Ocean Safari (aka sardine run) 2011 Official thread

It was a slow day so I thought I'd do an update.

All gone quiet after the big storm. Seas still pretty big now. Hopefully conditions get better in the next few days.

Bad news for the group on the Snow Petrel. Apparently they found the plastic gyre of the Indian Ocean and are back in the harbor for repairs. I do feel sorry for those on the boat but at least there's no action that they missed.

In 1.5 weeks there'll be over 16 boats in a small area. Gonna be pretty tight suqeeze if action is sparse! Hopefully it becomes like 2005, where there's like. 14 km of activity so no one has to intrude on other's action.

Oh and 2 sailfish in baitball... All very small school of less than 100 fish!

Updated twitter with some pics of sardine netting.

https://twitter.com/#!/wpoceansafari

It was a slow day so I thought I'd do an update.

 

All gone quiet after the big storm. Seas still pretty big now. Hopefully conditions get better in the next few days.

 

Bad news for the group on the Snow Petrel. Apparently they found the plastic gyre of the Indian Ocean and are back in the harbor for repairs. I do feel sorry for those on the boat but at least there's no action that they missed.

 

In 1.5 weeks there'll be over 16 boats in a small area. Gonna be pretty tight suqeeze if action is sparse! Hopefully it becomes like 2005, where there's like. 14 km of activity so no one has to intrude on other's action.

 

Oh and 2 sailfish in baitball... All very small school of less than 100 fish!

Hi Drew,

Plastic gyre is about right!! It is very sad to see the effects we have on the ocean when every plastic piece of crap in creation is washed down the rivers. We took the groups up to Umkomaas where we had a great time with the raggies, dolphins and of course the blacktips. We even saw a couple of baitbals right at the river mouth, but as the viz was murky and there is the odd Zambi hanging around there we contented ourselves with some shots of the gannets and the sards being chased.

Good news is that all should be a go for the last three trips and maybe this mad weather will have a chance to settle down.

Good luck and good hunting.

Cheers,

Ivan

Yet another bad weather gone mad! But we had 6 baitballs yesterday... all red eye herring. Lots of problems with the snorkeling boats which dissipate all bait activity very quickly. A few ops were up in arms over it. I had a few choice words. That's the problem when overcrowding becomes an issue as the business grows!

Had a 2 hour long baitball of mostly red eye herring in not so great viz and got battered going home in the wind. The weather has been atrocious! Even shared the baitball and tanks with another boat.

 

Hi Drew,

 

Plastic gyre is about right!! It is very sad to see the effects we have on the ocean when every plastic piece of crap in creation is washed down the rivers. We took the groups up to Umkomaas where we had a great time with the raggies, dolphins and of course the blacktips. We even saw a couple of baitbals right at the river mouth, but as the viz was murky and there is the odd Zambi hanging around there we contented ourselves with some shots of the gannets and the sards being chased.

 

Good news is that all should be a go for the last three trips and maybe this mad weather will have a chance to settle down.

 

Good luck and good hunting.

 

Cheers,

Ivan

Ivan

I'm sorry to hear about all your troubles. Good to hear from you that the boat is finally working and your crew are at sea. Maybe we'll see your boat up here in a few days if you brave the big seas to come up to where we are. Big weather until Friday at least!

Had a wonderful day with a Bryde's whale following the boat for 2 miles like a little trained puppy. We were putting around and it popped up behind us. We decided to stay straight thinking it would just avoid us but it just followed behind us.

It's happened to us before a few years ago when another Bryde's whale just circled our boat continuously but took off once another boat came in.

The number of visitors coming to South Africa for this event is increasing rapidly. That isn't a problem if the operators were experienced and managed their people. However, briefings, like safety has been slacking these few years and it's becoming a problem and a nuisance to have rude operators drop in on action other divers are already on and dissipating the predators so everyone loses.

Also the inexperienced divers now crowding the boats are a problem. Just yesterday on our baitball, out of courtesy we allowed 2 divers from another boat to get in on our action but they messed it up for everyone with their inexperience and stupidity. Pulling the buoy line into the baitballs and staying under the baitball blowing bubbles, impeding both predators and other divers!

I guess that's what happens when a good thing becomes popular!

Hi Drew,

When will you leave Mboyti? We don't have Snow Petrel for the sardine run, so we will stay at Mboyti for 10 days instead. We will arrive after Amos' group which is on 24 July.

How is the situation now? weather, sardine ?

BTW, do you mind to give us some guidelines and tips for the sardine run action, so we don't act like what you have mentioned, inexperience and stupid !

We hope we can all have fun and follow the rules of the game as well.

Thank you so much in advance !!

Edmond

Edmond,

So there isn't a boat now? I know Mauricio and co spent time on Aliwal instead of actually chasing baitfish but Ivan stated that the boat was back in order. But I guess not.

As for etiquette, I assume you'll be diving with Walter and African Water Sports. I'm sure Walter will brief you accordingly. It's whether you listen or not that's the key!

Weatherwise, it'd been a terrible year but it seems to have settled. July use to be the bad month for weather but this year, June was horrific so hopefully it'll stay nice for awhile. I'm not operating out of Mboyti.

Hi Drew,

We don't have a boat since there is no adequate time for full recovery of Snow Petrel before our trip.

OK, then we will follow the standard procedure and pay extra attention to the briefing and behave properly during the action, as least not to be stupid.

Take care and have a good time.

Regards

Edmond

Sorry to hear that Edmond.

I'm up in civilization for a day before I go back to the grind. Looks like the mackerel run has started... imagine gannets that have difficulty swallowing the fish and then fighting over the fish on the surface!

We saw yellowfin tuna and sailfish already. Earlier this week, my buddies saw schooling juvenile scalloped hammerheads while free diving on a reef inshore.

The season hasn't been kind to many. The sardines seem to be bypassing all the working areas of diving boats and popping up in the KZN south coast. They can go deep (well deeper than we can see) so it's not surprising. However, with the herring (redeye and bigeye) and mackerel, it's still action. My pet peeve is that many operators tell their clients herring are sardines and it's simply not true!

Hi Drew,

Thanks for your advice and information. We will stay at Durban and primarily dive at Aliwal Shoal which is suggested by Ivan.

Best Regards

Edmond

Well, I would recommend you try get a boat in the south and do the run. The predators are still here and there's plenty of action. The viz has cleared so it's a matter of time before everything falls into place. Even the topside photography alone is worth the journey, compared to Aliwal.

I personally would be pissed off if I were to travel all the way from HK just to do Aliwal. The chummed shark diving is fun for tourists, but we had dusky sharks surrounding the boat just 2 days ago and we could've jumped in with them without chum. The raggies on Aliwal are pretty cool but there are raggies down south too, plus a bigger variety of shark and dolphins to swim with.

Opps spoke too soon. Seems the weather is going to be iffy in the transkei although the forecasts have been off quite a bit this year. I'd monitor the weather closer to departure. Usually what happens in Eastern Cape goes up to Durbss. So diving in both places will be difficullt. Good luck.

Moved the pics to the showcase forum:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=42355

Will still report on this thread.