November 24, 2021

Botswana September 2021

November 24, 2021/ Russ van Aardt

NOTE: Most images below are downsized, uncropped frame grabs from our 6K and 4K film stock footage. Active words are linked to more information and trip adviser/other reviews.

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Are YOU looking for THE BEST,… TOTALLY WILD,… REMOTE,… AFRICAN BUSH SAFARI? If so, read this blog and book soon with Swampland Safari Trails, before they are totally full and you have to wait another year to experience this Pure Magic.

Having always chosen Swampland Safari Trails for our Botswana Cinematography expeditions, we were very excited to be commissioned to film and produce promotional material for them. This includes five, 60 second Teasers and one 5 minute promotional film, all for broadcast on their social media and at Travel Exhibitions around the World.

( COMING SOON - Watch this Space! )

Just like all our trips with Swampland Safari Trails, the owners Louis and Laetitia, along with their wonderful team, took care of all our trip details, requirements and planning. They also made numerous modifications to one of their Safari vehicles, to suit our filming needs. A huge thanks to them all!!

Swampland Safari Trails went out of their way to ensure that everything was running smoothly, which admittedly is not always easy when sitting out in the African bush, 4 hours drive from the nearest town. We are also very fussy and have demanding cinematography requirements.

Not a problem for Swampland Safari Trails!! From literally removing seats, placing new foot rests (so that we were comfortable while travelling), drilling holes into their Safari vehicle bodywork for securing cinematography gear, to the supplying of solar panels, inverters and batteries to satisfy our hefty data transfer and battery charging needs. All filming location transfers arranged, domestic flights booked, very experienced Safari guides, scrumptious meals cooked on a bush fire by very competent chefs and all our hotel and B&B bookings (They get them at a better rate than we can...so don’t even bother looking online).

Laetitia’s company, Captivating Destination, that complements Swampland Safari Trails, does an amazing job with promptly sorting out all the details for any request, delivering every need into the remotest of bush areas and even arranging our return Covid PCR tests. Often in the bush, things change, but not to stress, Swampland Safari Trails always have a plan B & C ready. What a purely magical team.

This is the only team we want to rely on, in the very remote bush areas of Botswana. Not only are they well connected and supported by other operators, but Louis also owns the Satellite phone company, BotSat , so his crews are always connected. Whenever we need any communication services during your expeditions in Botswana, we just speak to Louis.

Our camp site was so remote and peaceful. Totally soul rejuvenating. We slept in spacious tents erected under shady trees, with proper comfy beds, our own en suite with bucket type shower and chemical toilet.

Talk about WILD DINNING, our table was two meters away from the rivers edge and most days/nights we had Lion's, Buffalo, Hippo, Elephants and Hyaena that would come and visit our camp. The enchanting sound of the bush and the hundreds of chirping Reed frogs, lulled us to sleep at night. We got some super clear audio recordings at night, of Hyenas, Hippos, Owls and Reed frogs. The Elephants loved the trees at our tents, that were shading the en suite bathrooms and kept coming to feed during the day, even when we were in the camp and sometimes, in the bathroom itself. They were so relaxed with our presence. What a treat to have a total of 25 African Elephants visiting our camp site, while we ate lunch on the day before we left.

We have been privileged to visit the Botswana Bush a number of times and have tried self drive camping and even stayed in Safari lodges, but nothing that compares to this!

This is TRULY WILD !!

So Special!

EXCLUSIVE!

The BEST AFRICAN BUSH SAFARI WE HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED.

The animal sightings were incredible. A total of 32 Lions, with numerous cubs at different ages and plenty of amazing behaviour. 25 African Wild Dog, with a large number of pups. A total of 4 Leopards, with one cub and 8 sightings. Lion and leopard on their kills. Lions and Hyenas eating a dead Elephant. Lots of exciting water crossings in our Safari Vehicle, stunning sunrises and sunsets. So many amazing memories and stunning footage.

We were very happy to have our favourite Safari guide, Max with us once again, in fact for the 5th time. Max is so experienced and he truly has a passion for all the animals too. At times, yes, we would follow the animals but never chase or harass them. His bush and animal etiquette is fabulous. Now and again, animals that we were filming, would disappear into a dense area of bush, which was just not accessible. No problem to Max, he would calculate where the most probable place of emergence would be, move the vehicle and they would reappear right there. While most other safari vehicles went one way, we would often go the other, and guess what... animals that we were tracking would pop out right in front of us, with no other vehicles around!! He took great care of us at all times and we wish to thank him for sharing his knowledge and always being cheerful and willing to help. We look forward to seeing you again soon Max.

