Trip cancelled

The weather has prevented us from going out tomorrow. Rob was hoping to get out and do a pelagic shark trip.

We also desperately need to catch some fish for bait. This season so far, we have not been able to catch any due to the weather.

ON the last few trips we have been seeing a lot of Blue Sharks. Not many Mako sharks, which is disappointing.

Here are a few facts on the beautiful Blue Shark.

The Blue shark is one of the most easily recognized sharks. It is a sleek shark with long, pointed fins, a pointed snout, and large bulging eyes. Its sleek, tapered body makes it a graceful swimmer. Like most pelagic sharks, they are found worldwide.They are also the second fastest sharks, next to the Mako shark.

Pelagic trip yesterday

We set off from Simonstown at 06H30, with 6 guests and a slight SE wind. It was our first trip in over a week due to strong winds and bad seas so these trip are always interesting after a bit of a lay off.

The water at Cape Point was cold and green, no good for fishing or diving. After booking out with Penguin (Penguin is radio call sign for the light house keeper who keeps you on record. All boats going into the deep, need to radio Penguin telling him, what time they depart,how many on the vessel and what your ETA will be. If you don't check in with him, he alerts the NSRI etc).
We set off on a course off 245’. There was very little life and no dolphins nor whales. We did get some good pelagic birds a bit later. I got a nice shot of an Indian Yellow-Nose Albatross.

At around 20 miles, we tried our hand at fishing with no luck. We then put the cage out. By now we had 3 of the 6 guest feeling quite sea sick, and the one youngster was very nervous and had gotten cold feet, so we were only going to dive his parents today.
The water was still a little green but viz was not bad. In less than 5 minutes,our first Blue shark arrived . After getting the divers in the water we ended up with 8 Blue sharks and 1 very nice Mako shark ( about 1.5m) which seemed to chase some off the smaller Blues away.

Conditions were very nice with a light Southerly wind of 8-10 knots, most of the day which made run back to cape Point very pleasant. On the way home we detoured past the Boulders Penguin Colony. ROB

Pelagic shark Trips with African Shark Eco-Charters

The wind has just not stopped blowing. It is really unbelievable.

I remember reading stories of guys at the South Pole going literally mad by the sound of the wind, and I could never quiet understand what they where talking about. Last night as I sat at my kitchen table, the force of the wind pushing itself under the door made such a horrible whistling noise that it started giving me a head ache, that I started to understand how the wind can drive one mad.

We have a good few pelagic trips lined up, and hopefully we can get out.
Here is some info our trips.


From October to May each year the warm Agulhas current sweeps along the east coast of South Africa bringing with it its clear blue water that teems with life.
It is when this clear blue warm water arrives that we head off in search of our blue water predators.

This adventurous trip will take you past Cape Point, and we travel about 20 miles off shore in search of pelagic sharks such as the magnificent Mako and Blue Sharks. These majestic creatures rule this blue world known as the pelagic (open ocean) zone. We will either use the cage to snorkel, or with confident divers, we will personally snorkel with you around the boat. The visibility is normally clear and blue and can be over 30m (100ft) and water temp can exceed 23`c. These conditions make for great photo’s and editorials.

For naturalist wanting a bit of everything then this is a must, because from the moment we get out of False Bay we start to see wildlife that land lovers will never see, a multitude of pelagic birds can been seen including Skuas, Terns, Shearwaters, petrels, penguins as well as the possibility of seeing up to six different species of Albatross. Whales and dolphins of many species are also regular visitors on our run out into the deep.
Large shoals of yellow fin tuna (up to 100kg) and long fin tuna are seen and can sometimes circle the boat. If the fish are around we will try some fishing (catch and release, or for personal consumption).

Mako sharks have the ability to make prodigious leaps out of the water and this can been observed generally on clam weather days.

The average sizes of the Mako’s are around 5ft but we do get visitors of up to 10ft+, observing any Mako is a truly fantastic experience.

Blue sharks are afraid of very little and will approach diver with a lot of interest, only satisfied after a close inspection that you are not a food item; this is great for photos and memories.

I hope this has been of interest to you. I will next blog about the Blue and Mako sharks.