The East Cape Epic Expedition – Day 2 – Port Alfred to East London
by Admin on Aug.05, 2010, under Conservation, East Coast Expedition, Travel
Cormac is currently on a 7 day expedition from Port Elizabeth to Port St Johns. The trip is an exploratory sea-going venture to gain a better understanding of the marine life on the South African East Coast. The trip has been organized jointly by African Diver and Rainer Schimpf of Expert Tours (www.expert-tours.com).
Rainer operates from his base at Port Elizabeth and this trip has long been an ambition of his. He also runs and NGO called Ocean Messengers (www.ocean-messengers.com) which focuses on ocean conservation.
Entries in the blog catalogue Cormac’s trip and the October issue of African Diver magazine will carry a full feature on it.
Further blog entries from other parties on the expedition can be found at www.mype.co.za
Day 2
Port Alfred to East London
After a lazy breakfast our little party left Port Alfred destined for East London. Once again the weather Gods had been kind to us and we delighted in another lazy sea day. That said, waves were crashing on the rocky coastline and leaving the harbour at Port Alfred was an exciting mad dash out of the harbour entrance once we caught a lull in the waves. Although we had a lazy sea, the sky was overcast and grey, but it looked like the clouds would burn off in a midday sun and we would be treated to blue skies again.
It didn’t take us long to find some excitement and we spent about an hour tailing a small Humpback family; two adults and a calf. This was consistent with our experience of the previous day when we had come across several small families of 2 adults and a calf.
Having left the Humpback family to their meanderings we headed into deeper water hoping to find some form of marine action. Great shafts of sunlight broke through the cloud cover in patches illuminating huge spot-lit areas of the ocean. Now and then blue sky broke over our heads, encouraging us to move ever deeper.
As the cloud cover broke up, in the distance, we caught sight of Gannets wheeling and diving and so we raced towards them. As we got closer it became apparent that the Gannets were following a mega-pod of Common Dolphin. The pod was spread out and was obviously hunting. Every now and then the dolphin would isolate a school of fish and the Gannets would wheel in and dive into the water to feed. The dolphin and Gannet were hunting Garfish and not Sardines as we had hoped.
The dolphin, were in a playful mood and each time we sped up they swiftly slipped into our bow wave to surf in front of our boat. Because the pod was so spread out we were able to “work” a very large patch of the ocean and “play” with them.
At some stage during all of this activity the pod came upon a two families of Humpback Whale and we were treated to the magnificent experience of having two species of cetacean sharing the ocean with us.
By now the sun had won its battle with the clouds and the sky was a magnificent azure and so was the ocean. It was too inviting to miss and so we kitted up and joined the dolphin in the water. Visibility was a magnificent 20 meters and clear of phytoplankton. Sunrays danced in front of us as it pierced and illuminated the waters beneath us.
We could hear the clicks and squeaks of the dolphin but also the deeper rumble of the Humpbacks. With so much activity the ocean sounded like a high street in Johannesburg in peak traffic.
We realised we were in the path of the oncoming whales and readied our cameras in the hope of a once-in-a-lifetime shot …
Little did I know just how once-in-a-lifetime that experience would be. For the full story and images, catch the October issue of African Diver, out on 1 October.