While there have been four spills between 2016 and 2022 that killed penguins, the noise from bunkering is likely to be even more devastating to them.
Since 2017, largely due to ship-to-ship bunkering, the number of birds using St Croix each season has dropped by 90%.
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The first time I visited St Croix island, in 2017, it was home to about 6 000 breeding pairs of African penguins – 35% of the global population of this endangered species.
On a blissful September morning, we sped across Algoa Bay on South Africa's east coast, past a grimy cargo ship and the bulging meringue that is the Nelson Mandela Bay football stadium, before stopping alongside St Croix. The boat rocked from side to side as waves broke against the tiny, jagged outcrop that has wrecked many a ship over the centuries.
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