DIVE WORLDWIDE
South Africa
“Following the shoals are
dolphins, game fish, sharks and
birds that herd them into
catchable baitballs, where
a feeding frenzy takes place”
40
Sport Diver
MARCH 2014
www.sportdiver.co.uk
DIVE WORLDWIDE
South Africa
Sunrise greets the
divers
Out on the water
searching for
sardines
^Khd,&Z/͛^
^Z/EZhE
Tony Baskeyfield travelled 1,200km in ten days on a RIB in search of the Sardine Run.
Along the way he saw false killer whales, orcas, humpback whales, dolphins, sharks and gannets.
Then he got in the middle of it all!
Photographs by TONY BASKEYFIELD
T
he Sardine Run is a physically tough expedition. There are so many factors needed
to come together in order to experience
what has become a Holy Grail in the world
of natural history.
Every year off South Africa’s east coastline, the
greatest migration on Earth takes place. Billions
of sardines leave their normal cold-water home in
South Africa’s temperate seas and travel northwards
into the sub-tropical seas of South Africa’s wild
coast. In terms of biomass, the sardine run is bigger
than East Africa’s great wildebeest migration. The
sardines migrate along the cooler inshore waters
to avoid the strong and warm offshore Agulhas
Current, which flows in the opposite direction to
the migration. Sardine prefer water temperatures
between 14°C -20°C.
This band between cold and warm water makes
it easy for the predators to patrol up and down
in search of the shoals of sardines. Following the
shoals are dolphins, game fish, sharks and birds that
www.sportdiver.co.uk
herd them into catchable baitballs, where a feeding
frenzy takes place.
It is not possible to accurately predict when the
Sardine Run will occur. It happens when it happens,
usually in June and July every year. But not knowing the best time to go, I first considered that I’d just
hang around South Africa for a month, then jump
onto a boat when the action was at its peak. As
this was going to be a bit hit-and-miss, given most
people had already booked spaces on boats last
year, I feared I may miss out completely. So I chose
to go with Apex Predators, based in Cape Town, as
owner Chris Fallows only does the ‘run’ two weeks
of a year, and then only goes for the historically best
two weeks. He has done 2,000 white shark expeditions, with five years on the Sardine Run, in addition
to being one of the leading authorities on great
white shark behaviour. Chris is a professional wildlife photographer and many of his breaching great
white shark images have been seen worldwide in
newspapers, magazines and television documen-
taries. Chris has just recently completed his book
Great White, The Majesty of Sharks.
Chris prefers to launch from East London,
which is further South from Port St John and has a
harbour to safely launch from. Here there are less
boats and fewer people doing the run. The harbour
launch is better and safer than traditional South
African beach launching. Chris knows many people
in this area and has built up a network of contacts we met up with Planet Earth’s Charles Maxwell, who
filmed the award-winning Bryde’s whale footage of
the Sardine Run (when it comes out of the depths
and eats a huge mouth-full sardines in one gulp).
Most importantly, just off East London, there are
a greater number of Cape gannets. Chris says that
you just live by the gannets and then follow the
dolphins. Chris has fantastic eyesight and doesn’t
miss a thing. He watches for all the clues on the
horizon and from observing the gannets - the
direction that they are flying, the angle of
the dive and the shape of the group of the
MARCH 2014
Sport Diver
41
DIVE WORLDWIDE
South Africa
Lighthouse marks
dangerous waters
A superpod of dolphins
charges past the boat
The dolphins
round up the
sardines
Dolphins pass
the divers
Dolphin on the
surface
birds when they are diving – this will tell him what
the bait is, how deep the bait is and what is going
on below.
Sardine Run diving is hard work but, wow, it’s exhilarating! The Sardine Run occurs in South Africa’s
winter, so in the morning it’s cold. On the boat it is
cool too and we all needed hats and jackets to keep
the wind-chill away. It got warmer at mid-day but
we were never hot. Our day begins at 6am, when
we get up, have breakfast, drive to East London, kit
up and take our twin-engined eight-metre RIB from
the mouth of the Buffalo River. The air temperature
hovers around 6°C. In the day the air temperature
rises to 18°C and as much as 28°C, with a water
temperature of 17.2°C -20.5°C. We are out at see and
on the water ten hours a day.
On the first day we spot killer whales just outside
the harbour and follow them around for 30 minutes
or so before heading off in search of ‘sards’.
To see Chris in action is brilliant. Chris never gets
tired of it and he gets so excited, with this overwhelming adrenalin rush. “It’s unpredictable! It’s
fantastic!” He is amazing and passionate and he enjoys it all. So it’s great to have such an expert to get
www.sportdiver.co.uk
us onto the ‘sards’. Some days it is just a guess when
you come out of the harbour to go north or south in
our search; other days the evidence is immediately
obvious. We could see the direction the main group
of gannets were heading. Just following gannets is
not always possible, as they fly too fast at 60kmh if
the sardines are a long way away.
First we go in the direction of the gannet’s flight.
Then the next sign is the dolphins. One day, we
saw thousands of dolphins all heading in the same
direction as the faster-moving gannets. We joined
one super pod and motored with them for 30 minutes till we approached a large cyclone of gannets
diving into the water to feed on the sardines. Sharks
were cruising close by with their fins breaking the
surface. Wave after wave of gannets would dive
at speeds of 100km and hit the water. Air pockets
in their joints act as shock absorbers to cushion
the blow of the dive. Their nostrils have a flap to
prevent water being pushed into their brain. The
gannets have brilliant eyesight and can see the
sardines from the air and are able to target their
dive precisely.
