Shark Cage Diving

            This post is going to be a bit different than most of the ones I’ve been making recently. Instead of just being an update on how my time in Africa is going, this one is going to be focused on a specific topic. While working with White Shark Projects I got a request to make a post on the controversial topic of cage diving with white sharks. So, without further ado, here goes.

            The concept of cage diving with white sharks brings about different thoughts and emotions for different people- thrill, fear, exhilaration, excitement. Some say it should be left strictly for biologists and adrenaline junkies. Others believe that coming face to face with one of the world’s top predators is tempting fate and asking for trouble. Still others say that the practice is dangerous for everyone in the ocean because it gets the white sharks to associate people with food, and that’s where the real debate comes in. Does spending time around cage diving boats make white sharks more dangerous to other people in the ocean? When people think about cage diving in its simplest terms, it would seem like the answer to that question would be yes. Because, of course, in order to get the sharks to come and stay by the boat, there needs to be something to entice them. That thought is just what prompts the misconception that cage diving boats feed sharks. Yes, that is a misconception- the crew of cage diving boats do their best to make sure the sharks do not get any food while around the boat. Many people that have been on one of these ecotourism boats, however, will remember the strong smell of chum permeating the air around the boat. Doesn’t that chopped up fish mixed with oil and salt water mean food for the white sharks? Actually, no. Chum serves as a food source for only the small baitfish and sea birds. When it comes to the white sharks, chum is only a smell. Out of their six senses, sharks rely heavily on their very acute sense of smell to find food. When they swim past the chum line that the current takes out, that smell is what draws them to the boat. In fact, chum is part of the reason that white sharks do not become habituated to hanging around cage diving boats. When they follow the smelly chum line, sharks expect to find food at the end of it. When they come to the boat and don’t get any food out of it, their motivation to stick around cage diving boats essentially disappears. Yes, many of the white sharks will chase the bait, which the boat crew uses to bring the sharks closer to the cage for a better look, but the large majority of sharks that visit the boats get absolutely no food out of it. Due to that, researchers have found that most white sharks spend a very small portion- less than one percent- of their lives around cage diving boats. It’s really a pretty simple concept- they smell the chum, follow it expecting food, then are disappointed when they come to the boat and don’t get any food, so obviously they wouldn’t want to return. White sharks, in fact, are not the mindless killers that people once thought they were. Four hundred million years of evolution have essentially perfected this apex predator, and it is one of the smartest fish in the sea. Not only do these animals have strong individual personalities, they have problem solving ability and long memories. Therefore, when they visit cage diving boats and remember that they didn’t get the food that they were hoping for, they are seriously discouraged from returning to the boat. So, returning to the main question that sparks controversy around this practice: does spending time around cage diving boats make white sharks associate people with food, and therefore more dangerous? No. If anything, it’s the exact opposite. 

To Travel is to Live

            The past few days have been very busy but also a lot of fun here at CARE! Tuesday was an especially exciting day because I saw my very first wild elephant! That afternoon I was heading down to the river with Yolo and Darcy for their second hour of playing down there. As we got down the hill that leaves to the riverbank, Stephanie, the volunteer that was carrying Darcy, heard him give his little warning call. At first we only saw warthogs, which we see all the time down by the river, but looking to the other side, we noticed what had triggered Darcy’s warning call- a gorgeous bull elephant was walking along the opposite bank! We walked over to our usual play spot on the bank, and watched the elephant as he slowly walked closer to the river’s edge, dipped his trunk down into the water, then brought it back up to his mouth to drink. As we looked across the river, I noticed that there was also a beautiful Nile crocodile out basking on the bank near the water’s edge. In that hour, we also ended up seeing a group of impala, some kudu, and several giraffes all hanging out around the water. The area by the river is definitely the best spot for viewing wildlife, and that afternoon was a great example. After drinking for a few minutes, we saw the elephant crossing over to our side of the river. He hadn’t seemed to have noticed us, but he was so close that we could hear the water splashing around him as he crossed the river! We decided that if he started to head in our direction after making it to the other side we would leave, but thankfully he walked off in the other direction instead. That was the second animal of Africa’s Big Five (rhino, elephant, lion, leopard and water buffalo) that I’ve seen here so far. I’m hoping to visit Kruger National Park soon and see at least two more. The leopard is the most secretive and hardest to spot out of the five, so I have doubts about seeing one of them, but we’ll see.

            Every day this week has included at least an hour or two with the adorable baboon babies living here at CARE. We actually got a new baby boy that arrived a few nights ago. He’s considerably smaller than the others- we think he’s somewhere between two and three months old. The evening after he came in his condition got pretty bad; he was having seizures and for a while that night we all doubted he’d survive. The next morning, though, we heard that he’d made it through the night and was actually doing better. Today he’s back hanging out in the Mountain Lodge with Becky, the volunteer that was picked as his surrogate mother. I just got a break in my schedule, so I spent some time hanging out with him. He definitely seems to be doing much better- when I was sitting with the little guy just now, he was jumping all over me!

