In June 2015 Mick Todd and I travelled to the Mzimvubu River estuary at Port St John as part of an Andy Murch Big Fish Expeditions dive group. We had just spent four days in East London searching without luck for signs of South Africa’s famous Sardine Run and were hoping that our five days in Port St John would be more fruitful. 

Although we did see several small pockets of the Sardine Run from the comfort of Explorer2, Gannet birds attacking the sardines like stukas from the Second World War, the pockets were too small to generate any action. Still we were treated to pods of dolphins and breaching Humpback Whales. I got in the water with one small bait ball but the underwater visibility was bad and it was a struggle to get even half decent shots of the sardines and their attacking dolphins. 

A Microlight aided us in our ultimately unsuccessful search for the Sardine Run and for me it provided the highlight of this trip as I was treated to a flight over the breath-taking scenery, watching Humpback Whales breach just beneath me.