We were filled with anticipation for the first use of the 1.4X tele-converter that we had purchased for the trip. This was used with our trusty 150-600mm Sigma zoom lens and increased the zoom capability by 40%, from 600mm to 840mm. This lens combination, making it possible for us to get even closer to the action, surpassed all of our expectations and produced tack sharp images, as you can see from many of the 6K frame grabs above.

Naturally, the Bush Safari can be a very hard and unforgiving environment. The roads can get extremely rough. It rains unexpectedly. The wind blows and the DUST gets into everything. But, that being said, our gear coped faultlessly, no matter what we subjected it to. Our Blackmagic, DJI and RED cameras, just kept on filming, regardless. Our MSI laptop and 32TB of Western Digital hard drives, that we store all the 6K and 4K RAW footage on, never missed a beat and the Canon and Sigma lenses that we use were as clear as ever, by the end of our 3 weeks of filming in the Botswana Bush. Quite remarkable.

We also wish to give a big thanks to Jonah and all the chefs, for the scrumptious fresh food, cooked on a bush fire in very remote areas, moving solar panels to follow the sun all day, every day and always being willing to help out with a huge smile. Jonah's freshly fire baked bread is to die for!! We are both vegetarians and this was catered for with ease. Thank you!

The Mokoro trips on the river are a special treat too. The staff share their knowledge and love for conserving the area.

Another big Thank You to our great Buddies, Carol, Terry and Max, for their fabulous company, but most of all for putting up with all our filming requirements. Sitting absolutely totally still while filming and keeping totally quiet while recording audio. We know we drove you all NUTS!!

You guys ROCK! THANK YOU! We do hope that we will be able to share many more happy adventures together.

We wish Swampland Safari Trails all the best with their new marketing material, may the post-COVID-19 tourism be even better that before. We have loved being in the bush with you and encourage everyone to go wild and book soon. We can not wait to return!

We wish to thank Swampland Safari Trails for this incredible opportunity.

HAVE YOU BOOKED YET??

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This is a personal blog. Any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual.

All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.

December 08, 2020

RED SEA - EGYPT

December 08, 2020/ Russ van Aardt

All images below, are uncropped frame grabs from our 6K and 4K film stock footage, unless otherwise noted.

(Please note: Active words are linked to more information and trip adviser/other reviews.)

2020 and COVID-19, a year of unprecedented change.

While this 'Pandemic' has had many negative effects on life as we knew it, the positive spin-off of the huge reduction in numbers of global travelers, seems to be that nature has had a chance to take a breath, to regain a little silence and possibly even recover, just a little. Once again, COVID-19 and the strict social and health protocols, that the world has put in place, has resulted in there being no better time for the exploration of our oceans, COVID risk aside, naturally.

Diving in the Red Sea has not been this tranquil since the 1970's, with so few people traveling and a 50% occupancy restriction on resorts and liveaboards, there were fewer divers and bubbles in the water than we could ever have thought possible. Divers, this is the time to get to the Red Sea.

We had three main objectives for this expedition:

The first, was to get some alone time on the 1941 wreck of SS Thistlegorm, with no other divers, torches or bubbles in the shot, to film, what is arguably one of the most dived wreck in the world.

The second, was to find and film one of the oceans most intriguing vegetarian mammals, currently vulnerable to Extinction, the Dugong.
The third and final objective was to dive with and film the Carcharhinus Longimanus or Oceanic Whitetip Shark.

Filming with our 6K RED and 4K Black Magic Cameras in their Nauticam dive housings, our Dive and Sea monitors and, of course, our robust Keldan lights, we decided, considering all the travel issues and restrictions, to incorporate three separate legs to the journey so that we had 22 days of almost unlimited diving to achieving our goals.

Our journey started from Hurghada, on the Emperor divers liveaboard named 'Emperor Superior', with only 11 other divers. We were so fortunate to have our dear friend, Sonia as our dive guide. Yahooo! The itinerary was called “The Famous Five” and included our first objective, the SS Thistlegorm.

(These are Cellphone images)

We saw very few other boats on the water and almost no day boats at all. In stark contrast to reports over the past few years, of 35+ boats, being moored on this wreck at one time, 35 boats, with an average of 20 divers on each, can you imagine? However, due to COVID-19, we were the only ones there. How lucky were we? In all this tranquility, we managed 4 dives on this magnificent wreck, one of which was a night dive, with only our handful of divers in the water.

