In a wierd twist within the Osearch Shark Tracking story we started to follow last week, one of the tagged Great White Sharks was caught and killed by the Natal Sharks Board at none other than our favourite surfing beach – Sunwich Port, down here on the south coast of Kwazulu Natal!
The beautiful fish weighed 300 odd kilograms and was taken to the NSB headquarters in Umhlanga for analysis and whatever else they do to the carcasses there.
The shark took a drum line bait and must have died a horrible and gruesome death…much like a snared wild animal poached in a game reserve.
The Natal Sharks Board have systematically decimated the local shark population of Zambezi, Tiger and other sharks here on the KZN south coast and unfortunately, pelagic sharks like Great Whites also fall prey to their killing methods.
Drum lines are a move towards lessening their indiscriminate impact on the environment…but gill nets are still deployed up and down the beautiful Kwazulu Natal South Coast. These gill nets have been killing dolphins, turtles, rays, sharks (lethal and non-lethal) and other forms of marine life like whales for the better part of half a century now.
A bureaucratic organization – funded by municipalities and the tax payer…the Natal Sharks Board and it’s staff and management can be credited with the most cruel ocean animal killings imaginable.
All to protect the tourist dollar as inland punters flock to the Kwazulu Natal coastline each school holiday.
The shark nets do not cordon off a beach from sharks at all – many, if not most sharks are caught on their way back out to sea…on the inside side of the nets. What the nets and drum lines do is reduce the local population of lethal sharks in an area…seriously unbalancing the ecology in that immediate area.
Twisting the story even further…another shark attack was recorded at Port St Johns, down the coast in the Transkei. Port St. Johns has the highest incidence of shark attacks in the world.
Solutions? Many solutions to the shark attack problem are available. Shark spotters are deployed in the clear waters of the Cape…sonar has been proposed to the NSB as a monitoring system in dirtier waters of KZN, but was ignored completely…
Observation and avoidance using technology would far outweigh simple killing and eradication.
Subsistence fishermen have been working the Umzimkulu River for decades. As the condition of the river has deteriorated their lot has been reduced year after year. But there is something very noble about their ignoble existence. Targeting barbel chiefly…they also catch rock salmon (mangrove jack), grunter, perch, salmon and even gamefish like kingfish and garrick. Sometimes shad move into the river and the bounty makes for celebrating.
But mainly…it is hard going.
Pollution.
Brown water.
Cold.
Wind.
Hours with no bites…
Yet what else could they do? Their lifestyle is all they have. Their fishing is all they have. The Umzimkulu is all they have.
Respect to the subsistence fishermen of the mighty Umzimkulu…
A prize specimen in the Tofo market today. These hardy fish seem to be surviving the onslaught around here. Although tales of entire shoals being netted filter through. Barra is a bit of a hotspot for these fish. You just really have to know where to look.
This is how it happens to me, personally…Paul Cook and I at this time of the year, besides having our own boats to fix, get called up from all over the place. Carbs oiled up, holes in boats, gearboxes etc…usually from the boats being unused for many months at a time.
In Morrungulo… Bonito Bay, another sprawling lodge with the works. Beautiful pool overlooking the ocean…casitas, houses, and dive centre…where we had three sets of carbs to get stuck into. This is where it gets complicated. Bonito Bay sent a bakkie to fetch us, but without a canopy. Anyway, a jury rigged shade cloth had us on the road. 2 And a half hours later, we realised the shadecloth was not helping much. But, we got the motors all firing proper, and back on the bakkie, in the heat of the next day. From Maxixe we rented a sailing dhow and crossed the bar to Inhambane. Back at base. Next day a launch in 35 degrees. Next day fix a hole in a brand new boat, and more carbs, all in the baking heat.
That’s when it hit. A searing set of pains through my body – feels like lightning and thunder in your muscles. Knowing I had to get pills quick, but that the clinic was a few clicks away, I took a Neodal painkiller, and laboured on. Beeeeeg mistake.
Anopheles Mosquito carries Malaria
The three more hours it took me to get treatment, was too much. By evening I was a shrivelling wreck, and could not understand how it could have got me so fast and so severely. This is my 15th time, but I never knew anything so severe before.
