Last night I attended the launch of Port Elizabeth and Algoa Bay as the Bottlenose Dolphin Capital of the World at the Algoa Bay Yacht Club. The initiative was the brainchild of Lloyd Edwards of Raggy Charters and isn’t sommer maar so. It’s not like Lloyd just got up one morning and decided that he wants a new gimmick to promote the city and Algoa Bay with. The tag comes with some hard facts. Algoa Bay and the coastline around Port Elizabeth has close to 30 000 dolphins living here. That is more than in any other one place in the world. Over a period of 19 years Raggy Charters have seen dolphins on 90% of their cruises with pods ranging from 50 to 600 individuals. I thought it was going to be a low key event but around 250 tourism peeps, ocean lovers, conservation people and even scientists came together and packed the Algoa Bay Yacht Club’s Chartroom and outside bar area. Wow, what a turnout and a good indication how much this means to the local community. Now for us to take this and send it out to the world.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2vIFUpU9Ow&w=500&h=400]
This is the SABC news article on the launch that aired this morning. Janine Lee doing an excellent job getting news from the Bay out there as usual.