South African Shark Conservancy

Me holding one of the sharks they had at SASC

Holding the brown shyshark that I caught while snorkeling 

            When I think of the best days of my life, all of them involve being around animals. Hanging with the komodo dragons at the zoo. My first behind the scenes with the lions and tigers. The day I met Chuma the okapi is definitely in my top three best days of my life. And I think today is also on that list.

            The volunteers got up bright and early this morning to get ready for our exclusive cage diving trip to sea. We had the boat all packed up and ready to go by seven, and soon after we pulled out of the harbor. Karla, the volunteer coordinator, decided to come along with us, so the boat contained: me, Aurelie, Ryan, the two Alina’s, Lizzy, Beth, Karla, Maarten, Grant the skipper, and two other crew members. We dropped anchor right near shark alley, not far from Geyser Rock, and put the cage in. I’d already decided that I was not going to wear a wetsuit this time. The wetsuits they have are really thick and uncomfortable, and other volunteers said that they’d previously gone in with just their swimsuits, and it wasn’t that bad. So, along with six other volunteers (all of which were wearing wetsuits), I climbed down into the 55-degree water wearing just my swimsuit. It felt incredibly cold when the water first touched my skin, but after a few minutes I got used to it. Unlike me first time in the cage, the water visibility was absolutely fabulous today, so we all got some really great views of the sharks. I was in the leftmost spot in the cage, and it seemed like that was the best spot to be. Several times sharks ran into the cage right in front of me. There’s an inner bar in the cage that we’re supposed to hang on to, so that we have something to hold without having our fingers outside of the cage. When the sharks hit against the cage right in front of me, several times I found myself instinctively pulling my hands off the inner bar and back, even though they were already out of reach of the sharks.

            After about an hour in the cage admiring the huge sharks swimming around us, we got back up onto the boat, pulled up the anchor, and returned to the harbor. On our way back we went right by Geyser Rock to see the Cape fur seals that live there. The entire rock is just crawling with these seals, which is the main reason that the great whites are in the area.

            When we got back to the harbor we unloaded and cleaned up the boat, then walked back up to the volunteer house to clean up. I took a quick shower, mainly to warm up as opposed to clean up, then at about 11:30 Karla picked us up in the volunteer bus and we headed to Hermanus. We picked up lunch on the way at a KFC- yes, South Africa has KFC… but not Starbucks- then arrived at the South African Shark Conservancy at about 1:30. The building is located right beside the ocean, in a spot that’s great for snorkeling and is home to some species of shysharks that SASC catches, tags, and releases. We spent some time inside the building looking at the sharks that were inside and listening to the SASC employees explain what they do, then we were invited to go snorkel with one of them and try to find and catch some sharks. A couple of the volunteers changed into wetsuits, but most of us just jumped in with our swimsuits, fins, and masks and snorkels. The water there didn’t feel quite as cold as in the cage that morning, and the fact that we were actually swimming around made it feel better. I was the only volunteer that actually caught one of the shysharks that we were looking for. The water visibility was great yet again, and when I saw it I took a deep breath through the snorkel, then dove down to the bottom, slowly came up behind it, and reached out and grabbed it right behind the pectoral fins. It was actually surprisingly easy to catch; it didn’t seem to notice me coming behind it, and thankfully I got a good grip on it from the beginning so it didn’t slip out of my hand. Shark’s skin doesn’t have the same kind of scales that most fish have- their skin is rougher and easier to hold on to. Once I grabbed it and brought it up to the surface, I noticed that this one already had a tag on it. That made it even better since SASC could now see when they last caught this shark, what its measurements then were, if it’s grown at all, etc. We stayed out in the water for about half an hour, and I was the only volunteer that was able to catch one. After getting out of the water and back into our dry clothes, we headed back to the volunteer house.

            The volunteers just finished dinner and are hanging around the living room with Maarten hanging out. There’s a fire going in the fireplace- it’s about 60 degrees outside. Tomorrow there are two more trips to sea. The first one has room for two volunteers, and the second has room for five. Maarten told me that it’s often better to pick the first one, since sometimes clients scheduled for the second trip don’t show up, and you end up getting to go on both, so Alina and I are going on the first one, which leaves at 7:30. It’ll be another great day with the great white shark project. This post’s food for thought: “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy adventures working with wildlife in Africa and that’s pretty much the same thing.”- me.