Captain Duarte Rato and clients targeting Bazaruto Sailfish for catch ‘n release thrills are beginning the season well. Bazaruto in winter time is famous for it’s proliferation of maddeningly hungry sailies and strikes often run into double figures. The sailfish are mainly taken dragging smaller plastics – making it easy to release the fish without damage. And it hardly could be called winter time – the water stays in the mid 20’s and the weather is sun filled island stuff.
Check out Duarte’s new website, fishbazaruto.com for more and more absolutely crazy entertaining fishing stories. The site features years of Duarte’s “Captain’s Logs” from all over the game-fishing planet. Excellent reading.
FishBazaruto’s latest entry featuring Mike Koch reads here…
The forward thinking folks over at IGFA (International Game Fishing Association), noted the decline in our fisheries over the decades. The official keepers of world record catch data saw it happening, and started to work towards a more conservation oriented organisation.
They embraced the internet and what it can do, and implemented a stream of measures and projects centred around conservation and education. And now this, their latest and rather fanciful exercise – a marlin race!
It’s been running since 2011 and it’s appeal has grown and grown. Sponsorship poured in and many satellite tags were deployed into hapless but free to swim marlin, caught and tagged by anglers around the world, including right here in South Africa.
IGFA Great Marlin Race: and a satellite tag is deployed with the release of a huge black marlin off Australia. Image courtesy IGFA
So, the farthest swimming marlin wins the race. Or, the boat who tagged that far swimming fish get the honours. The marlin already won his prize – his life! The IGFA Great Marlin Race has been a huge success and data gathered from the project will be analysed and honed into solid recommendations by Stanford University, for the conservation of our billfish species.
Driving down the coast from Durban on the southern freeway is a delight. It really must be one of the most beautiful drives on the planet as it skirts the coastline and weaves through indigenous thickets and over a stream of rivers and estuaries. And then it all ends. Abruptly. Just after Port Edward. The most dangerous road in my world unfolds as a snakes and ladders affair with huge potholes vying for attention with huge trucks and busses coming the other way. Pull this all together and you survive, but one mistake can cost you dearly. Add into the equation the overpopulated roads filled with kids, adults, dogs, goats, cows, sheep, horses, donkeys and mules! And then they even got the cheek to throw cops at you, with road blocks and all!
Basically, hit two or three of those potholes properly, and you lose one or two tyres. Every time!
Advice – embrace the situation, don’t overtake or get overtaken unnecessarily, give plenty space in front of you so you have a chance to see the potholes coming, and just take it easy up and through the hills of Bizana, Flagstaff and Lusikisiki, because the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, is just a few clicks away. The descent into the lush fruit bowl of the Wild Coast brings it altogether again as the now awesome stretch of road takes you down into the super cool town of Port St. Johns.
Port St. Johns is a most spectacular visit. There is just so much in and around that treasure trove that is the Umzimvubu River valley and it’s beaches. (c) Artsurfer.nl
There is so much to do in Port St. Johns you could get lost for weeks exploring its treasures. Leaving there south takes you basically along the coast but about 20kms inland. From this easily passable dirt road there are more dirt roads that lead to the many beaches, points and bays of the Wild Coast. Use a GPS and choose your spot. Keep heading south to find New Road that connects to Coffee Bay. In the old days we used to have to drive all the way up to Umtata and then back down to Coffee Bay, so this new connection really opens this stretch of coastline up. The GPS recognizes new road and navigates remarkably well out in the sticks.
But the road is torrid, the heaving rains washed away the dirt in between the rocks so it’s like driving on a pebble highway. Tyres get hammered and this road is where we started our troubles. We had decided to head up to Ngcwanguba Store for supplies and on the way back we got our first flat. Spare tyre out, and a speedy tyre change gets us back on the road. It’s dark, raining and 10kms from home, the next tyre goes?! No choice but to drive very slowly on the rim through the dirt, mud, puddles and dongas to our fleeting home at Mdumbi. Thank goodness for good people and the next day Warren from Cool Banana Spaza Shop at Mdumbi (they sell everything including fishing tackle), took it upon himself to drive the 50kms to Coffee Bay and repair our one reparable tyre. He was so considerate – made us breakfast and insisted that we spend the day walking to Umtata Mouth and back. We grabbed our rods and dogs and for a few hours, once again, got completely wrapped up and lost in the magic of the Kei. Thank you Warren and Noli!
The road up to Umtata…is slightly better than what you will have been accustomed to. You just get a few new ingredients to throw into the mix. The roads were not built with cambers in mind. No, they were just slapped down onto the hills willy nilly so cornering is best done very carefully. The goats and horses pose the next risk, the taxis not to be forgotten, potholes still vex…
Umtata to East London…is a pleasure, after what we have just been through. We got a new tyre in a small town on the way to Viedgesville, where we turned south again. Wide roads mean more time to avoid obstacles like cows and sheep, and the odd darting bush cat.
Having done our business in the Cape, heading home through Umtata, we left Spargs Superspar in Beacon Bay, at 11am. Except for the usual hazards, the trip was uneventful until…
30kms Outside Kokstad, a cop comes screaming up behind me, light and sirens blazing and blaring. I thought he was after me, so pulled over but he just sped on past, really fast. 2kms Further and there he is, stopping all traffic?!
A kilometer ahead are about 30 taxis, a huge crowd, a battalion of police officers. Turns out the taxi operators in the area wanted to put a stop to some impending competition, and as the luckless trio came round the bend ahead, the taxi operators opened fire with 9mm weapons and shot the three to death. Their car careened off the road and the crime scene allowed absolutely no traffic through. Either way.
After an hour, somebody in our queue researched and found a dirt track around the problem. That took an hour of sweat droplets each time we went over a sharp stone or through a pothole. The road was narrow and in places only one car at a time could navigate through. So into Kokstad for some much needed coffee and sustenance, back on the road, and safely home at 7:30pm. 2 Hours late?!
Eish! 2 Hours – the whole main road through the country is stopped in it’s tyre tracks! (c) Artsurfer.nl
On the search for sardines – join these elegant yet swift hunters as they search the Transkei Wild Coast for signs of the elusive sardine shoals trying to sneak by un-nnoticed by the multitude of marine and human life waiting eagerly for them. Please share and enjoy the image by Rob Nettleton.
On the search for sardines…May heralds colder conditions and more westerley winds – exactly what the sardines want. Offshore Africa in Port St. Johns are practically full but have had a few cancellations right in the prime sardine and marine life sighting weeks – head on over to http://www.offshoreportstjohns.com/ to make an enquiry.
