A Sneak Peek into Episode 12: Saldanha Bay

The making of Episode 12 found our merry gang up the west coast in the charming and fascinating fishing village of Saldanha Bay. Saldanha is the proud home of South Africa’s most-loved fishery, Sea Harvest, where they source and prepare much of their sustainably caught Hake. Also, Saldanha is famous for Snoek, and I decided to take on the challenge of feeding my version of this adored South African classic to a group of local fishermen and Sea Harvest employees – would mine cut the mustard?! It was, unsurprisingly, a pretty daunting task.

We spent 4 days in the area, as we also filmed Episode 5 at the same time, so it felt like an extended weekend away with the crew which was really fun. My Mum and Sophie were also in tow which was a huge treat.

And so we walked into a painting.

Janine hanging out at the car while we waited for the first catch of the day to arrive with the fishing boats.

Nazli (Sea Harvest) and Anita (Co-Producer) catching up at the docks

A chilly wind meant we huddled inside one of the cars and snacked on crew junk food (yum!)

This lady knew her way around filleting a fish like I’ve never seen before.
Under 60 seconds from start to finish.

The boats arrived, and the bartering and bargaining began.

Our faithful fisherman friend, Travis

Bounty!

Time out for the docks.

A quiet moment at the pier.

And we may have had a glass of wine or two at our hotel in the evenings.
There’s my amazing Mum too.

Chris working hard to keep Luisa happy with her food pack-shots
(looks like he might not have been winning this time round?!)

Cramming my script and prepping my head during a break

We walked away from Saldanha with full and happy tummies, but more importantly, full and happy hearts. The local people and the Sea Harvest crew welcomed us with such genuine warmth and hospitality that it took my breath away on more than one occasion. And buying fresh fish at the docks and then spending a sunset-flooded evening on the pier with them, eating snoek with our hands and picking up interesting snippets about their seaside lives will always be one of my happiest memories of filming ‘bitten.’

And guess what!
This week you can win one of 4 x R500 vouchers from our friends at Sea Harvest. Just pop on over to my Facebook page and let me know what your favourite sustainable fish from Sea Harvest is and you’ll automatically enter to win