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American Spirit II - Day 330; Great White Shark Diving Experience; Monday, December 1, 2014



Not mentioned yesterday is that a small research motor boat next to us in the marina had a Great White Shark launch itself out of the water and into the cockpit of this motor boat. They couldn't get the shark out of the boat, so they had to make their way into port and have a crane lift it off the boat. Talk about a fish story!

Up at 7:00 AM. Joel and Jeanine got up as I was cooking breakfast at 7:50 AM: eggs, potato, chilled pear halves and bread.

After breakfast Joel fixed the video camera while I confirmed the boat's haul-out with the Royal Cape Town Yacht Club. The haul-out time is 12:00 PM for American Spirit II and for Civetta II 1:30 PM on December 8. The marina manager said that the haul-out can only be done if the winds are no more than 20 knots.

I tried to find a dealer for our hydro generator in Cape Town but none exist. So I'll have to order the new propellers from the USA and have them delivered so I can bring them back with me to Cape Town after Christmas.

I was going to rent a van today so we could tour Mossel Bay; and then we were going to go diving in a cage on Tuesday to see Great White Sharks. But the weather forecast for Tuesday is for rain, so we decided to do the shark safari today at 1:00 PM.

We walked to the shark safari boat at 12:15 PM, and then were told that we needed to go to their office a couple of blocks away to sign a waiver; pay; and watch a safety video. After doing this we returned to the boat and departed the marina at 1:10 PM. There were a total of about 18 of us on the boat. Besides Joel, Jeanine and myself there was Vlado and Jack from Civetta II.

The trip to Seal Island took only 10 minutes as the boat was fast and the island was only a couple of miles away. After putting on a wet suit and face mask, I was in the first of 3 groups to go into the cage. The cage held 6 people, and once inside the top was closed off. There was a space of 1 or 1 1/2 feet above the waterline in the cage so you could breath. The cage was attached to the lee side of the boat. We were not issued snorkels because the people in the boat would get wet by the constant clearing of the snorkels. The water was 68 degrees but with the wet suit on it didn't feel cold at all. The Captain of the boat advised us before departing the marina to not use our own wet suits, saying that they will be chumming the water and you didn't want a chum smelling wet suit when you went diving somewhere else. It'd be like a neon sign for sharks.

Seal Island currently is home to 2,000 seals and is a very small, rocky island. After anchoring and tying up to a mooring buoy, we got into the cage. Joel and I decided to go in the cage in different groups so we could both use my Go Pro underwater camera.

The White Shark Africa Ocean Extreme brochure has some humorous antidotes in it, such as: 'One of the great things about Shark Cage Diving is that even though you're scared enough to wet you pants...Nobody will notice!' And, 'Please don't eat foods with loads of fibre, figs or plums before going on a shark trip with us...The next client using the wet suit might not appreciate the result!' And finally, 'If you are prone to motion seasickness...Hmm! No train smash...Just make sure you purge either before or after you get on or off our boat or...' The advertised price of the shark safari was 1,350 Rand or $143.30. I was able to get the price down to 1,000 Rand or $89.85.

When a shark approaches the cage its called a 'viewing;' and the people running the boat want you to have as many 'viewings' as possible during your 30 minutes in the water. The visibility wasn't great at 10 feet, but when a shark was approaching one of the employees would yell out so you could go under water and see the shark approaching. The first viewing I had was when a large Great White Shark swam right towards my end of the cage with its mouth wide open and smashed into the cage, then turned sideways and slammed into the cage and then rolled and flipped itself onto the top of the cage. I had my video camera going the whole time, but the shark was so close I may have only a wide open mouth with teeth showing and then the side of the shark was so close it might not be recognizable. We'll see when we look at the video. The Captain or one of his mates tosses a large fish head into the water attached to a float and a rope, then they pull the bait thru the water back to the boat towards the cage. The shark follows the bait towards the cage. Hence, the 'viewing.' Though I really didn't get cold due to wearing the wet suit, my hands got really cold because I had to hold onto the cage with my left hand and point and activate the Go Pro camera with my right hand. And when you hold onto the cage, you're not holding on to the bars on the outside of the cage because then a shark could bite your hand. You hold onto some horizontal bars inside of the cage, about 6 inches from the outside bars. After 30 minutes I was ready to get out of the water. The sharks approached the bait typically on the surface horizontally; but on one occasion a shark zoomed straight up from the bottom and grabbed the bait with a vertical assault. It appeared that the smallest shark we saw was at least 10 feet in length; and some of them, according to the Captain, were in the 2,000 pound range with a girth of 5 or 6 feet in diameter. The Captain told me, when I asked him how many different sharks were with us today, that there were 8 sharks in attendance; that four were there the whole time we were there and that four others came and went after a brief visit. He also said that they recognized the individual sharks based on their scaring, size, etc; and that some of the regulars had been given names by them.

While on the boat fruit (apples, oranges and bananas), chips and drinks were provided.

Joel and Jeanine got into the water next, in the second grouping of six. Joel took my Go Pro camera, and I went up to the bridge of the boat and shot video with my Sony camera and took still photos with my other camera, using a camera in each hand. After the third group, we departed Seal Island and were back at the marina by 4:21 PM. We then went up to the shark safari office and had a late lunch and watched the video that one of the crew members on the boat took. We all bought at least one shirt; and I also bought a wool cap as I've been too cold sailing at night; and I purchased the DVD of our trip, which also included another DVD I think with past shark highlights on it.

On the way back to the boat we stopped by a Checkers grocery store and bought a few items; then headed back to our boat and got our shower stuff and went to the Mossel Bay Yacht Club to take a shower. We needed to get the chum smell off of us.

Back at the boat after showering, we watched the movie 'Anonymous,' an alternative history of William Shakespeare. An interesting movie, worth a watch if you haven't seen it.

Brian Fox



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