey | R5,000 - R12,000 | Targets structure rather than depth. Worth most where yield is fracture-dependent. |
| Yield testing | R3,500 - R15,000 | Establishes the sustainable rate that pump selection depends on. |
| Pump, supplied and installed | R15,000 - R45,000 | Greater depth means more head, which means a larger pump and heavier cable. |
| Storage and booster | R12,000 - R35,000 | Needed wherever peak demand exceeds the borehole's sustainable rate. |
| Typical complete project | R60,000 - R170,000+ | Everything above, excluding treatment, which depends entirely on the water analysis. |
These are indicative ranges, not a quotation. They are compiled from published South African supplier and contractor pricing to give you a starting point for budgeting. They are not our rate card, and no figure here is a commitment.
Treat them as a broad guide only. Published borehole pricing in South Africa varies enormously - different 2026 guides quote per-metre drilling rates for the same province that differ by a factor of three - because depth, geology, access, specification, distance and fuel costs all move the number. Depth in particular is not known until the hole is finished. Figures generally exclude VAT unless noted, and change over time. Only an itemised written quote against your actual site means anything.
Morgan Bay Borehole FAQs
How do I size a borehole for holiday peaks?
Around storage rather than around the pump. A modest yield filling a decent tank through the week covers a full house over a weekend; a big pump on a modest hole just draws it down faster.
The tested sustainable rate tells you how much the hole refills in a day, which is the number the storage calculation starts from.
Is the water here likely to be salty?
Near the lagoon and the shoreline it can be, and over-pumping makes it worse.
An analysis after yield testing establishes where you actually stand, and the pump is then set to a rate that holds that position.
Is a wellpoint an option at Morgan Bay?
On the dune cordon, often yes, and for garden irrigation it does the job at a fraction of a borehole's cost.
The thing to watch is that the Nahoon Formation inland of the dunes is consolidated aeolianite. It looks like sand and cannot be driven, so a point that works on one stand may be impossible on the next.
Will a borehole at Morgan Bay turn salty?
Only if it is pumped harder than the ground recharges. Proximity to the sea sets the risk; the pumping rate decides whether it materialises.
Yield testing establishes the sustainable rate and the pump is specified to it. Reversing rising salinity afterwards is far harder than designing for it.
NEED A BOREHOLE IN MORGAN BAY?
Send your street and what you need the water for, and get an itemised quote.
Get My Free QuoteGet a Borehole Quote in Morgan Bay
Tell us where you are and what the water is for.
Client Reviews
Powered by leaderr
