The East Cape Epic Expedition – Day 3 East London to Mazeppa Bay
by Admin on Aug.06, 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 3
East London to Mazeppa Bay
Departing East London harbour was a particularly uneventful affair and we slipped out into the ocean for the 3rd day of our epic expedition. We spent some time photographing, from the sea, the hotels on the East London promenade. The light was tricky as there was a pervasive haze that had enveloped the ocean all around us.
It wasn’t long before we caught up with a pod of Bottlenose Dolphin hunting for breakfast. They too played in our bow wave for a while before heading back to the task of finding food to eat. A playful baby’s curiosity kept getting the better of it and it kept returning to race alongside our boat and dance in the bow wave. Mum, though, eventually took it away to more mundane things.
The hazy light made it difficult for us to see any activity on the ocean and we noticed there were a lot fewer birds in the air. Only the occasional Skua broke the monotony. Skua have a habit of following a moving boat as they have learned that there are always tasty morsels being thrown overboard. They race alongside us and peer into the boat looking for food. Each time any one of us raised an arm the Skua would dip down to investigate … obviously a learned behaviour.
The day was devoted to Humpback Whales with a short break to photograph the town of Kei Mouth from the sea. We followed a pair of adult humpbacks for while and were treated to several breaches by them. Each breach was an exciting noisy affair that hoisted massive waves of water into the air, like crashing waves on a rocky beach.
Our pair of whales eventually slowed down and we left them to rest but were almost immediately distracted by more breaching activity deeper out to sea.
Quietly we headed out to investigate and found our family from yesterday’s interaction having what seemed to be a huge communication session. Both adult whales were tail-slapping the water and smashing their massive flippers with great crashes of water while the calf swam round in between the adults. Every now and then one of the adults would disappear and then shoot out of the water with a rousing splash that was incredibly spectacular.
Sadly, by now the wind had come up and we reluctantly abandoned the noisy family and headed for our over night at Mazeppa bay.