What a day!!!

So the mother load has arrived!!! The sardine run has just cranked up another few notches and has penetrated the predatory stratosphere. We’ve just come from visiting Barry Skinstad at the Outspan Inn and he showed us some of the action he took today. Multiple passes of Bryde’s Whales lunching through a baitball that had all the predators one would hope to see, unless you’re a sardine. Absolutely stunning stuff – look out for it on the Earth-touch website. We got in on the ball a bit later (one shouldn’t, after all, go rudely barging in on somebody else’s baitball), but by that stage the water was quite green. After yesterday’s activity, we’re not too gutted though.
In the photo you can see a Bryde’s whale lunging through a baitball. These whales are known as mysticetes, and a feature they all share is that they are equipped with baleen plates instead of teeth. Consequently they are filter feeders; they take large gulps of fish and water in a feeding lunge, whereupon the pleats in their throat expand to accommodate this volume. Their prey is then strained through the baleen plates and swallowed. You can clearly see the pleats in the video and photo.

This sardine run is turning into one of those spectacular years that come around very rarely. There’ve been some crazy things too. Speaking to guys like Vic Peddemors, Rod Haestier and Barry Skinstad, who’ve between them have spent as many years on the run as just about anybody: after years of extremely rare Bryde’s whales sightings, this year there’ve been multiple sightings. Plenty have come up; we saw at least four on the baitballs today. That is awesome!! And what of the northern giant petrels below? Justin had four of these guys around his head when he came up from our spectacular dive yesterday. It is a bit weird seeing them 2 feet from your face when you surface. They have scary beaks! Yesterday Rod’s fish finder was showing fish everywhere from seven kilometers offshore in clean water 110 m deep all the way in to the muddy bays at Mngazi and Mngazana, although it was quite scattered. We noticed that the little balls of bait that we filmed would have common dolphins visiting them for a brief attack, and then off they would go to another ball. So the action was, for most of the day, not very intense. That was until we got to the Brydes whale baitball. Yesterday, the fish were also very small. Today’s baitball was much denser and the fish were older, that is, they were bigger. We’re very excited about tomorrow!!!! All photos are courtesy of Rod Haestier and Justin Gilligan.
Apologies for the lack of prediction about the continuation of the sardine run into KZN. Internet access here, via the “3G” dongle, is very sketchy. I’m not able to access the rsmarinesa website, so have not been able to download the latest satellite images. Will continue to try. Thencurrent sardine run activity has moved very little over the past few days, but if conditions improve to the north (and I’ve had absolutely no data to know whether this has happened), then you might expect the motherload to reach KZN in 7 to 10 days. BUT WE NEED THE CONDITIONS TO BE RIGHT UP THE COAST!