Once at sea, there was of course a new set of challenges. Despite warm summer air, the water in False Bay can be as cold as 11 °C (52 °F). It sucks the energy out of your body, especially when you’re doing three or four boat dives in a row. As I dropped off the RIB into the blue-green depths, the shock of the cold made my heart pump fast and my mind work slowly. The nauseating motion of the swell was a constant reminder that I was but a poorly adapted visitor in this domain. Compared to the seals, penguins and other animals that move so gracefully through the water, I felt clunky in my heavy dive equipment.

One image that proved challenging to make was the underwater photo of a hooked fish with the hull of a fishing boat in the background. It required a separate boat and the support of a team of three, so that I could move between different fishing boats depending on which one was having luck catching, and also for reasons of safety. Then the struggle began. Everything would bob up and down independently in the chop – not just the boat and the fish, but also the camera and I. Just as the fish and the boat aligned, a wave would drop and obscure my viewfinder. Meanwhile I was swimming against the current. After many hundreds of misses, I finally managed to shoot one frame that worked.

We would reach our destination just before sunrise, some three hours later. The fishermen would cut their bait, unravel their lines and start fishing. It was a shock to me how little they caught on most days. Often they returned after 12 hours at sea with only a handful of small fish each.

Drifting in a small fishing boat off the Cape of Good Hope was not an experience I would necessarily describe as pleasant. The boat rolled enough to make even some of the crew throw up on occasion. Still, each time I went out with the fishermen I felt extremely privileged to be allowed into their world. Perhaps this is the biggest of all gifts that photography can bring. It is a passport to places I would otherwise never visit and people I would never meet. When the day came to say goodbye I wanted to thank them for their time and patience. But Bruno, always the most cheerful of the bunch, interrupted me. ‘No,’ he said, suddenly stern. ‘It’s we who should thank you, for showing our work to the world.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can only hope I have done them justice.