Three weeks after coming back from South America (January entry) I packed my bags and flew to the east coast of South Africa where I was planned to go to sea on a swordfish longliner for a two week trip.
The week before the trip I spent in one of the jewel spots of South Africa, Sodwana Bay, the only place in SA where both Leatherback and Loggerhead turtles nest. There I helped MDM scientists to collect sea turtle data and set satellite trackers in an effort to learn more about these vulnerable animals. I hope to help this project by collecting data at sea as we really know little about these guys' movements here in South Africa.
After this exciting week (where I celebrated my birthday), I went to sea onboard the 'Two Boys'. This trip was planned to complete data collection from this part of the country as I have been here two years ago collecting winter data and now summer.
And summer means very little birds, only ONE albatross and ONE white-chinned petrel for the whole (14 days) trip! On the other hand, some nice birds showed up and I even managed to see some birds for the very first time - tropical and wedge-tailed shearwaters. The wedge-tailed shearwaters were photographed - one was a white morph, only the second record in South Africa.
As no birds were caught, I dedicated this trip to trying new data collection methods and learnt lots from it. We built and tried a tori line and Butie, the skipper, showed great spirit as he jumped up and down changing the boat's speed to my request. I tested the affect of speed on line sinking rate which is crucial for keeping the birds out of the hooks' reach (the faster the hooks sink, the less time the seabirds have to catch it).
Coming back to land, I met three fishery inspectors and gave them a spontaneous seabird bycatch workshop on the boat. I showed them a tori line and explained what they should check (regarding mitigation measures) on the longliners when they inspect them. A couple of weeks later, I got a call from Butie saying the inspectors are doing their job well and asking to see the tori (the one we made!).
I then went back to Sodwana Bay and gave two talks to the local schoolkids and a diver masters' training there. After a few days - off to Jo'burg to attend a BirdLife South Africa staff meeting and after giving a talk to a local club, I went back home (Cape Town). It was a long and eventful month!
My next update will tell all about the work we're doing here in Cape Town with the skippers. A lot has been happening in the last few months and as I predicted, it's going to be a very exciting year - and everyday I'm proved right!