At Pennington on the South Coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
When the window in your bedroom faces the East overlooking the Indian ocean, you can’t help but to leave your curtains open to wake with the sunrise in the morning and give thanks for the opportunity to be where we are on a beautiful day. It is a calm morning and the air is still as the sun begins its journey. After a quick exercise session, to start the morning fresh, we enjoy a cup of tea on the patio. From our perch we can see the boats being launched into the surf, one after the next, there are many today. Today is one of an ebbing flow of days when the sardines are running along South Africa’s eastern coast, known as The Sardine Run.
In the morning, they launch the boats from the beach into the surf with a tractor to push the boat trailers across the soft sand. We watched one boat as it got a couple hundred meters from shore and three men dived off into the chilly waters filled with shark bait, and the boat, having fulfilled its duty, carried on his own journey. As the men swam around each other they dragged a net and formed a circle to close it off. Now the work began, of swimming to shore while dragging a net filled with thousands of jumping fish. Our heroes made it to shore with their catch and without the assistance of flippers, only to be met by scavengers aiming to swipe whatever catch jumped out of their net (it’s fair game if it’s out of the net, the scavengers claimed).
When our men came back from the beach they arrived with a handful of these poached sardines that, once cooked over a small fire, made a delicious accompaniment to our poached eggs on toast for breakfast washed down with a glass of fresh carrot juice and another cup of warm tea.
By now the sun was warm enough to head down to the beach. A quick walk or a short drive away you are never far from a dog friendly seaside spot or a secret rocky cove in this little lush and leafy town of Pennington. Turning down the last road that goes along the railway line and past the fence line of a new development, we parked at the end of the road in an area of flattened bush and gathered our belongings. We made our way down the path, over the railway line, through the banana plants, down the green carpeted hill and onto the red rocks that make up the coast in parts of this area.
As we came out onto the rocks, I have never seen it so busy. Life brings life. This swarming ball of sardine life rolls along the coastline and the whales, dolphins, birds, sharks, humans, and other fish all follow. It is a show of nature’s best acts to sit and watch the birds dive, the dolphins play, and the whales jump as the slick of the oily sardines goes by. The boats were lined up on the other side of the slick and out of the roll of the waves, while the shore anglers bait up or cast lures to catch the larger game fish following the sards. It is truly a representation of the food chain as big eats small and each level attracts its predator as the humans try their best to outwit them all.
It is warm and the sun feels nice and not harsh and hot like in summer. But there is a wind so we dress in and bring layers to suit how we feel throughout the day and to get through the chillier mornings and evenings. Once the fishing people have found where they believe the fish to be biting, the ladies seek a protected, and smooth or sandy place to set down the snacks and drinks for a few hours of reading, relaxing, and meditating to the roll and crash of the waves.
When the sun gets lower in the sky and the air gets cooler, it is time to start packing up before the chill sets in, but we do so grateful for the beautifully warm clear day we had. Before heading back to the house, we drove up the coast to a popular stopping place where the commercial fishermen line up crates full of sardines and hawk them to fisherman, middlemen or consumers. The price fluctuates with the supply and demand but was standing at R150 per crate full of gleaming silver fish. We negotiated to choose a hundred of the best ones for a small supply of future bait. This work requires nicely bagging the sardines for the freezer.
Evenings on the coast are best spent around the fire with some music or friends. After building a nice fire and making coals, we placed two legs of lambs and vegetables over the fire to roast in tin foil for two hours while the fishing men geared up for a quick evening session on the beach. We had a nice walk down to the beach and there was just enough light to see the waves crashing on to the shore as we all sat quietly and enjoyed ourselves.
It is lovely to visit Pennington at any time of year but the annual Sardine Run happens in KwaZulu-Natal in June/July every year. It depends on when the fish make their way from the Eastern Cape province up the coast, then the rest of nature’s creatures fall in line behind and follow it up to Durban.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.
Mahatma Gandhi
It is winter here in the southern hemisphere, and temperatures can drop to varying degrees across the country but with lows of 43F/6C in Durban. Times become harder when people need more resources for warm clothing and firewood. This influx of nature’s bountiful resource of sardines at the beginning of each winter on this coastline provides extra sustenance in order to warm bellies, or extra cash as needed to get by. This year the runs are plentiful and offering a little boost to the area’s hard-hit economy.
For more information:
Check out footage of this years sardine run
National Geographic’s Sardine Run story
The KZN Sharks Board lets us in on the facts
