Casa Algodoal early season accommodation specials at Praia do Tofo
Early season accommodation specials at Praia do Tofo include the fabulous Casa Algodoal, as can be seen below.
This spot literally hangs out onto Tofo Beach – views to the horizon.
Where you can literally spot the odd manta ray, dolphins – even a whale shark as they also start moving in for the season – right off the verandah!
The December season, which is promising to be fantastic and fun as it always has been –Â is right around the corner?! Tofo has long been a great place to socialise and party, in amongst all the other activities like…scuba and snorkel, surfing, fishing, exploring, cruising the markets, eating at the fusion cuisine styled restaurants and just plain hanging on the beach and in the water.
For more information or to make a booking request, click here.
See you on the beach!
Tofinho is around the corner on the next headland south. Incredible barrel waves.
Today, The Sardine Team and a few interested touros, made the list to make a cool visit to Dave Charleys Inhambane tilapia fish farm. Dave gave us his fish farm tour through the various processes of fish breeding, production and processing.
We started out in the brooding department. Tilapia are mouth brooders, so after the eggs have been harvested from the breeding fish tanks, they are placed in the mouth brooder simulator. Where after a day or so they grow eyes, and then a minuscule tail, as they eat through their start-up egg sacs. This ration lasts three days about, after which the 3mm fishies are moved to a juvenile tank.
Here the fish join the  Inhambane fish farm run to manhood. They are fed proteins which force the issue – males grow 30% faster than females. But they eat a lot of food! And this is the most expensive part of the process.
The Inhambane Tilapia fish farm then harvests the fish at different sizes. The current offering, the family pack like punnet of four or six fish, sells for an incredibly cheap 60 to 100 Meticals. And has enough protein to feed a family – especially in a delicious fish soup, or grilled on a fire. This has given the local people a source of cheap, sustainable fish protein.
Dave Charley and then partner Chris Scarffe, colluded a few years back, to produce a well screened documentary on the plight of sharks and the local communities who were harvesting them. The doccie, called Shiver, was well received and helped initiate many measures towards the conservation of sharks. But, the biggest motivator to come from the production, was the simple fact that the ocean could not sustain these communities’ protein requirements.
And so Dave set about to remedy the huge problem. And his Inhambane tilapia fish farming project was born.
The final product – available right now at Machavenga supermarket…
At this stage, Dave is focused on completing his fish feed plant, also on site at Machavenga between Praia do Tofo and Inhambane. The plant will not only provide Dave with this vital ingredient, but also the many co-operative members he works with. Fish are out-farmed to many small groups within the communities. And this vital ingredient will finally empower these small-scale scale fish growers to realise their full potential.
And so, we offer the Inhambane Tilapia fish farming tours…the proceeds of which will be well reinvested into the project.
Click here to request a reservation, when next you are in the Inhambane area.
Jason Heyne with his ever reliable, informative and mind blowing spearfishing report…
The diving conditions this week have been average. Certain spots have produced and the good news is the summer fish have arrived. Snoek, cuda and tropical species of kingfish are here. I’ve noticed a large aggregation of sprat eating sea birds along the coast as well. Saturday morning a moderate North East blows before a moderate southwest in the afternoon with the swell starting at 2m and building during the day. Sunday the southwest continues to blow with the swell running at 2.3m. So it doesn’t look like there is much of a gap for a dive this weekend. We had our species comp on Sunday and the turnout was good. Well done to Garret Staats for taking the honours. Thanks again to our sponsors Freedivers, EcoPure filters Ballito, Eco Tanks, JM Power Tools and Fairship KZN for your support. As always dive safe and straight spears.
There is not much better fun than fishing Transkei waters.
When the weather allows,..of course.
Brian and Marc Lange, and Karl Gous – the bottomfishing A-team, were lucky enough to be down that way, at Mgazana, the last few days. They jacked “Raffles”, Dr Hulleys legendary Acecraft and came back with some great photos…
Karl with a live bait caught garrick just south of Mgazana
It’s not easy to get out and into these waters to fish – the Transkei is not called The Wild Coast for nothing! Strong currents and wild weather combine with huge swells to make this area quite foreboding, for any craft.
But the good boat Raffles was built for these conditions and the narrow river mouth launch.
The Sardine Chandling and Charter operation has been experiencing a busy run which looks to continue, and so we would like to build our database of skippers and guides, in time for next year.
We are only looking for highly experienced and capable operators, completely competent and confident in the surf zone. Safety and thoroughness are our strong points as a company, we need people to fly these flags, high!
The jobs are varied and challenging:
Boats, people, equipment, materials, fuel transfers. Sometimes hundreds of miles. Sometimes around the corner.
Fishing and cruising charters. All over the place.
Safety and security projects
Events and exhibitions
Boats run from tenders to tugs. Most of the work is done on boats less than 10 metres, so your Category C and better will work in most instances.
If you are freelance or contractor, please click on over to here, to fill out the preliminary form, and we will be in touch.
