A Whale of a Tail

Team Canada (L-R) Chida, Alex, Me, Blair

During one of the breaks from the rain on Sunday, we went out for lunch with Rob and Sam and their kids Luke and Julia. Afterward, we went to visit a penguin rehabilitation centre in Cape St Francis. They were adorable – some were curious and friendly, others shy or grouchy.  The penguins are brought to the centre after oil spills, injuries, or habitat losses. They are returned to the wild regularly – in fact several were returned to their native colonies the day after we saw them. The centre plans to re-establish a colony of South African penguins on the coast of St Francis.

My favourite little penguin, Joran, just muggin'

On Monday, we cleaned and painted the Sea Centre, helping to prepare it for the opening in two weeks. After work, we walked along the beach, and loads of cool things had washed up after all of the storms.

Patrick the Puffer Fish

Decomposing Seal

That night while we were cooking dinner, Alex spotted dolphins from the balcony window – a ton of them were swimming by for a dusk feed. It was amazing!

One of our dolphin neighbours

Calf (left) and Mother (right) having a blast!

The sun finally came out on Tuesday, much to everyone’s relief. We were out and about collecting displays, animals, and other odds and ends for the Sea Centre when we spotted some whale activity out on the water. I even saw a whale breech in the distance! Rob and Sam decided to take advantage of the nice weather, so we headed out on their boat to see if we could get closer to the whales. Sure enough, we experienced a spectacular display put on by two Humpback whales - a mother and calf. At one point, after losing them for a while, one whale came up for a breath RIGHT NEXT TO THE BOAT! Everyone was completely shocked, and I only recovered in time to snap a shot of its tail on the way back down. It was unreal! On the way home we saw seals and Humpback dolphins – the cherry on top of an incredible boat ride!

The next day there was lots to do at the centre - our boss Tony arrived from Grahamstown (via a much-altered route due to all of the road issues). We made plans for the grand opening of the centre and got a lot of work done. On Thursday, it was sadly time to leave St Francis, so we crossed the temporary bridge over the Sand River and drove back to Grahamstown.  

St Francis

After another week hard at work with the SST, Chida and I got a ride with Seb and his fiancée Vicky down to the coast. They were headed to Jeffrey’s Bay, and dropped us off a little further at St Francis, where we met up with Blair and Alex, the other Canadian interns. We were hoping to escape the rainy miserable weather in Grahamstown, since our road had become a river over the past couple of days.

St Francis is a tiny coastal town that serves as the summer destination to many wealthy South Africans, or to a year-round clan of loveable beach folk. Alex and Blair live in a harbour area called Port St Francis, in a massive apartment with a big balcony overlooking the water. 

Sam and Rob are a couple who run GYPSEA, a marine eco tour company. They’ve partnered up with SST to open an educational centre (the St Francis Sustainable Seas Centre) for all ages. Alex and Blair have been busy helping them prepare for the grand opening on November 9^th.  The location is great – right in the harbour, with lots of space for exhibits and activities. There is tons of potential for research and education at the centre, and Chida and I will likely be involved there for December and January.

On Friday night we went to Sam and Rob’s son’s 16 birthday braai (a bbq – South Africans love to grill!) which was held at the centre. It was a lot of fun and I got my first taste of life in St Francis – low key and a lot of fun.

Pouring rain in the Port - waterfalls of runoff
were everywhere!

Remember how I said we’d hoped to escape the rain? Well, it also rained for most of the week in St Francis, and on Saturday it poured and poured and poured. The roads around St Francis became nearly impossible to drive over the weekend – there were areas that were completely impassable due to flooding, and about every 100m or so immense potholes riddled the road. Road conditions in less populated areas of Africa are extremely poor, and can be difficult to drive even in the best of conditions.

Eventually the rain became extremely damaging. The bridge across the Sand River into St Francis was wiped out, along with several other areas of major roads. We became isolated, although at no point were we ever in serious danger. A temporary bridge was constructed out of massive crates, and all supplies were carried in via hand.

However, the rain was heavy across the Eastern Cape and flooding was widespread, resulting in several deaths due to drowning and other accidents. In one case, a massive section of road collapsed (on the road between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown) and a car containing an entire family was pushed over the edge by a car that rear-ended it, unable to stop in time. For more information about the flooding, check out these articles: Pretoria News, Natural Disaster Report, Eastern Cape Flooding.

