Bump and bite season is looking a little weird this year.
I am not sure if I am viewing the world through my confirmation bias glasses but the ocean does seem mad at the moment (and our sociology, economics, politics, climate, education, law, nature, news and on and on but let’s stick to the sea for now).
Over the years, great white sharks have been a bit of a rarity in our area but all of a sudden Chintsa bay seems packed with them.
I know it is sardine season right now and we expect an uptick during that but the increase, in my opinion, borders on bizarre or absurd right now.
The sardine season itself has been nuts. We have had unseasonal bait balls all year and now, just recently, a giant fish kill that is hard to explain.
My clever friend Kevin Cole is not convinced by the lightning theory.
Along with the increase in great whites and silly sardines we have had some very crazy local ocean temperature swings.
Our recent summer saw the most east wind and the most and longest cold water that I have ever experienced in living memory of a 45-year surfing career.
Along with that was a peak in the warmest water measured on our harbour wave buoy of 26 or was it 28 degrees?
Don’t forget our three, or is it four, years of wet season and floods we are in now.
Since the age of five, I have been enjoying fishing in blind lagoons such as Quinera and Chefani and when rains break them open it is a dynamic experience.
The number of lagoons and the number of times there have been breaks in the last four years has been extraordinary.
When rivers flood they create new sandbars for surfing (and perhaps an increased shark factor too) so I am triple interested and aware and have been so for a long time.
Our last drought was so long and so severe that trees of significant stature had begun to grow at the new long time low, waters edge at the cove on Nahoon Dam.
Those trees have been well under water for a long time now and our recurrent drought cycle is just not making its return?
But coming back to the great whites.
There was a time when our top of the food chain ocean fish were a menace down in Cape Town, so much so that they started a shark-spotter community.
The False Bay great whites attracted orcas (top of the food chain mammals) that began to eat some white sharks in the area, or just their livers that is.
At a similar time, I read an editorial article in erstwhile ZigZag magazine about the shark fin fishing industry and shark meat being sold into the Australian fish and chip market from SA.
Be the food chain under threat for the False Bay predators or threatened by superior species, orcas, the bottom line is the great whites packed their bags and left.
This is very much noticed by the cage-diving industry and I am under the impression that the shark-spotter operation in False Bay is now terminated.
The scientific community is taking an interest.
Bowlby, Dicken, Towner, Waries, Rogers and Kock, 2023, have published an Ecological Indicators paper “Decline or shifting distribution? A first regional trend assessment for white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) in SA.”
The Bowlby et al paper investigates aggregation sites of great whites and looks into False Bay, Gansbaai, Mossel Bay, Algoa Bay and the KwaZulu-Natal shark nets, but no mention of Plettenberg Bay or Chintsa.
In recent years, surfers have been well aware of the sudden radical increase of great whites in Plett.
I recall drone footage of something like seven great whites cruising around the Beacon Isle Hotel.
They are very visible and definitive from the air by the bulb at the base of the tail and now all of a sudden you cannot fly over Chintsa bay without seeing seven or nine at a time.
Local deep sea anglers are reporting consistent sightings.
Spearfishermen have left the area because of persistent great white harassment and a recent helicopter assessment may have counted as many as 40 great whites in one outing over Chintsa.
I recall a personal study I did on Ocearch Shark Tracker when three great whites were in our area — they have names, Success, Sophia and Riley — were using Chintsa as a turning bay.
Some of their swim routes include a trip to Australia and back so you are not quickly going to out-paddle them on a surfboard or surf ski.
Why they are here I do not know and the lab coats are unable to answer at this time.
In recent weeks, an orca terminated a 4.6m great white at Chintsa and removed its liver with surgical precision that beggars belief.
Orcas like to eat white shark liver. Clever animals, they do not decimate the great white population but it is remarkable how effective they are at their game.
Thank you Lord, I am not aware of any open ocean surfer ever being attacked by an orca, but they do chew on the odd yacht.
Nonetheless, my prayer life is radically increased by the current ocean conditions.
I pray that our ocean adventures continue to remain a lot safer than our SA road driving conditions as they always have. Amen.
Weekender
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