29/06/2015
It is a sunny day out at sea with Benguela dolphins doing single, double and triple jumps around us.
On our sail back to land a call comes over the radio from another boat saying that Andreas found a seal who is entangled by the ropes of a fishing net. Lots of talk on the radio from the other boats and then the voice of Captain Hans from Sun Sail Catamarans asking for the co-ordinates of where the seal in distress is.
He puts more power to his yacht and goes to drop off his guests at the Waterfront then sails back approximately 25 min taking into account the previous co-ordinates and the current of the sea. Being the only Captain/person who responded to the call, Captain Hans gets rewarded from Above and he finds the seal in distress.
The young seal gets scared when they try and rescue him so he dives .. but as he comes up for air his rescuers are above him, hooks the net and starts pulling him out. Just to realise that it is not only one seal who is entangled in a fishing net BUT THREE!
Two of them are dead and the third one had to fight to survive and stay above water with the dead weight of two water-logged seals and a net dragging him down as well as a net that is covering 80% of his body, including most of his flippers.
Once on the boat he had some time to rest (still in his net-trap).
This tired young seal fought and bite and fought some more when gentle hands tried to get the rope off. But at one stage, after about 10cm thick layers of net upon fishing net has been removed already, it felt to me, that when he could feel the net disappearing around some of his body, that he relaxed a bit more, lay still and allowed the gentle hands to slice and slice and slice some more… allowing his body to expand and breath more freely.
Just as the last pieces of the rope was cut off, he “flew” back in the water and swam so deep and so far that we could not see him come up for air.
A BIG THANK-YOU to Captain Hans and his staff, as well as Dolphin Project who came to assist. Thank you to Cuppa as well for the sharp knives :-)
This seal would not have been free from his man-made death-trap if it was not for the kindness of your hearts. God bless you all.