If you cover yourself head to toe in rubber and sit, for a few hours, on an inflatable boat at sea, you get to meet some fascinating people.......

While looking for sardines in June, it seemed as though the whole of the south african underwater glitterati were out to get the ultimate shot of the sardine run. We met underwater videographer, Charles Maxwell whose fascinating experiences on location shoots are described on the Underwater Video Service's website. Although experienced in filming a wide range of underwater subjects, including Great White Sharks from outside a cage, it was Charles' first time filming sardines. He managed to get award-winning footage of sharks, dolphins and birds feeding on a bait ball of sardines. Several international film crews had spent millions of pounds searching each sardine season for two years for this particular footage. Charles got his in 3 days! Sometimes you just need a big dollop of luck. We were fortunate to view a copy of the tape and were immediately transported back to our own 'bait-ball' experience of four weeks ago. 'Award-winning' is an understatement. It was a pleasure to meet Peter Pinnock and his wife (and model) Jeanne. Their beautiful shots and articles are in many south african magazines. Peter was full of helpful advice for Mark's probing questions on light, F-Stops and apertures and Jeanne was a wealth of knowledge on the marine life around the Transkei coast... the time they afforded us was hopefully nothing to do with the fact that they were cornered by us on a small boat for 5 hours! We also met Alan Mountain on one of the searches for sardines. He is the respected author of 'Paradise under Pressure', 'Dive Sites of Mauritius', and 'Divers Handbook' to name a few. We later visited him in Cape Town and over tea and milk tart we tried to turn the conversation to his many enthralling travelling tales however he got his questions in first and we spent the afternoon talking about ourselves...... Next time Alan. We also met Marc Montocchio, another well known SA Underwater photographer. After listening to his many photography tips during one weekend, Mark decided it would be wise to attend one of his photography courses. See 'News July 2000' page for update.

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