DURBAN/ PORT ST JOHNS/ DURBAN
Price: £1, 970 per person sharing, not including int. flights
Including: accommodation; food as specified; activities as specified, scheduled internal transport as specified.
Not including: international flights, non- specified activities, transport to and from non specified activities, drinks and gratuities
Wildlife Warning. While we do our absolute best to provide you with unforgettable wildlife encounters, nature is, by its very definition, unpredictable and so bait balls cannot be guaranteed.
Just ten in a boat and more biomass under you than the East African great migration: now that’s an experience. Although you may feel outnumbered by the sheer extent of the marine life you are about to join, we like to ensure that at least your fellow divers will not crowd you.
This trip seeks to combine the finest South African hospitality with the pinnacle of marine experience. Although, as with all wildlife encounters, nothing can be guaranteed, we work with the most experienced local operators to ensure that when the sardines run, you are there to join them.
THE TRIP
Day 1
DATES TBC
The anticipation has been growing for weeks, but now your departure has finally arrived. Head to the airport and board your plane. Destination: South Africa. Sardines on the menu?
INTERNATIONAL AIR CARRIER
Day 2
DATES TBC
Arriving in Durban, you will be met by your African Space guide and driven out of the city, south, towards the Wild Coast and Port St Johns, you
home for the next seven days. The journey takes about five hours, but with beautiful scenery and plenty of stops, it will soon fly by. Port St John is a former trading post, a sleepy town that for much of June is given over to divers.
PSJ RIVER LODGE – B&B
Day 3 to 7
DATES TBC
This is what you came for: the Sardine Run. Five days chasing the shoals, jostling for space in the water along with anything else with an appetite. The aim of the days is to locate bait balls, hundreds of thousands of silver sardines crowding together as a protection mechanism against predation by the hundreds of sharks, dolphins, seals, whales and seabirds that have followed the fish ever since they left their spawning ground of the Agulhas Bank hundreds of miles to the south. Although often extending up to 20 metres in diameter, these bait balls are short lived and so a successful dive depends upon vigilance, speed of reaction and not a little luck.
This is an expedition; Port St John is a small place with very little in the way of facilities. Therefore, we become a mobile dive centre, transporting all boats and equipment up from Port Elizabeth.
Your typical day
Staying at the River Lodge, a comfortable apartment complex situated in densely forested dunes, overlooking the river, an easy stroll from the town centre; the day begins with the 08:00 weather check. Then you make your way down to the boat, launching into the Uzimvubu River and making your way to its mouth, there to wait for a break in the wave sets and your chance to launch into the ocean.
This is possibly one of the most hectic launch sites in the world and must always be approached extremely carefully. However, your team has great experience of his annual festival and before long your will be beyond the surf bouncing on the waves to the current line. This runs for approximately 100km along the coast. There are many technical challenges to operating successful on the shoal, so the number of boats is limited to six or seven.
Once out, you kit up and wait. Spotters scan the water for the tell tale signs of the bait balls forming: sea birds dropping like arrows, whales breaching and waters boiling. Not hard to miss you may think, but is a big old sea out there.
Once the spot is made, the boat will be manoeuvred into position and your guide will drop into the water to ascertain the appropriate type of dive. During this week you will scuba, snorkel and free dive, depending on the situation and the advice of your guide.
Common dolphins, bottle nosed dolphins, Bryde’s whales (pronounced Brutus), dusky sharks, bronze whalers, black tips, tigers, bull sharks, king fish, and cape fur seals. The list is good enough; description is superfluous.
With a packed lunch on the boat to keep your energy levels high, the day draws to close at around 4pm when the boats head for home and divers stream to the bars. Although a quiet place, Port St John is a good home to divers as BBQs abound and the different boat occupants mingle to discuss the day’s adventures. It is a way of life into which it is easy to slip.
PSJ RIVER LODGE – B&B
Day 8
DATES TBC
Packing away your dive gear and committing a week’s surf launches to memory, you will be driven north, into KwaZuluNatal, to Durban, the vibrant city of sugar and spices and home of the famous ‘bunny chow’. The end of the expedition. After a final breakfast, you will be transferred to the international airport and your return flight to the UK. Welcome back; it all happens again next year. INTERNATIONAL AIR CARRIER
Day 9 DATES TBC
Arrive back home with plenty of stories.
