Author: Sean Lange

Water WOES! New YouTube channel logs sewage and water leaks in SA

Water WOES! New YouTube channel logs sewage leaks in SA: we at The Sardine News understand that sewage is not so lekka on a fishing channel. But we have long been protectors of the environment and unfortunately the sewage issues we face directly affect the fishing. And the diving. And even surfing.

Here is yet another notice this year – the eThekweni Municipality put out another warning against going in or even near the ocean waters, in some places. This is two weeks old but it shows the pattern of municipal dumping sewage and ecoli levels on the beaches.

Ecoli Warning

“16 SEPTEMBER 2022

CITY CLOSES SOME BEACHES

The City would like to advise the public that following the latest round of testing it has taken a decision to close some beaches with immediate effect as the water quality does not meet acceptable standards.

The following beaches are closed: Brighton, Ansteys, Point, Ushaka, Addington, South, Wedge, North, Bay of Plenty, Battery, Country Club Thekwini, Laguna, Baggies and Reunion beaches. All water activities at these beaches are banned.

Umhlanga main; Umdloti; Westbrooke and Bronze beaches in the northern region remain closed.

Beaches that remain open include Toti, Pipeline, Warner, Winklespruit; and Umgababa beaches.

The Municipality continues to test water quality at beaches on a regular basis and reacts in line with those results.”

eThekweni Municipality

Water WOES

It sounds a lot better if you say it in Afrikaans. But it works just fine in English too.

Both interpretations are correct and sum up the feeling all over South Africa right now. Desperate. But really angered by now! There is no segregation here in this camp. We are all fighting against the tyranny of the ANC. Together in this community.

This project/channel is just a little something that we can do. And was inspired by Memory Pieterse of IndepenceCA. Who is doing way more than her fair share of taking UGU Municipality on. With a class-action lawsuit! Amongst many other valiant causes.

Learn all about IndepenceCA right here…

IndependanceCA

There should not be one person in Africa that goes to bed hungry, our vision is for all to be financially independent.
We are a platform for like-minded people to work together irrespective of religion, colour or political affiliation.
We embark on various activities to share information, our only rule is to treat each other with respect.
At present, our core activities include the Africa Food Drive, to Redress the Union of SA in 1910 and the water woes in South Africa.

Support us through volunteering your services, affiliation with your organisation and donations, both financially or other goods.

Independence Commission Africa website is independenceca.org

Water Woes Channel

And in the meantime…welcome to the channel!

Water Wors is hier

Submit your videos to Memory Pieterse +27 72 761 1736 or Sean Lange at +27793269671.

The 2022 Marlin Season has fired up

The 2022 Marlin Season has fired up: with this very first post by the crew of FishBazaruto.com. As they enjoy the beginning of what promises to be another cracker fishing season in those deep purple waters.

Spoiler alert!

Duarte and crew are fully-booked for this 2022 marlin season. Unless there is a last-minute cancellation or something crazy, it’s back-to-back bookings. And no time for more.

However, you can talk to us about next year. Get in touch with me Sean here on umzimkulu@gmail.com and +27793269671. Or click on over to the FishBazaruto website. Use the Rates and Contact page to drop off an enquiry. Duarte is way out of cell range every day so expect a little delay.

Enjoy the article below, from the FishBazaruto.com blog…marlin, sailfish, wahoo, yellowfin, GTs, JObfish, Queenfish…

FishBazaruto.com on YouTube

We have a playlist of action for you to enjoy below. Shot by Duarte and crew in and around Bazaruto Island waters. YOu can really get a feel for what it’s like by watching and feeling the action on video. Please Like, Subscribe, Comment and Share!

Marlin fishing in South Africa

We might not be as pretty as Bazaruto, but we do have some serious concentrations of fish here along the eastern seaboard of South Africa.

We have the screaming blue Agulhas Current come right up against the continental shelf here too. Which in some places is real close. Like a few kilometres close! These are the places I like to fish for billfish. Where we don’t have to travel miles and miles and miles just to get to the fishing grounds.

The black marlin arrive here much the same time as they up north in Bazaruto. Most of them are notably swimming north. Presumably to the breeding concentration that Bazaruto Island hosts each year this time.

Sodwana Bay is most likely the most fun of all our marlin fishing destinations. Sporting hectic features that show a lot of similarity with the Mozambique hotspots. Deep canyons and steep drop-offs. Strong currents. Bait forced up to the surface.

Richards Bay opens up a huge expanse of water. They got some huge boats there too. But its quite far to the grounds which needs to be factored in weather-wise each time.

Durban is similar in that the 80m line and then the continental shelf is miles offshore.

Shelly Beach features a handy small craft harbour with tractors throwing boats in the shore break quite effectively. The current and the shelf are a mere 20 minutes away from that same shore break. This is a place that holds heaps of potential with a few 100kg yellowfin tuna featuring in the mix out there. Along with many marlin. Closer in there is the formidable Protea Reef with its steady supply of tuna for bait.

