What you're booking.
Eight hours out past Cape Point into pelagic seabird water. The run off the Cape is one of the world's great pelagic birding trips: deep water, converging currents, and the trawl grounds where the ocean wanderers concentrate.
What's out there
The list is the reason people fly here for this:
- Albatrosses: shy and black-browed as the regulars, with wanderers turning up often enough to keep everyone honest
- Petrels: white-chinned in numbers, and the giant petrels muscling around anything on the surface
- Shearwaters: sooty and great, sometimes in rafts of thousands
- Storm petrels dancing on the water, and skuas doing what skuas do
The trawl grounds are the engine of the day. Where a trawler is working, the birds concentrate in their thousands, and the skipper works the fleet's positions the way a fishing skipper works marks.
Winter months are often best for albatross variety, but there are birds out there all year, and a good day is possible in any month.
This is a serious sea day
Eight hours, a long way offshore, in open ocean. Take sea-sickness tablets an hour before departure whether or not you think you need them; scanning the horizon through binoculars is the exact activity that brings it on, and a long way out is a bad place to discover it.
Bring full weather kit and more warm layers than seem reasonable. It is always colder out there than at the harbour.
Weather-dependent, honestly
This charter runs on the ocean's terms. We call it honestly a day or two out, and we will not take the boat into a marginal forecast to keep a booking alive. If we cancel, full refund or a new date, your choice. If your dates are flexible, tell us: it doubles your chances of a good day.
What's included
- Skipper and crew for eight hours
- Fuel, safety equipment, life jackets
- Water aboard, and cold storage for your lunch
From R23,500 for the boat, not per person, so a full boat of birders splits it.
What you need
No fishing licence: nobody is fishing. Your own binoculars and camera, waterproofs, warm layers, closed-toe shoes, and the sea-sickness tablets already mentioned, taken early.
What will we see?
The water past Cape Point is one of the great pelagic birding runs anywhere. Albatrosses (shy and black-browed, occasionally a wanderer), white-chinned and giant petrels, sooty and great shearwaters, storm petrels and skuas, concentrated where the trawl grounds stir the food up.
No list is promised. The ocean decides, and that is the point of going.
How hard a day is it?
A serious sea day: eight hours, open ocean, real swell. Take sea-sickness tablets an hour before departure and bring warm, waterproof layers in any month.
If you have never spent a day offshore, do an inshore charter first and see how you get on.
Is the price per person?
Per boat, so a full complement of birders brings the per-head cost right down. We can sometimes help singles and pairs join a boat that is filling; ask when you enquire.
Included, and not.
In the price
- Your SAMSA-licensed skipper and crew for the full charter
- Fuel
- All safety equipment and life jackets
- Binoculars aboard
- Water aboard
Not in the price
- Your own glass and camera
- Food and drink beyond water
- Sea-sickness tablets: take them an hour before departure
Prices are per boat, not per person. Full pricing.
Best months.
Pelagic birds are offshore all year, with winter often strongest for albatross variety. Weather decides the day: we call it honestly a day or two out, and rebook rather than run a marginal window.