I heard the thud as a gannet hit the water, then
saw the bubble trail as it plunged to about 5m and
swam to catch a fish in its beak. They can dive down
to 20m for as long as 20 seconds, see underwater
and are able to swim and follow the baitball and
catch fish with ease. On one occasion I was underwater during an aerial assault from the gannets
and the sound was like a barrage of artillery fire.
The ‘boom, boom’ of them hitting the water just
goes right through you and this is the vibration that
attracts the dolphins and sharks from miles away.
At first I thought that the gannets were extremely
accurate when diving, as they were swerving to
avoid hitting me. Then one bird didn’t swerve quite
fast enough - I was hit on the head and then on my
hand in the poor vis. All of a sudden I realised if one of these gannets hit me at full
speed with its beak in the head, I could be
MARCH 2014
Sport Diver
43
DIVE WORLDWIDE
South Africa
seriously injured. Luckily, I was treated to a magnificent display of diving, swimming and feeding. It all
happened so quickly, ‘boom, boom’, with machine
gun speed - there were gannets whizzing around
me for a 30-minute show.
You have to read the signs underwater and react
to the situation. Suddenly everything is going crazy.
Gannets are going ballistic and the sharks are highly
charged. I hear clicks and whistles as common
dolphins hurtle past my shoulder and sweep into
the sardines. The dolphins scythe through and the
school splits the ball, which then reforms behind
the dolphins. A dusky shark moves in, turns on
its side, opens its mouth and grabs a mouthful of
sardines. It all happens so close and so quickly.
Bryde’s whales are huge and their mouths are big
enough to take a diver whole when they come up
and gulp a massive mouth-full of sardines. Some
people have bounced off the mouth! The whale
knows exactly what is in its path and what it is
about to consume with its echo-location and is only
after the fish. However, we were putting ourselves
into a highly charged situation when at any time a
whale could come up to feed! “I’m excited, terrified
and emotionally overwhelmed,” Chris said. “This is a
crazy thing to do in a caravan of predators. Logically
it is not the brightest thing to do to get into the
water when a feeding frenzy is underway!”
Depending on how long the baitball remains
intact, or how long you can keep up with it, each
dive can last from a few minutes to an hour. Often
Bryde’s whales
gorge on the
sardines...
...and are simply
immense
Humpback frolics
on the surface
Two Bryde’s whales
swimming together
44
Sport Diver
MARCH 2014
www.sportdiver.co.uk
DIVE WORLDWIDE
South Africa
Gannet makes a
low pass
WHAT YOU NEED
TO KNOW...
EAST LONDON,
“On one occasion I was underwater during an aerial assault from
the gannets and the sound was like a barrage of artillery fire”
SOUTH AFRICA
HOW TO GET THERE
Gannets and
dolphins working
in tandem
Gannet mid-dive
into a baitball
Fly from the UK to Johannesburg, then take
an internal flight to East London.
BEST TIME TO VISIT
June and early July. Remember, this is the
Southern Hemisphere and it is winter there
when it is summer here.
“Overall, we had fast-moving,
small sardine baitballs with dolphins,
gannets and sharks all feeding
around us with frenetic energy”
ENTRY REQUIREMENTS
None.
CURRENCY
South African Rand (£1 to 15 Rand).
WHERE TO EAT AND MEET
There are various restaurants and bars in and
around East London. Being South Africa, you
can expect fantastic steaks and other meat
products, and as there are several
microbreweries in the area, you’ll have plenty
of fine local beer to enjoy.
THE LOCAL BREW
Emerald Vale Amber.
VERDICT
The Sardine Run is deservedly referred to as
the ‘greatest shoal on Earth’, and with good
reason. Yes, it is physically demanding, but
nothing else compares.
46
Sport Diver
MARCH 2014
it’s easier and quicker to get in and less restrictive
to freedive.
Humpback whales were everywhere too. Getting
onto the sardines is not always guaranteed every
day, as this is a wild adventure. You have to take
every advantage and seize every moment to extract
every experience when it happens. On the days we
didn’t get onto the sardines, we had the greatest
time observing hammerheads on the surface, or
with humpback whales. So for the first time ever I
got into the water with migrating whales cruising
north at ten knots. They are too fast to swim with,
so you only get one chance as they steam past,
weighing 80 tonnes and 15 metres long. I could see
a bulge in the water on the surface and then feel
the huge pressure wave in front of the animal as it
approached and passed. Then as the tail swept past
I ducked my head to avoid being hit. Some humpbacks had groups of common dolphins riding the
pressure wave and were getting a free ride. Some
came dangerously close to us as we freedived with
them. A tail came up, swishing a group of Italian
divers out of the way and narrowly missing them
all as it came back down! Humpback whales were
passing us in groups of twos, threes and fours. We
followed a pair of humpbacks for nearly one hour as
they breached 50 times in turn.
Overall, we had fast-moving, small sardine
baitballs with dolphins, gannets and sharks all
feeding around us with frenetic energy. We spent
most of the days dropping in and out of baitballs,
making sure we made the most of our opportunities as the water visibility was sometimes as low as
four metres, which was not perfect for diving with
snapping sharks close by. The Sardine Run is marine
wildlife watching at its most spectacular - a once-ina-lifetime opportunity to be part of something that
many of the world’s top marine biologists, wildlife
photographers and film-makers consider the mostintense and spectacular marine wildlife event in the
world. It does take time, patience and a lot of luck,
but the Sardine Run truly is one of the most-amazing wildlife experiences I’ve encountered. ■
www.sportdiver.co.uk