If you feel like sampling these crazy waters, contact Sean on umzimkulu@gmail.com or +27793269671 and we can put something together for you.

For this 2022 marlin season!

The Sardine News can help you with your online business. Websites, SEO and marketing are our fun things to do. You can click on over to TLC for your Business to read more about the things we like to do for our clients.

The Umbilo River: death by turd

The Umbilo River that runs right through Durban has been systematically destroyed by raw untreated sewage flowing directly from the Pinetown waste management system into its once pristine and beautiful flowing waters.

Death by Turd

From Pinetown, it carries its new payload – the very many diseases, bugs, viruses, pathogens, and toxins that come from raw sewage, down towards and finally into – the ocean. This river used to carry a payload of shrimps, prawns, crabs, fishies, birds, buck, otters…

Today you will find exactly none of that anywhere near the Umbilo River.

What you will find, are more humans. Who use this water to wash and bathe in. They use it to cook food. They use it to water their little veggie gardens. These are the forgotten ones. The ones that the ANC does not care about. They can’t vote anyway.

And in this water, a gift from the ANC – are the substances that kill. Maim. Cripple. Flesh-eating bacterias. Superbugs. Professor Anthony Turton addresses these highly toxic threats in the accompanying video.

It is not chemical spills. Or factories breaking the rules. It’s the ANC crippling the country day by day. Month by month. By being corrupt and ineffective against any community challenges. Like sewage. Water. And electricity.

With an endless emergency budget – there is no excuse for Durban Waste being out-off-operation since April. As admitted by Ethekweni Waste Management’s very own – Dave Wilson. On radio.

You can read all about that situation with an analysis of Wilson’s radio remarks at https://thesardine.co.za/ethekweni-municipality-issues-warning-about-its-own-incompetence/.

Fish Kills

The fish kills in that story can be tied directly to the Umbilo and the other rivers that flow through Durban to the sea. It does not take a team of investigators to add together these particular two and twos.

The crux is this. None of our sewage water treatment plants are operating properly. And the infrastructure – the pipes and things – are neglected and left to rot by the ruling party.

Yes. The ANC. Such an easy enemy to hate. After they won their little violent struggle and necklacing war (in which they killed thousands of people by burning tyres around their necks) – they then took this beautiful and profitable country to its knees.

And still are, to this day.

This is what we fought against

Lost our lives for. Our brothers. Fathers. Cousins. Uncles.

We were fighting a revolutionary enemy. The ANC. They were the terrorists at the time – blowing up power stations and wallowing in their claim-to-fame as the necklacing specialists.

John Scheepers, who submitted the Umbilo River video material to us, was one of these young fighting men. And as much as he might have been ideologically puzzled at this mission so early bestowed upon in his life, to be a soldier, to fight the enemy – John now is understanding exactly why the ANC was the foe back then. And still is very much the enemy right now.

Some of their most recent achievements:

• USD 4 000 000
• turned the country into a toilet – river by river
• Failed state/captured state
• corrupt and lazy public servants (not all, but definitely most)
• Firing of Ezimvelo and hiring of the incorrigible DAFF – laying waste to our fish and environment
• load shedding 40% up (read all about that here)
• support Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine (read all about that here)

This list goes on and on…

Beaches open. Beaches closed. Repeat.

Beaches of Durban: And the advertising bucks keeps rolling in for the mainstream media.

It’s the perfect cycle of…

1. The city dumps a shit tonne of raw untreated sewage into the ocean via an estuary due to its incapacitated municipality made up of ineffective union-run staff
2. Get the excitement up with bad news reporting of the ecoli levels in the surf
3. Report that the beaches are closed
4. Wait until the sewage is washed away by the currents
5. Report that the beaches are open
6. Repeat

Every time this happens, the mainstream media simply use the ecoli situation as a cash cow. It’s a very emotional subject and gets the clicks. And therefore the advertising bucks.

Investigative journalism

Nowhere are any reasons given, or investigations into why. No solutions or recourses are ever discussed. It’s just business as usual. Complete acceptance by the mainstream media and the decision to completely ignore searching for the truth.

It is everywhere

And it’s not just the Umgeni and the once idyllic Blue Lagoon. Nope, it’s also Amanzimtoti. Port Shepstone. Margate. These are the places that we have proof of. Well documented in video and stills. This is currently our strategy. To document with as much information – each and every transgression against a river or estuary.

Watch this space for another river dead by eutrophication…the Umbilo, as it meanders through Pinetown, is drowned in raw sewage. A big thanks to John who lives nearby and has brought this to our attention. Enabling us to document and log as evidence for when the prosecutions start.

Mainstream media failure

My point is only that all these resources, as in the media, should be reporting exactly what is going on. Not just the end result for a steady stream of advertising bucks.

This is the actual story (qualified by Professor Anthony Turton) and you can read all about it right HERE. Including a brief analysis of the pathetic excuses offered by senior Durban Waste staffer and salary taker David Wilson.