While our return to Grahamstown was delayed for a few days due to the road conditions, the whole trip wasn’t spent indoors. Whenever there was a break in the downpour, we managed to get out and explore. It was a blast spending time with Alex and Blair, breaking up the monotony of the “old couple” lifestyles we’d grown accustomed to in our separate towns (early bedtimes, lots of reading, actually doing the dishes…) More to come on these adventures soon!

One week in - work and wildlife

On Tuesday, I awoke feeling as though I could sleep for another 10 hours. Unfortunately I didn’t have that luxury – at 9am Chida and I were taken to the Sustainable Seas Trust’s new office where we met the other members of the Grahamstown team: Seb, Kyle, Sirkka, and Viv. There are people who work for SST all over the country, like in St Francis where the other two Canadians are, but the Grahamstown team is the largest.

There are tons of SST projects on the go including the development of educational booklets and videos; fundraising and increasing membership; planning trips, presentations and talks; working on the website (check it out here: http://www.sst.org.za) and furnishing / decorating the new office. Subsequently, working for the SST has been busy from the get go, and the first week flew by.

The weather in Grahamstown is quite interesting – since the town is located in a valley, the temperature changes rapidly. The first few days were cold, rainy, and blustery and I was constantly chilled (I drank lots of rooibos tea to keep warm!). When the sun finally came out at the end of the week, I was quite relieved to put away my long johns. As it gets colder back home in Canada, it gets warmer here in South Africa as we move into summer.

After a non-stop busy week, it was time for a bit of a break. Seb offered to take Chida and I to the Kwantu elephant reserve on Saturday. Again on the drive we saw lots of wildlife - zebras, warthogs, blesbok, and more! When we arrived at Kwantu, we waited in an immense banquet hall fit for a wedding before being taken outside to the elephant pen. The elephants were enchanting – they performed a whole routine for us before we were able to feed them, stuffing their greedy trunks and gaping mouths with grass pellets. These four female elephants were saved from certain death; in game parks, a number of elephants are killed each year to prevent over population. The Kwantu elephants were all lined up for this fate before being taken to the reserve.

About 10km further down the road is the entrance to the Kwantu game park and predator rehabilitation centre. We took a tour of the area where they keep predators in order to breed them and release them into the wild. We saw Bengal tigers (not native to SA), African lions, a breeding pair of white lions, and a pair of cheetahs (unfortunately in this case the female cheetah had no interest in mating with the male, much to the frustration of the Kwantu employees). The big cats were all beautiful and magnificent, and it was a bit sad to see them all locked up. However, by breeding them and releasing them into the wild, they are helping to maintain healthy population levels of these rare animals.

These big guys don't often get along so well...

Lonely male cheetah with no one to love him...

The start of the adventure...

Let me first explain why I have travelled to South Africa. After deciding against pursuing a Masters immediately after graduating from UBC, I began applying to several different internship programs and research assistant positions across the globe. I managed to land an internship funded by CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency), run through the Marine Institute at Memorial University in Newfoundland. I’d be heading to South Africa to work for an NGO called the Sustainable Seas Trust (SST), which promotes sustainable practices throughout impoverished coastal communities. In September, I spent a week in St John’s being oriented about what to expect overseas. There were 16 interns in the program; 4 of us heading to South Africa, the others to Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, St. Lucia and Malawi. I’d be working with a UVic grad named Chida in Grahamstown, where the main SST office is located and where I’ll be living for the better part of 6 months. Alex and Blair, the two other interns heading to SA, would be working in St Francis, on the coast.

It took nearly 48 hours to travel from Kingston to Grahamstown. I flew from Kingston to Toronto then overnight to London, where I spent the day exhaustedly exploring the vast and fascinating British museum  (nearly falling asleep during a tour of the Mexican exhibit). I met up with Chida and another red eye took us from London to Johannesburg, followed by a short flight to Port Elizabeth. The weather was miserable – cold and rainy. Tony, the retired professor who runs the SST, greeted us and drove us from PE to Grahamstown, with a brief stop for homemade pineapple juice on the way. We passed by several game parks and reserves as we drove along the highway, seeing several herds of zebras, a number of giraffes, plus monkeys, eland, ibex, antelope and a few other creatures. Despite the haze of travel, I was giddy about seeing such incredible wildlife so soon.

After a quick grocery shop, we were taken to our new digs (SA word for apartment), located about five minutes out of town. It has an incredible view of the city, plus it’s spacious and clean. I wasn’t sure what to expect from our living conditions, but it’s easily one of the nicer places I’ve ever lived – and for half of the rent! Chida and I ate and then hit the hay. Exhausted, I was asleep nearly instantly, adoring the glorious feeling of a proper bed after two days of plane travel.

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