Autumn brings a bounty of oceanic friends

By Jax Bath

The ocean has recently been showing off the best that the month of April has to offer! Autumn is my favourite time of year at sea, with the movement of sardine schools through the area bringing in all our favorite oceanic friends.

Anticipation runs high at this time, more than any other, as what we see depends solely on whether or not there’s fish moving through. There are currently tons of fish making their way through Walker Bay, and we were lucky enough to get out on the water to take it all in.

Our first sight for the tour was several little African penguins who were out and about in the hopes of getting in on the action. These flightless friends looked like they’d already eaten, relaxing on the crystal-blue Atlantic and even coming in towards the boat for a closer look at us.

Penguins are more often than not shy at sea, so this was a real treat! African penguins love sardine, so they will travel many miles out to find the big shoals, sometimes as far as 60km a day!

After we said goodbye to the penguins, we happened upon a Cape fur seal making a meal of an octopus. The seal flung the 8-legged cryptic creature violently in an attempt to bite off chunks of arm small enough to swallow, before eventually devouring the whole thing as an early Sunday lunch.

Seals are apex predators and octopus stand little chance once these pinnipeds enter the kelp forest.

We then moved along the white sandy beaches of Die Plaat before spotting some bird action in the distance. At first we thought we might have dolphins but as we approached, we discovered a ton of seals in the water feeding on a giant shoal of fish. With all the prey in the area, a couple of Bryde’s whales began to surface too, and we spent some time watching these baleen beauties as they surfaced sporadically before making our way to the heart of the bait ball.

Bryde’s whales are a regular feature at bait balls, expanding their pleated throat groves to allow them to take in a mass of fish and water before expelling the water and swallowing the fish trapped in their baleen. This time of year more than any, whale watching operators stand the chance to witness this incredible sight, particularly if the fish are found close to the surface.

We then moved on to a large patch of disturbed water where birds and seals numbered into the hundreds. Here, we watched in awe as seals ravaged the bottom whilst Cape gannets, Swift terns and White-chinned petrels launched an aerial attack. Watching Cape gannets diving is always a sight to behold, hitting the water at around 100km/h in perfect form to avoid injury.

We took in the sights and sounds as the gannets plummeted and the seals surfaced for breath. We even got a quick look at the fish as they moved below the boat. With the presence of fish and the onset of winter, pelagic seabirds join in on these hunts, with White-chinned petrels taking a particular interest in the fish, often following fishing boats as a means to easily locate their prey. Although food may seem plentiful along the coast at the moment, these birds will often travel for hundreds of kilometres over the open ocean to find a meal.

Whilst we watched in awe, we also noticed the presence of many jellyfish in the water below us. There were some easily identified Comb jellies, which is a treat as we don’t often see them here. There was also a larger species that may be a variation of Moon jelly, although they cannot be easily found in any of our ID Books. Sometimes when our environmental conditions change, large swarms of jellyfish will find their way into an area. We had a similar occurrence a couple of years ago when the night light jellyfish were found in abundance in the Dyer Island ecosystem.

Our last little bit of excitement for the day came at the end of our tour. We were trying to catch up with one last Bryde’s whale when we found a bob of seals fighting over a Chimera (also known as an Elephant fish or St Joseph shark). This is very occasionally seen in Walker Bay, but as a guide this was my first ever sighting of a Chimera in the wild, which made it a definite highlight of the tour!

This curious looking fish was dubbed the “Elephant fish” due to it having what appears to be a small trunk, reminiscent of that of an elephant, at the front of its snout. If you were to look for it in an identification book, you would find it next to the sharks, although it is in fact the only creature of its kind found commonly in Southern Africa, falling into the subclass Holocephali. They are bottom dwelling creatures, sometimes preyed upon by Cape fur seals which bring them to the surface to devour. The sneaky seal that made the kill had an awfully tough time trying to protect its hunt as other seals and Swift terns gathered around in the hopes of stealing a bite. After all this excitement, we set out back to the harbour, taking stock of the day’s incredible finds.

Until next time!