With a small amount of planning, we had almost 4 hours of filming opportunity, around and inside the wreck, making the most of this unheard of opportunity, to get 'The Shot'.

Being the only two divers in the lower sections of the ships holds, surrounded by trucks, motorbikes, aircraft parts, all frozen in time for the last 75 years, we could almost hear the horrific explosions, sounds of tearing and buckling steel, screaming from crew members, the smell of discharging explosives, the scalding heat and blinding light from raging fires, the roar of cascading sea water rushing through passages, doorways and chambers, as the ship heaved and sank below the surface, in the dark of night and then just bubbles, until the thud of her 128 meter body landed on the sea bed 30 meters below. Quite surreal.

First objective Achieved, two to go.....

Our next step was onto 'Emperor Skye' another boat in the Emperor Divers fleet, but not a safari boat. 'Emperor Skye' is a day dive boat with 4 cabins and she is moored in Marsa Ghalib, about 60 km north of Marsa Alam. We were the only divers living on the boat and were treated like King and Queen.

(These are Cellphone images)

From this location we did shore and boat entry diving, looking for the allusive Dugongs. While 'Emperor Skye' is able to get out to a number of famous dive sites in the region, we were content with spending our 6 days just searching for Dugongs in the shallow sea grass beds of the region.

Our fantastic guide, Paul, patiently indulged our obsession, dive after dive, Green sea turtle after Green sea turtle, day after day and it all paid off.

DUGONG's!! Eating, sleeping, fighting off remoras, what a delight!

On one dive, while filming yet another Green sea turtle, we were approached by a large male Dugong called Dyson, who proceeded to swim through between us and grabbed the turtle that we had been filming, by the back of its shell. The turtle, startled by the sudden physical contact, tried to get away, but Dyson held on tight and carried the turtle off into the distance and all the way up to the surface. Why?........ No idea! (see below sequence)

This portion of the expedition was also a great success, with over 60 minutes of 6K and 4K Dugong footage now in our library.

Second objective Achieved, one to go.....

(This is a Cellphone image)

….. and so we moved onto our third and final objective, finding and filming the Oceanic Whitetip shark. For this we joined the 'Emperor Elite', yet another magnificent boat in the Emperor Divers fleet.

BUT! Before we proceed with the story, we wish to Congratulate Emperor Divers on their Safari boat 'Emperor Elite', winning the “BEST LIVEABOARDS” 2020 category in the UK Dive Magazine annual competition.

Well done guys!

(Image courtesy of Divemagazine.co.uk)

We boarded 'Emperor Elite' directly from 'Emperor Skye' in Marsa Ghalib and proceeded out to Brothers, Elphinstone and Deadalus, amongst others. Here again, we were grateful for the reduced number of boats in the water, which made it so much easier to film, without getting divers, fins and bubbles in the shot.

Mother nature was holding back a little here though, as the cold water, that brings the sharks, was not welling up from below as expected and the shark encounters had dropped from the previous week, but as we all know, there are no guarantees when you are out in the wild. This being said, we had a number of superb encounters with Thresher Shark, Scalloped Hamerheads, Whaleshark ….. AND..... LONGIMANUS, our intrepid and extremely inquisitive Oceanic Whitetip Shark

That's a wrap, all tree objectives Achieved.

Although, that being said, one must not forget all the other amazing creatures, corals and sights of the Red Sea. There are world class reefs, plenty of fish and majestic Dolphins.

What an incredible expedition this was, with Emperor Divers, ticking every box, not only from the filming and sighting perspective, but in absolutely every respect.

From the very first email to Emperor Divers, to all of our transfers and specific requirements, being vegetarian and traveling with so much camera and charging gear, (120kg+) and even helping with our exit COVID-19 testing in Hurghada on leaving Egypt, to finally stepping into the airport on our return home. Amazing service. Emperor Divers performed like a well oiled machine. Even in these very hard times, the office staff and boat crews eagerly performed their duties with competence, efficiency and a big smile. Thank you Sonia, for encouraging us to visit and dive the Red Sea again. THANK YOU SO MUCH to ALL the employees of Emperor divers, you exceeded all our expectations and made the trip a resounding success.

We look forward to our return to Emperor Divers, if not in the Red Sea, then to one of your other fleet vessels in the Maldives or Indonesia.

This is a personal blog. Any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog owner and do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the owner may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual.