Get inside story on bay’s attractions
New booklet gives fascinating facts on ‘Hope Spot’
DID you know that 200 bird species and up to 20 000 birds occur in the Swartkops Valley and that a project is under way to recognise it as a wetland site of international significance?
Do you know that the eggs of the African penguin – half of which live in Algoa Bay – were once regarded as a delicacy and exported to England until 1968?
Or that Algoa Bay boasts “an underwater fairground” of reefs that make it one of the most diverse cold-water diving environments in South Africa?
These are just some of the nuggets of fascinating information in Know Your Bay – a guide to the features and creatures of our Algoa Bay Hope Spot ,anew booklet published by the Algoa Bay Branch of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa) with an R80 000 grant from the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.
The booklet is the culmination of a campaign driven by Wessa in partnership with the Algoa Bay Hope Spot initiative which was launched in 2014 by the patron of the international Hope Spot movement, renowned marine ecologist and explorer Dr Sylvia Earle.
The booklet’s opening section by top ecotourism operator Alan Fogarty is prefaced by a map showing the distinctive “half heart” shape of the bay and the crescent of the Alexandria dunefield, home to rare species like the pygmy hairy-footed gerbil.
Oceanographer Eckart Schumann describes the bay’s distinctive upwelling dynamic, and how waves originating in storms in the Southern Ocean formed “the largest wind-driven dunefield in the Southern Hemisphere and the one of the most impressive in the world”.
The early pages also include sections on Algoasaur bauri, the fossilised remains of the dinosaur discovered in a Despatch brick quarry in 1903, as well as the first humans to leave their footprints on the shore of Algoa Bay – and how Port Elizabeth got its name.
There is also information about shipwrecks, the Great Gale – the 1902 disaster when 18 ships at anchor were driven aground by a hurricane easterly – and rare stromatolites, windows into an ancient world that were discovered recently on the Port Elizabeth coast.
The booklet celebrates St Croix Island’s status as home to the world’s largest colony of African penguins, Bird Island as home to the largest population of Cape gannets on Earth and that the Bay is the bottlenose dolphin capital of the world.
Gary Koekemoer, who dives beneath the surface to describe Philips Reef, Roman Rock and Bell Buoy, writes that “a particular feature is the long gully through which the swell pumps water, creating surging channels beneath the surface”.
“It is in these that you will encounter stingrays hugging the bottom and come within touching distance of slowboating ragged-tooth sharks.”
The booklet closes with sections on the Port Elizabeth beachfront and ocean sports, Blue Flag beaches, volunteer surf lifesaving clubs, Wessa’s anti-litter campaign – and the challenges facing the Bay.
Marine biologist Dr Lorien Pichegru writes that these range from overfishing to pollution, climate change and the increase in shipping traffic.
While Operation Phakisa promises many possible economic and job-creation benefits, it was vital to counter the possible negative effects through education and planning, she said.