A Ball Of Gold - Local Diving

SARPA SALPA -STREPIE -KARANTEEN-KARA-DREAM FISH-SALEMA PORGY

Text By Linda Ness

They look like the fish you see in kids’ books, bug-eyed, chubby silver, with a fish tail, and neon yellow body stripes.

As adults they shoal, grazing mainly red algae but adaptable eaters, in South Africa usually confined to the surf zones and swishing along subtidal gullies in a coastal zone that extends from Mozambique around the Cape to Saldanha Bay.

Juveniles mature in nursery areas of the Cape, feeding on tiny planktonic organisms, until their teeth change and they become herbivorous. They migrate up to the warmer waters of KZN to breed and spawning aggregations are common along the East coast during the winter months.

Not just a fisherman’s bait of choice, you can eat it, and one of the most intriguing aspects of the Strepie is its potential to cause ichthyoallyeinotoxism, a rare form of poisoning that causes LSD-esque dream effects - grilled Strepie followed by vivid and frightening hallucinations. It has been suggested in science that this comes from the fish’s consumption of a toxic phytoplankton. Gives new meaning to a ‘fishing trip’.

History records that Strepie snacks were used recreationally in ancient Rome and for ceremonial purposes by Polynesians. In Arabic it’s known as ‘the fish that makes dreams’

South African humans are only allowed to bag 10 per day, minimum 15 cm long, arbitrarily. But dolphins and Bryde’s whales can chomp as much as they like.

Where: The Transkei Coast off South Africa, near Mdumbi.

When: July, in the thick of the Sardine Run magic.

Steve found the action, using the dolphin tells (he’s a Merlin like that), it had been a day dashing around following staccato gannet diving, probably with some Monty Python, Fish Called Wanda and Izzy Izzard renditions thrown in at the quiet moments, and Sam’s amazing hot choccie.

Jean was the first in. I baled over the edge and kept going down, looking up towards the sun I could see a black undulating oil slick – bait ball jackpot, I thought. When I surfaced, I could hear Jean shouting ‘it’s Strepies’.

As far as everyone could tell, and after the news filtered out and back as voice note tendrils into the marine communities, this was a unique interaction. Nobody thought Strepies should be found shoaling that far offshore, in the deeper water, perhaps it was the precision hunting of the Common Dolphins herding them there.

Bait-balling, generally, is a sport of extreme eavesdropping.

As I spiral around……... and let’s be clear, when you are imaging in the pelagic zone, there are 6 degrees of freedom partially limited by an undulating skin to the air, and the only thing that isn’t moving is the Sun …… the bait ball shimmers gold with frantic Strepies.

It’s more like lava lamp wax, moving with longitudinal panic, held up to the surface by the co-ordinated efforts of the Common dolphins. I am familiar with them now, they have a way of flicking you rude blackeyebrowed stares. The sputnik humans have arrived, single possible use: corralling barrier. The dolphin chatter is thick. Bubble curtains scream at the camera histograms.

Only, they are moving nonchalantly - the small golden fish aren’t shapeshifting escapees like sardines. The dolphins delicately dip their beaks into the swirling molten gold and pick out a Strepie like sushi off a conveyor, then circle round to do some herding. I swim backwards from the scene to try to capture the whole of it. The water clarity and colour changes as the ball moves.

The moment I catch sight of the Bryde’s whale my whole being leaps, I never really thought I’d be graced with this, I’ve often imagined it into my living world - the grail of bait balling reserved for those who will wait.

Later, we all agreed the Bryde’s was most polite. Sweeping figures of eight out and back carefully through the ball of gold, that would scatter and mercurially redefine, partly lost into the giant gaping whale mouth. I count seconds, maybe the attacks are predictable.

A small whale by Bryde’s standards, it had been clearly damaged in its life, a scarred gape on the left of its jaw that leaked lucky fish, and a healed streak on the left of its tail, together it appeared like an old rope entanglement.

Again and again, 8 passes at least, pixels screaming. It seems slo-mo in liquid-land, but it certainly is not. There is an evil tradeoff between adjusting settings and missing moments.

Then all of a sudden, when it seems like forever, and the ball of gold is reduced to a handful of coins, the Neptune energy levels recede, the whale is gone and the dolphin orchestra fades. We’ve been pushed inshore and into the green. I lift my head out of the water and feel the sun in my eyes.

Grateful to be able.