Cape Clawless Otter – the source of the name of the Otter Trail, this shy and elusive species hunts crabs along the park’s coastline and rivers alike.
One of the five things to seek when visiting Tsitsikamma National Park the Parks home page at
www.sanparks.org tells one.
To see otters in their natural habitat is for me one of those wishes one carries with one when visiting a SANPark with the hope of catching a glimpse of a rare sighting. I honestly never expected to see any on our trip mid July 2008 – after all others were always the lucky ones....
So, there we were just relaxing on the veranda of our ocenette at Storms River enjoying the last of our brekkie. My eye caught a movement in the water amongst the rocks below... a seal I thought! Oh cool! Then he was gone. No! There he was again, peering through a crevice in the rocks. Seals don’t scamper along the rocks!!! That is an otter!!!
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We followed this little fellow along the coast for probably 200m.
He met up with his buddies in a large gully and we watched as they swam around in the rough waters – often being thrown about. What a delightful group! There were five in total. They’d climb on the rocks and then be washed off. They looked so carefree. They reminded me of a group of teenage boys who were on their first adventure from home ....
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And then they were gone – diving amongst the waves.
Later that afternoon from the viewing deck near the restaurant, in the gully below, I noticed four little familiar heads bobbing about in the swirling white water.
For the next twenty or so minutes, the adventurous four kept the crowd enthralled. Workmen put down their tools, SANParks staff paused their daily tasks and everyone just watched in wonder.
The crowd had gathered at the edge of the rocks ... and the otters played to their audience. They posed for pics, dived into the ocean, climbed back onto the rocks ... like well trained performers.
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As the four teenagers swam off further into the bay without a care in the world, I turned to one of the SANParks staff and said; 'not something you see everyday?' He replied – 'no, this is front page news'
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). I cannot remember where it was, but we crossed a bridge and saw the otter in the water below….suppose this is a once-in-a-lifetime sighting and I had my chance 
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And a spectacular series of pix of them, too. I've seen sea otters along the US west coast, and land otters frolicking in the snow in northern New Hampshire, but as yet, no RSA otters 
Yours are a special treat! 
