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After the welcome break on shore for a day, we were more than ready to get back on the water. It was another glorious day with little wind and mild swells. We knew we were in for a great day as we’d seen several Humpback Whales breaching in the distance. Today’s route was to take us from Mazeppa Bay to Coffee Bay, a distance of some 76 kilometres by sea.

But first we had to navigate the launch from Mazeppa Bay. Our Skipper, the Kamikazi Kaiser, safely launched us through the Mazeppa surf but not without having to punch a growler that threatened to upend us and all our expensive photographic equipment.

Somewhat relieved and pumped full of adrenaline we set out to look for Humpback Whales. As usual we first came across a pod of Bottlenose Dolphin working the inshore waves and as usual, their curiosity got the better of them and they rushed out to investigate our boat.

Further along, we came across a herd of cows cruising the beach … as seems to happen on this magnificent coastline. The coastline was enthralling. Rolling hills that plunged down to pristine beaches interchanged with craggy rock formations that stood valiantly against a sea that slowly eroded all in its path.

Our team was completely taken by the topography and landscape and we almost missed a mother Humpback Whale escorting her calf. The little calf must have been newly born as it was still very grey and very small in comparison to its mother. Full of the joy’s of spring it lob- tailled often and kept its mother busy keeping it on the journey north.

Mindful of her duty to her calf we left them in peace and headed out to sea to where a cargo ship was slowly cruising northwards.

We followed the cargo ship for a while until distracted by a leaping, breaching Humpback. This Humpback breached at least 12 times when we were close enough to it and it didn’t seem to mind our presence. After several breaches it was joined by two other Humpbacks and all three dived for what seemed like ages. Finally our breacher surfaced and the other two went on their way as did our breaching whale. Was it some kind of whale caucus meeting? Who knows, but we were ecstatic to be witness to it all.

After three days on the water, our planned break at Mazeppa Bay was heartily welcomed by all. The activity we’d been witness to on the first three days of our trip had left us in a dazed haze and our bodies, unused to being on the boat for 6 hours, were in bad need of a break.

Despite our tiredness, we still managed to rise early and take in the beauty of the morning sunrise. A soft orange sun that painted Mazeppa’s beach and rocky island in pastel colours greeted us, while the sea gently washed perfectly formed waves on the beach and rocks.

Mazeppa Bay is one of those little-known quiet spots of beauty and serenity. Frequented mostly by anglers, it has a wide beach flanked by a rocky island that reaches out into the sea. Between the beach and the island is an exquisite suspension bridge that simply invites a crossing. From the island, sets of magnificent waves roll off the backline into the bay - a surfing paradise? The hotel’s bar is a display centre for the many anglers who have fished this bay for years. Photographs of anglers with magnificent catches of various game fish hang dustily on the walls and, of course, there are photographs of anglers with the sharks they have caught – mainly Raggies, Duskys, Coppers and Zambezis. This was probably the hardest part of the trip for our team to accept but accept it we did, reminding ourselves that this trip was a fact finding mission and not a crusade.

Our day was spent exploring inland. Michael, our guide for the day, took us to meet with local entrepreneurs and a Sangoma and her family. We met with Rodney, who has returned to his family home after an absence of 10 years and who is in the process of rebuilding the fruit business that once thrived there. This was a common theme of the people we met – rebuild, escape from the city and get back to nature.We were privileged to meet with a Sangoma and her family. Her Grandmother, at 93 years old, was a treat and an inspiration and kept us amused with her antics.

We ended the day by climbing the dunes north of the bay. It is rumoured that a treasure ship was wrecked on this beach and the treasure buried beneath what is now a very large dune.

We didn’t attempt to dig for gold but had huge fun climbing the dune and running down.

Mazeppa is a wonderful peaceful place to rest your soul and take in the beauty of the Transkei. Go take a look.

An adult humpback whale beached in Ballito on Saturday, the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board said.

The whale was partially decomposed when it washed up on Boulder Beach, said operations head Mike Anderson-Reade.

He estimated that the whale had been dead for about four days, and presumed it died of natural causes. It had not yet been removed.

The board warned surfers and swimmers to stay away from the water as it determined the presence of intense shark activity because of bite marks on the carcass.

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Cape Town - A whale that became entangled in a 40-metre nylon rope was freed on Saturday afternoon near Gordon’s Bay in a meticulously planned rescue operation.

Employees from the department of environmental affairs, with the support of the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), used sharp knives to cut free the one-year-old southern right whale, which presumably became entangled on Friday afternoon at Hangklip.

The crew of a boat in False Bay saw on Friday night how the whale was hitting the water with its tail and realised it was in distress and was probably tangled.

“But it was nearly dark and we decided to only go out the next morning,” said Mike Meyer, a spokesperson of the department for environmental affairs’ branch for oceans and coast, on Sunday evening.

“All along the coastline there are fish nets in which whales can become entangled. When a whale swims into a net, it starts turning round and round in an attempt to free itself. But that is actually the worst thing it can do because then it becomes more entangled.”

Infection

According to Meyer, a rope like that usually caught on the thin part of the tail, in front of the tail fin.

Often, as was also the case with this whale, there was a buoy attached to the rope. If an entangled whale was not helped, it could die eventually.

“The rope cuts into the animal’s flesh and it leads to infection.”

“The buoy keeps the animal on the surface of the ocean and prevents him from feeding and eating properly.”

“As this whale was helped within a day, he was not injured too badly,” Meyer added.

Officials from the branch asked the NSRI, tourist boats and other boats to look out for the whale on Saturday morning.

After they established that it was near Koeël Bay, NSRI volunteers took three members of the branch in NSRI boats to the whale.

Quick operation

They herded the whale to calmer waters in Gordon’s Bay.

They could then throw a kedge anchor on a rope toward him so that it could be fixed to the rope on his tail. Two buoys were tied to the rope so that the whale would remain on the surface.

Then they switched off the boat’s engines and carefully approached the whale. They pulled the rope toward them and carefully cut it off with sharp knives.

The rescue operation took about 30 minutes.

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 3^rd 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.

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.