I have just returned from a very exciting and fun-filled few days in Sedgefield and Mossel Bay. For those of you not from South Africa, these towns are located along our east coast, and apparently Mossel Bay has the second best climate in the world!
My colleague and I took a comfortable 5-hour drive down to Sedgefield, where I had offered to give a talk to the Lakes Bird Club, a member of BirdLife South Africa.
I arrived a little nervous; as this was the first public talk I was giving as an Albatross Task Force Instructor. But after meeting a few of the members, my nervousness turned to excitement.
I spoke for an hour on the work of the Task Force in South Africa to 27 members of their club, and was asked loads of questions, mostly related to my time at sea, such as 'Do you get seasick?' and 'What are conditions on the vessels like, especially for a woman?'
We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the club, letting people into our life with seabirds.
And for our next adventure
Next we drove to Mossel Bay, to begin our next adventure for the week.
Here we joined the WWF (World Wildlife Fund for Nature) team to give a two day workshop to the inshore and offshore hake trawl fishermen in the area.
We invite fishermen, government and industry to attend. The course revolves around what's called an 'Ecosystem Approach' to fisheries, highlighting issues on bycatch, pollution and ghost fishing, as well as explaining the need for responsible fisheries practices and good compliance and management of the fishery.
The inshore hake trawl fishery in South Africa is only encouraged, but not required, to use tori lines. We had good discussions around this topic and it seems that they mostly make voluntary use of them, even if it is only one tori line flown on the side the vessel is discarding. There were also lots of fun activities for everyone to get involved in.
All in all, it was a very successful course, and as always we learnt a thing or two from the fishermen as well!