The Gold Ball of Strepies – Sardine Run Magic off the Transkei Coast - by Linda Ness

The Gold Ball of Strepies – Sardine Run Magic off the Transkei Coast - by Linda Ness This encounter unfolded with Animal Ocean on the Wild Coast, and I, Steve Benjamin, can honestly say I’ve never witnessed anything like it before. To share such a rare and powerful moment with our guests was extraordinary, especially with Linda Ness, who not only captured stunning photographs but also transformed the experience into this article for Diver Alert Network South Africa’s online magazine.

We’re incredibly proud to have shared this with Linda. The Sardine Run is unpredictable by nature — you never know what the ocean will reveal — and that’s what makes it so compelling. Every day demands patience, persistence, and a little luck, but when it all comes together, the reward is unforgettable. Seeing our guests’ images come alive is always a privilege, and we take pride in helping them capture the magic as best as possible. This was one of those rare days when everything aligned, and the ocean offered us something truly exceptional.

Linda Writes in the article for DANSA -

The ocean is alive with movement. A conveyor of silver bodies flashes beneath me, then circles around to form a herding ball. I drift backwards, trying to frame the entire spectacle. The water shifts in clarity and colour as the bait ball twists and reforms.

Then the Bryde’s whale appears. It is always a shock when your living world collides with something you have only dreamt of. The grail of bait-balling is suddenly here, no longer reserved for patient dreamers. The whale sweeps through the golden mass with astonishing grace, figures of eight carved in slow arcs, its massive jaws parting the water. For a moment, time seems to bend — seconds can be counted before each attack, almost predictable.

This whale bore scars of a hard life: a torn gape on the left of its jaw that leaked fish, a healed streak down its tail like old rope entanglement. Smaller than most Bryde’s, yet every bit as formidable.

Eight times at least it passed. My camera stuttered and screamed, trapped between settings and missed moments. It seemed like slow motion in liquid-land, but in truth it was too fast, too chaotic. Then suddenly, the spell broke. The golden ball, once glowing like coins from Neptune’s purse, shrank and disappeared. The whale slipped into shadow, the dolphins’ chatter faded, and I was pushed inshore into the green. Lifting my head, the sun burned my eyes. Grateful, I thought. Grateful simply to be here.

The Strepie – The Fish that Makes Dreams

The bait ball wasn’t sardines this time, but Strepies. They look almost cartoonish — bug-eyed, silver and plump, neon-yellow stripes painted across their flanks. Juveniles graze in Cape nurseries on tiny plankton before shifting diets to red algae. As adults they shoal in surf zones and subtidal gullies, from Mozambique down past Cape Point to Saldanha Bay.

When the water warms, they migrate up to KwaZulu-Natal to breed, and their spawning aggregations fill the East Coast in winter. Normally they hug the coast, not far offshore, but here they had been driven into deep water by relentless dolphin hunters.

Strepies are more than just bait. They’re edible, but they also carry a strange notoriety. Consuming toxic phytoplankton gives them the potential to cause ichthyoallyeinotoxism — a rare poisoning that can lead to LSD-like hallucinations. Roman records speak of Strepie snacks eaten recreationally. Polynesians used them ceremonially. In Arabic, they are called “the fish that makes dreams.”

Today, South Africans can bag just ten per person, each at least 15 cm long. Bryde’s whales and dolphins, of course, face no such limits.

The Encounter

It was July, the thick of Sardine Run season, off Mdumbi on the Transkei Coast. Steve found the action the way you always do — by following the dolphins and the erratic staccato dives of gannets overhead. Jean was first over the edge, shouting back through the water column, “It’s Strepies!” Few could believe it. Strepies aren’t meant to shoal this far offshore. Yet here they shimmered, thousands strong, held in place by Common Dolphins in a precision display of herding.

Bait-balling is eavesdropping on chaos. Six degrees of freedom surround you: sun overhead, ocean skin undulating, dolphins cutting in arcs, birds hammering down. Everything moves, everything shimmers. The bait ball glowed molten gold.

The dolphins worked with elegance, not frenzy. They dipped and darted through the boiling shoal, casually plucking a Strepie at will. Their chatter filled the water. Bubble curtains hissed against the camera sensors. For the fish, it was molten panic, a lava lamp of terror.

Ephemeral Gold

And then, like all moments at sea, it ended. The ball collapsed. The whales and dolphins slipped away. Only the sun remained fixed in the shifting blue, and a diver floating quietly, grateful for the privilege of having witnessed it.