Environmental issues and discussions.
Offshore Africa Port St. Johns is run by Rob Nettleton and Debbie Smith whose combined experience will ensure your sardine run experience will be unforgettable. The team still have a few slots open for the 2015 run, but the bookings are filling up fast – click here to get in touch and onto the list!
When the so relegated laborers starting digging the Suez Canal by hand, they had no idea they would be facilitating the migration of so many fish species, into the Mediterranean.
This excerpt describes the beginning days of the Suez Canal, it’s from http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/suez-canal-opens
“In 1854, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the former French consul to Cairo, secured an agreement with the Ottoman governor of Egypt to build a canal 100 miles across the Isthmus of Suez. An international team of engineers drew up a construction plan, and in 1856 the Suez Canal Company was formed and granted the right to operate the canal for 99 years after completion of the work.
Construction began in April 1859, and at first digging was done by hand with picks and shovels wielded by forced laborers. Later, European workers with dredgers and steam shovels arrived. Labor disputes and a cholera epidemic slowed construction, and the Suez Canal was not completed until 1869–four years behind schedule. On November 17, 1869, the Suez Canal was opened to navigation. Ferdinand de Lesseps would later attempt, unsuccessfully, to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama.
When it opened, the Suez Canal was only 25 feet deep, 72 feet wide at the bottom, and 200 to 300 feet wide at the surface. Consequently, fewer than 500 ships navigated it in its first full year of operation. Major improvements began in 1876, however, and the canal soon grew into the one of the world’s most heavily traveled shipping lanes.”
And so two very separate bodies of water, were joined. It was back in 1935 that our King Mackerel was first recorded in the Med – on the Egyptian Coast, where they seemed to flourish. These migrating fish that followed the Suez into the Med, were aptly named after the canal builder himself, and are called Lessepsian migrators. There are many, up to 59 or so, of these travelling fishburry types, enjoying the comforts of the Med these days.
When David Kosta in Israel sent me photos of huge king mackerel taken on my MYDO Baitswimmers, I was completely dumbfounded. But there it is – we can go ‘couta fishing in the Med, when our fish run out!
Chatting to fishing traveller Aviv Hayun in the Cape recently, really blew my mind even more – they catch amberjack, bluefin tuna and king mackerel off the side and only a few metres out?! Aviv swims his baits (live squid) out there and says that invariably by the time he gets back to his rod he is ‘vas’! He just takes one fish each time. The drop-offs are steep and a good cast can put you in 20 metres of water quite easily.
Unfortunately, Aviv reports that the nets are out for this beautiful eating and selling fish now in the Med…and that regulation is nigh non-existent. He reckons that as soon as someone catches a few nice ‘couta, the word gets out and the next day the bay is full of gill and purse netters hauling the shoal out?! At least the Chinese aren’t there. Yet.
Another complication that has been spurned by the king mackerel’s invasion, is competition for food in the Med. Which is like a huge estuary really, amd quite finite. The Walla-Walla as we know them in South African waters, or, the largehead hairtail (also beltfish), Trichiurus lepturus, is a member of the cutlassfish family, Trichiuridae and it is an important food fish in the east. And eats much the same as the king mackerel, but they are also the best baits for catching king mackerel. So they may come under threat, but I am sure the king mackerel are a lot more fun to eat than the Walla-Walla, when the smoke finally clears.
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The folks at Greenpeace are being hardcore and entertaining as ever with this, their latest jaunt down south. To save the environment from immense destruction at the hands of the shareholders, stakeholders and operators of Shell.
Shell are a formidable opponent but nothing seems to phase the Greenpeace Arctic Team as the struggle for the future…
“Six ordinary people just boarded Shell’s oil rig as it makes its way to drill in the Arctic. Shell are threatening immense destruction in the far north, exploiting melting sea ice to find more oil, make bigger profits, and fuel even more climate change.
It’s pretty scary clinging to the top of an oil rig travelling through the Pacific ocean – can you take a minute to send the volunteers a few words of support?
https://secure.greenpeace.org.
The volunteers have all the kit they need to receive messages from Greenpeace supporters around the world.
If Shell drill in the Arctic, there’s a 75% chance of a large oil spill, according to the US government’s own analysis[1]. Even the oil industry says that an oil spill would be virtually impossible to clean up, leaving polar bears and local people to suffer the consequences for years.
Less than two years ago, the Arctic 30 helped to shine a bright light onto the dangers of Arctic drilling. As another oil company threatens this pristine landscape, Aliyah, Jens, Johno, Miriam, Andreas and Zoe have stepped forward to continue the struggle.
They’ve had to overcome immense fear as they cling to the oil rig in the wind and wet of the Pacific ocean, putting their bodies between Shell and the Arctic. Can you send a message of support to the brave volunteers on the rig?
https://secure.greenpeace.org.
Now they’re safely on board, they plan to find a place to camp where they can be as secure as possible. They’ll stay there as long as they can to make this oil rig infamous around the world, while it continues its journey to the Arctic.
Shell may have billions to spend, but together we’re millions of people. People vs Arctic oil is the battle of our time. If we stand firm, and we stand together, we think we can win.
https://secure.greenpeace.org.
Claire, Akshey, and the Arctic team”
You got to hand it to the Greenpeace team – tenacity unbounded. However, with the funding and equipment they have garnered, through the unselfishness of the interested public, we do expect results.
Common Dolphins are major players on the sardine run stage as they strategise and deploy organised attacks on the millions of sardines making their way north each year. Sharks and birds try cause havoc with these maneuvers but the agility and brains of the dolphins always wins out as tonnes and tonnes of sardines are literally devoured.
Fortunately for divers, the sharks are completely mesmerised by the free lunch and getting in among the action is much safer than it seems.
Offshore Africa Port St. Johns and divingwithsharks.co.za offer packages that get you right in amongst the action. Launching out from Port St. Johns puts you right in the sardine shoals’ course as they migrate north closely followed by anything and everything that can swim or fly, humans included.
Up and down the coast preparations are being made and bookings filling up as the eternal flame of hope for a good sardine run burns bright in the souls of the millions of die-hard sardine freaks. The Sardine Run 2015 is almost upon us!
This imagery by Rob Nettleton reminds us exactly of why we yearn and yearn, year after year, beer after beer…for the sardines. The chaos of it all. The sharks. The dolphins. The birds. The whales. The fish. The action!
Contact Offshore Africa in Port St. Johns here…http://www.offshoreportstjohns.com/ to reserve your place in the water for 2015.
