Up close and personal with sardines off Port St. Johns. Sightings have been reported of shoals of baitfish as we move into the prime migratory season.
We just got to hope those commercial netter guys in St. Frances let a few shoals past this year!
Contact Rob or Debbie on http://www.offshoreportstjohns.com/
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.
Now it was all about us, the SA Armies newly adopted troops, two sardine correspondents…
The Colonel beckoned from the grassy knoll and we ran towards Spot X. “Faster”, he bellowed. We ran faster to be treated with a huge round of laughter from the onlooking officers. The Colonel was shouting at his troops, not us!
The air moving by me was cyclone strength. My hat and glasses were swiftly removed and distributed down the glade as the Colonel looked on disapprovingly. The Major ran down and retrieved my stuff, sternly telling me again to put my hat in my pocket.We ducked down and bailed into the cabin. The chopper was a R20 000 000 model – one of two the SA Army had for this round of exercises.
Neat and perfectly laid out was all I could think sitting there strapped in and marvelling at the wonders of technology and man’s ingenuity. The revs revved and the huge whirlybird listed and sprang off the mountain and the soldiers became toy soldiers in a few seconds of G’s.
We were off, up and over the mountains that created the valley and through the back streets of Port St. Johns, where the military exercises were taking place (Our boys are off to fight Element 23 Rebels in the Congo, hence the semi-urban training environment).
Then down the 2nd Beach river valley over the world’s most dangerous beach and out to sea for some seriously upside down sideways maneuvering while I frantically spotted for sardines or fish above or below me. I have never imagined doing anything like this as the chopper spun over and around almost cracking my neck with one violent turn after the other – the super pilot just throwing us around and around until that 5 seconds was up and we levelled out just above the sea and checked for shells on the beach we were so low. Heading south to 3rd Beach where the waves were absolutely firing, over Bird Rock and back North to the Port St. Johns river mouth. The Umzimvubu was pouring it’s plume of brown/orange storm waters from the inland storms held this week, but the super blue water of the Mozambican current was holding it back creating a range of colours and contrasts.
Flying low, way below the escarpment above, we cruised up river past the town and finally to the landing strip, back over the mountain and down to the troops waiting below. We were part of a medi-vac exercise as we landed the troops were about to load a pseudo injured soldier and take-off again. Faster! Faster! Came the encouragement from the Colonel…
The Sardine Newspaper would like to thank the SA Army for inviting us along and treating us to this magnificent experience.
Pay your taxes now!
The really good weather on the south coast of KZN this time of the year bodes well for marine life spotting in the smooth and clean seas.
It’s a great time to do an ocean safari with Mustbyt Charters or to hang out on the awesome whale watching deck at Orca’s Bar and Restaurant. Orca’s is extremely well located overlooking the infamous Sunwich Port surf break. Sunwich Port is a well known hotspot for marine life and to have the vantage point up on the deck is magical. In fact, Orcas (Killer Whales) themselves have been spotted coasting past this point before.
Here is the link to some cool sardine pics Janet Alexander, joint owner of Orca’s Bar and Restaurant, took last year. Janet is an avid marine animal spotter and photographer and promises to keep us updated as we move into the winter season.
Orca’s has a really cool family oriented menu, big screen for rugby and cricket and other entertainment.
Check out this shot of some rare sardines taken last year…right from the whale deck,
Click for more information…
Since tablets and mobiles have begun their onslaught…responsive web design has been a new buzzword. It means that web pages automatically redesign themselves, to work with whatever device is used to access it with. Great! Well, in theory, but we do have to adapt our work to this new revelation.
Some of my clients are super photographers (Read Captain Duarte Rato), and they work to certain parameters, when framing and taking a shot. They are all about impact and filling the viewfinder with action, telling a complete story – often times using powerful lenses to get right into the mix.
Telling a story with your single frame photograph is what it’s all about. And then a responsive web design gets hold of your perfect image!
Firstly, most of us and our ways prefer landscape shots. It’s the wider perspective that adds dynamism and it tries to emulate how we see things every day. Spaces are used in telling the story…and the wide shot can tell a lot more than the portrait – especially on a landscape screen.
The incredible rule of thirds, throws the important part of the picture – the subject – into either a corner, one side, or top or bottom stripe, and sometimes, the centre.
Now a responsive theme has to re-render that image, to work in landscape, and in portrait. And this is how great images get sliced into pieces.
The solution. Yip. But some ain’t gonna like it…frame your shots like this…
…or choose shots for your full page slider website – that focus the subject in the centre.
One more thing – full page responsive sliders achieve far more impact than any other layout, but there is even a second trade-off. Since we are loading the highest resolution we can to cater for big screen presentations and even retina displays (the internal workings between device and server decide the resolution finally delivered), it makes good sense then to choose uncluttered imagery, especially backgrounds – and rather focus your available reolution/bandwidth available, on that subject in the centre of your shot. This makes a huge difference in the size of the file. Blurred backgrounds are highly recommended!
Doing this right can cut your load times incredibly.
Choose your full screen responsive slider images wisely!
Any questions to umzimkulu@gmail.com
Next: Full screen video websites…
