Feb 26th Shark Dive

Feb 26th Shark Dive

I set my alarm for 5:00am to get up for my shark dive. We took a half hour cab drive to Simons point and we went to the main pier. I did this trip on my own and Ev spent the day cycling in the wine lands (I will try and get him to write something soon).

There were four girls (me included) and one other passenger (besides the crew) was a man named Brandon. Brandon was from Texas and has spent the last 6 months backpacking Europe, India and Africa. We spent a lot of time with him swapping stories. Brandon hung out with us after the shark dive as well.

There were five members that were a part of the crew. The one female crew member, Erin, was from Scotland, studying marine biology. Erin had received a scholarship to travel to South Africa and work for this company.

We rode out for a half hour to a place called Seal Island. There were around 50,000 seals living there. They liked that location because it was all rocks and far from human contact. A lot of seals were sunning themselves on the rocks or the pups were playing in the waves.

The owner of the company, Stefan, was really talkative and gave us a lot of information about shark migration, their hunting habits, how they attack their prey and the best seasons to spot them. Stefan spent a lot of his time helping scientist tag sharks to run tests and track their migration patterns. The farthest they tracked was a shark that went to Australia. Sharks usually travel on their own.

Stefan would help bait the sharks in. They bait the sharks by putting a tuna head buoy in the water as well as a seal shaped decoy. Apparently, sharks are really interested in items that are floating on the surface, more than the yummy fish. They also “chum” where they put like fish guts and blood in the water to attract them to this area. This process was really controversial because people think that they attract the sharks closer to shore and make more shark attacks and it changes what sharks eat and affects the ecosystem. However, Stefan explained that sharks aren’t conditioned to come to where the smell is because they are not like dogs in that way. Also, the sharks hang around Seal Island anyhow which is right where we are.

As soon as we got to our spot that morning, one shark called “white nose” came right up to the boat and then swam under. It was a really exciting start to the morning! Stefan says that one shark always messes with them. He was about 4 meters which is probably around 12 feet! Throughout the day, we saw 5 other sharks; one was about 4.3 meters.

The shark cage could fit 3 people so we took turns going in. We did not have tanks because the bubbles scare the sharks. We have to put our heads under water for as long as we could to look at the sharks. The crew from above would yell “down” and the direction when a shark came by. It was really cool. We got to see them pretty close before they swam out of view.

One of the girls I was in the cage with got really panicky which made things uncomfortable because she would inch away from the side of cage and squish us. She was not really responsive to me telling her move over because she was so frightened. I ended up gently pushing her.

I ate lunch on the top of the boat with Stefan helping him look for sharks. The crew has to pay attention because the sharks start from the bottom and they swim up quickly and the crew has to pull the bait or decoy away before the shark bites it.

It was a long morning because shark sightings were rare and far in between because it was just the start of the season. Later in the season when the baby seals were bigger, the sharks sighting would be more common.

The most intense part of the morning was when we noticed a baby seal away from the island struggling to swim because it was injured. It was really sad to see the thing struggling so much and the other girls wanted to get and put it out of its misery before a shark got it. But nature is nature and the seal pup did not make it. Apparently, a shark spotted the injured pup and was circling underneath and charged up. It missed the first time but hit home on the second. I only saw a little of the action because I did not have a good view from the cage. We later saw that same shark in the water. We knew it was the same shark that ate the seal because of the intestines coming out the shark’s gills. (I apologize for the gross images).

The shark dive took up the whole morning. At noon, and we went to a restaurant with our new friend Brandon to talk, eat and clean up. The ice coffees in S. Africa have ice cream in them and are amazing!

We walked through the town which was lined with beautiful shops to Boulders Beach which is famous as a breeding ground for African penguins. We walked around, took some pictures, stopped at some vendors and stores. I got a really good milkshake too, just as a side note.

Some of the people in our group were getting worn out so they took a cab to the train station and took the train to Cape Town. My friend Gabby and I decided to walk to the train because it was such a beautiful day and she wanted to do some more shopping.