Then you can also read about the tactics that Durban Waste management have used against their new boss. As soon as they realised he was onto them and their evil ways, they got him silenced with a defamation suit. Two weeks into his new job. Tasked with cleaning up the mess. He now knows exactly how subversive and slimy the people are that he is dealing with. I wish you all the best pal.

You can’t make this shit up.

Please pop on over to our YouTube Channel where you can find the many videos we have made about the current disastrous raw sewage situation in KZN. And luckily…some fun and good news aswell.

You can also click on over to Umzimkulu Adrenalin where you can get yourself out in amongst the fish and the action. We have self-catering accommodation and houseboats down here on the Umzimkulu Estuary (the last free-flowing river in KZN – read all about that here). Or simply get in touch with me Sean on WhatsApp +27 79 326 9671 anytime.

The Sardine News on TikTok

The Sardine News on TikTok: yep, we made the uploads and we were absolutely devoured by the TikTok audience. We got over 50 000 video views in the first few days.

For perspective – it takes a helluva lot of effort for us to get even 10 000 views on YouTube in a month.

Resting on these laurels proved to be our undoing, however. We are now scraping by on 1000 to 2000 views per day. From 20 000 – our best 24 hours in that honeymoon week on TikTok.

The content

Was a series of shorts, or reels – call them what you like, but they are short form and vertical (portrait) videos. Very short, like 3 seconds up to a minute or so.

Click right HERE to check out our TikTok videos.

Format

Luckily when sometimes my cameras roll around on the bottom, the frame usually ends up being at 45 degrees so. Which fits quite ok into the vertical video format we are forced to work with here.

“A vertical video is made in portrait mode and has a 9:16 aspect ratio. Vertical videos are taller in height than they are in width, the ideal dimensions being 1080×1920 pixels.”

Google

Otherwise, this format is the salvation of that huge swathe of people who started filming videos when they first got a smartphone. Vertically! I was running around trying to stop everybody from doing this. As a video editor, I was appalled. How was this gonna work?

Most of my stuff by far is in landscape and it will stay that way. This was really an experimental foray into TikTok and short-form vertical video.

But let’s not forget – that we hold our sacred little phones in the vertical orientation all day long too.

Landscape Thumbnails…

Versus the portrait format below.

Production

Was actually hell in this case. I am a die-hard Premiere user. And I have an age-old installation which I am currently operating with. Very stable. But it doesn’t know about TikTok or Instagram. No presets.

Plus, most of my material is shot in landscape mode (horizontal).

And so, I just made the videos on their side. Guaranteeing resolution and maximum quality. And the joys of laying out a scene in Premiere. Colour correction. Audio. And dressing up with logos, titles, animations and things. Albeit my neck got a little uncomfortable but they are really short videos anyway.

Then they had to go for a joyride through the built-in video editor that comes with Windows 10 these days. Tedious and time-consuming to rotate and then render each video into the vertical video format. But shaving off two-thirds of the bulk of each file. Leaving me with tiny little uploads of between 5 and 50mb.

A reasonable workflow that can be lived with. There are so many options out there these days. Even through a browser or on your phone, video editing has become really easy and accessible.

Momentum

By uploading in two batches of a dozen or so in each, we seemed to have fallen off the algorithm bus. I do believe that had I kept uploading – even ones and twos, we would have stayed on that magnificent trajectory.

Batching is the only way to stay ahead of yourself. It takes a lot of work and slogging but once you are sitting on a bunch, like 20 or 30, man-oh-man can they work for you. And for a very long time.

Shorts on YouTube

So I uploaded the series to YouTube and included the hashtag #shorts in each one. Some did ok – 2000 odd views straight away. And then like all YouTube videos, they just flat-lined. No pulse.

I have zero faith in the YouTube algorithm because: I go two nice marlin clips from Duarte at FishBazaruto. Different fish but very similar in every other regard. Slightly sensationalist titles like HUGE or MASSIVE marlin. The one got 2000 views. The other got 50.

So now what?

YouTube is such a disaster area right now. Plus, shorts on YouTube are hardly monetizable. For that 2000-view video, had I monetised, would have paid like a dollar.

Worth it?

Is it worth that hassle? Well that opening week on TikTok ramped my exposure for sure. I felt it across all the other platforms that following week.

Plus, we are stuck with vertical video and short-form content. Just look at anything being snapped with a cellphone these days and you will see a vertical-oriented phone clicking away.

See you on Instagram next…will upload the series there starting today. Will use their scheduling tool to pop one per every 6 hours and let’s see what happens.

The Sardine News can help you digitise your business. Taking processes online and onto cellphones, means you have a powerful internal company network at your fingers (IPN – Internal Private Network). Reaching to all your resources everywhere. Instantly. POS. Stock. Customers. Bookings. Transactions. Marketing. Accounts. Reports. Tasks. Communications.

Get in touch with Sean on +27793269671 or email umzimkulu@gmail.com.