The spot where I caught the brown shyshark while snorkeling yesterday
I saw my first wild rock hyrax yesterday! So cute!
I decided to
make this post fairly early today since I don’t think I’ll have time later.
It’s about 4:30 here at the great white shark project volunteer house, and most
of the volunteers are relaxing after a great morning out on the ocean. We got
up this morning in time to be out in the garage by six, getting the wetsuits
and life jackets ready for the first trip out. There were actually two trips
out to sea today, one leaving at 7:30, one leaving at 10. All the volunteers
got up in time to go help pack up the boat for the first trip, then all of them
except for Alina and I went back to bed to rest a while longer, while Alina and
I ate breakfast, then met the crew and clients by the boat. There was room for
the two of us on that first trip; the other volunteers were going on the second
one. The engines on the boat were just replaced a couple of days ago, so today
we had a reduced capacity. Typically the boat can accommodate up to five crew
members and twenty clients and/or volunteers, but today they only were allowing twelve non-crew members per trip. So the boat definitely didn’t feel very full this
morning out on the water; it was just Alina, about ten guests, the crew, and
me. We helped the clients into their life jackets and pulled out of the harbor
right on time.
For this
trip we returned to the dam, where we went my first day out at sea, instead of
the island, where we’ve been the past two sea days. The wind out on the water
was really strong this morning, and the dam area is slightly sheltered from the
wind, while the spot by the island is totally exposed. Thankfully the
visibility in the water was better this morning than it had been the first time
I went to the dam. Within about ten minutes of dropping anchor the first shark
showed up by the boat. We quickly got wetsuits passed out and helped the
clients into the cage. Since we only had six clients on the boat that wanted to
go into the cage, getting them ready was pretty easy. Once we’d helped out all
the clients, Alina and I went up to the front of the boat and sat on the edge,
relaxing and watching the sharks swim around the cage. We saw a total of nine
or ten sharks on that trip, and most of them were really big- most were at
least about twelve feet long and quite bulky. We saw a really big male white shark,
which was interesting. Typically the really big sharks in this area are female-
seeing a male that big is pretty rare. Seeing sharks that big propel themselves
out of the water following the bait is such a cool thing to watch. We also saw
one tagged shark and a shark that had a big chunk taken out of its caudal- it
amazes me how tough and resilient these creatures are.
While
watching the sharks, Alina and I had a rather interesting interaction with one
of the clients one the boat. A man from India, who was on the trip with his
wife, said that he wanted to put on a wetsuit, take a picture of himself
wearing it, then take it off, but not get in the cage. Alina and I both tried
to tell him that if he’d already spent that much money to come on this trip, and
was going to go through the trouble of putting on the wetsuit, he might as well
get in the cage, but he insisted that he didn’t want to. He said that he wanted
to send his kids a picture of him in the wetsuit and tell them that he’d gotten
in the cage, but not actually do it. Even more ridiculous, his reason was, in
his mind, the cage was completely unsafe and if he got in it he was going to
die, or at least lose a hand- yes, he actually said that. Alina and I assured
him that the cage was totally safe and as long as he followed the rules inside
it he’d be completely fine, but he wouldn’t change his mind. Eventually we gave
up trying to reason with him and just gave him a wetsuit to put on. He did
exactly what he said- went to the hassle of pulling on that thick,
uncomfortable suit, had his wife take a few pictures of him, then immediately
took it off.
After nearly
two hours of admiring the beautiful sharks in the area, we pulled up the anchor
and returned to the harbor, where the other volunteers and next group of
clients met us. Alina and I took the used wetsuits back to the volunteer house
to wash them, then realized that Ryan had the volunteer house keys, and he was
out on the boat. We went back to the white shark project lodge, got the spare
keys, but couldn’t get the back door open with them. We decided we had to just
wait until the other trip returned to get inside. After sitting out on the
porch for about an hour, one of the boat crew came up to help us. We stayed out
on the front porch while he went around back to try the door again. A few
minutes later, he opened the front door from the inside holding a screwdriver,
looked at us, and said, “When all else fails, break in.” So there’s the drama
for the day.
Today is
special here at the volunteer house because it’s Aurelie’s birthday. This
evening it’s my turn to cook dinner, then the volunteers are going for a while
to celebrate. We bought a cake yesterday at the grocery store and are having it
after dinner. We probably won’t stay out too late, since we don’t yet know what
the plan is for tomorrow. We’re all kind of hoping for a no sea day though.
It was a
week ago exactly that I moved into the great white shark project volunteer
house, and I’ve already had so many cool experiences here. I can’t wait to see
what the rest of this summer has to offer. This post’s food for thought: “To
travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”- Aldous
Huxley
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