So the pills went down at about 3pm. Normally I feel an improvement after 6 or 8 hours…but not this time…no waaaay! By midnight I had soaked through jeans, a long sleeve T, a sweater, and a hunting jacket…!
But the little monsters within would not budge. I was feeling the usual waves, but the respites were short and sleep impossible during them anyway. By the next morning…no improvement. Can’t eat. Can’t walk around. Can’t sleep. Can’t think. Malaria really confuses you, luckily I had Paul checking on me every hour or two, through the night and day.
Later this day, I had my first decent respite…took a long hot shower and ventured to the restaurant. Watching Capt Norm Isaacs on DSTV was a treat, but soon the little monsters within returned. With vengeance. The diarhea hit at midnight. Like a sledgehammer. With vomiting. Until everything was out. Luckily I had taken the evenings gourmet course of pills way before, and they were way digested.
I never though malaria could be this bad! And it just would not let up!
It’s Saturday (6 days later) as I pen this, it really is the first day I feel clear…although it still feels like I am hungover as hell.
Some malaria information…
It takes about 7 to 10 days for the parasites to start their dirty work. And they can take up to 6 months to get going too! So once bitten…
Symptoms include but limited to: muscular and joint pains, lower back pain, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, feeling cold all the time, sweating, confusion. Any of these in combination or even singularly (joint pains), deserves a test at least.
The cure – artesunate(from Chinese Wormwood) in many variations, is freely available here in Moz. Go to any roadside clinic, make a donation, and get a few packs. You really should keep some with you, anytime after you have been in a malaria area (mal-area translates to bad area)
Once you have the disease. Do not drink alcohol. This is how you will die. Malaria attacks the liver mainly, and the liver under attack cannot deal with alcohol at all. Sugar as we get it in processed form is also not good at all.
What is good? Eat oranges and other fresh sources of vitamin c. Fruit is definitely the way forward. Eating is almost impossible but you have to concentrate and force food down. Oily food will make you vomit straight away, and again, oil is too much for your suffering liver. Freshly squeezed fruit juice or smoothies will taste like heaven though, as will herbal tea. Coffee is out…to much caffeine. Water, water, water.
After you have got better, a course of anti-biotics (doxy usually) will complete the healing process. Staying off alcohol will stand you in good stead, and a generally healthy lifestyle needs to replace whatever it was you doing before, that may have gotten your immune system down.
Stay out of the sun when you have malaria. It aggravates your condition and symptoms.
Relapses occur. If you do not get yourself back to tiptop condition before you resume your normal lifestyle, expect a relapse. Funnily enough, I still get malaria beginning each December…UNLESS…
Tinctures of Chinese Wormwood. Available all over and on the internet,if you take a few drops of this stuff every day,you will NOT get malaria. There are enough of us in this town to be able to make assumptions about this – families and individuals living here for ages swear by the stuff and the results are plain to see.
Unfortunately, some staff saw me taking my drops, and thinking they were magic muti or whatever, drank my entire bottle in a day.That was August. I had this malaria coming…
Please note that the above is my personal experience of malaria. I am not an expert or a doctor. But this is what 15 bouts has taught me…
The Mozambican state is suffering annual loses of revenue of over a billion meticais ($30 million) from illegal fishing, according to the National Director of Fisheries Inspection, Manuel Castiano.
According to Castiano 2,000 tonnes of fisheries produce are taken from Mozambican waters every year by vessels fishing illegally. “Illegal fishing is not just an economic concern, but also a social one”, said Castiano, “since more than 100,000 Mozambicans depend directly on fishing for their livelihood, and a further 530,000 depend indirectly”.
Illegal fishing is preventing the fisheries sector from increasing its contribution to Mozambique’s Gross Domestic Product, he added. Currently fisheries only contribute three per cent to GDP. Inter-sector cooperation, including with the defence and security forces, and strengthening the human and material resources devoted to fighting illegal fishing, were the way forward to bring the situation under control, said Castiano.
Mozambique is far from the only African country in this situation. Africa as a whole is estimated to be losing €785 million (slightly more than a billion US dollars) every year to illegal fishing.