            A few of the other volunteers and I are planning to take a break from the baboons for a couple of days, renting a car, and driving to Johannesburg to spend a bit of time there. A few people want to go to the Cradle of Humankind, which is a museum and dig site of some of the oldest human ancestor fossils. There’s also an area near it that offers ziplining and similar activities that a few more of us want to visit, so we figured we’d all go together, book a hostel near there for one night, then leave CARE early one morning to drive down to Jo’burg to have some fun. I absolutely love it here at this sanctuary, but after a while of being here constantly, it would be nice to take a little break and just get out for a while with some of the other volunteers. Since CARE is in a much more secluded area than the volunteer house at White Shark Projects, it often feels like we’re in our own little world here! I often lose track of the days here, and news from home seems pretty alien. On Monday it will be two weeks since I arrived here at CARE. Those weeks seem to have flown by! They’ve been very busy, but a lot of fun!

            Guess that’s all the news for now. Again, sorry for the lack of pictures in these past few blogs. I promise I’m taking plenty, but the terrible wifi here makes it next to impossible to upload them here. If the connection improves while I’m still here I’ll add some. If not, I’ll add plenty of pictures to blog posts that I make when I return home! This post’s food for thought is a quote that I’ve come to love while on this adventure: “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, to gain all while you give, to roam the roads of lands remote, to travel is to live.”- Hans Christian Andersen 

The Boys (and Girls) of Summer

            Yet again guys, yes, I’m alive and well. Those that read my blog last year know that my blog posts were much more regular then than they are this summer. The reason certainly hasn’t been lack of material! I’ve been very busy here at CARE pretty much since I first arrived here. Today actually makes exactly one week that I’ve been here at the sanctuary, and what a week it has been! My last blog post was written and posted on Thursday, so I guess I’ll start this one with Friday. Friday was an easy day for me in terms of work since I wasn’t really feeling too good. I think I must’ve gotten a small cold after arriving here, and the worst of it came on Friday. I felt mostly fine Thursday night, but when I woke up Friday I let Sam, the volunteer manager, know how I was feeling, and she gave me a few easy jobs on the schedule, giving me some free time during the day to relax. Friday evening there was a “braai”, or South African barbecue, out by the clinic area, so the volunteers all walked over there and sat under the beautiful night sky, eating the delicious barbecue and talking. Last summer, the night sky in Grand Teton National Park was the most beautiful sky I’d ever seen. That has now been bumped to second place. I’ve never seen the Milky Way so clearly before in my life. It’s an absolutely breathtaking sight.

            Saturday Sam was nice enough to give me a pretty easy day again, which gave me a full three hours with the little baboons. My first shift was the babies down to the river to play around. In the morning four of the babies go- Mr. Darcy, Yolo, Yana, and Mika. After an hour of playing down there, Mika and Yana get dropped off into their troop while Darcy and Yolo go back to the nursery, where I then had another hour with them. As usual, Yolo picked me to carry him to and from the river, which I absolutely love doing. Saturday afternoon we picked them back up at the nursery to go down to the river again for another hour of playtime, then we return them to the same troop as Yana and Mika for the rest of the day.

            Saturday was an interesting evening in that I had the bedroom to myself. My three roommates went to the release sight Saturday morning to camp out there. I think I’ll definitely do that at some point here too, but since one of my roommates is only here for one more week and I still wasn’t feeling 100 percent, I let her take the last spot for this trip. May 12^th was my last night of having a room to myself, and I’d almost forgotten the luxury of it. Being able to play my music without headphones, not having to ask anyone else when to turn off the light, and other nice little things that I hadn’t gotten to do in about five weeks, so it was nice to have that back for one night.

            Sunday’s schedule was actually even better than Saturday’s because I got four total hours of baboon time- two shifts with the babies by the river, one shift in the nursery with Yolo and Darcy, and a one hour social with the lovely Patats, who is the absolute sweetest baboon around. The way she just comes up to me when I’m sitting in her enclosure, looks me right in the eyes, hugs one of my legs, then starts to groom it is just so adorable. It’s amazing to me, as I’m in there with her, to think that she was so mistreated by people for years, but can still be so calm and gentle around me, even though she’s strong enough to do some real damage if she wanted to. Those four hours with the baboons, followed by a shower, great dinner, and hilarious game of Cards Against Humanity with the other volunteers made for an absolutely wonderful Sunday.

            This morning I had the job of making bottles for the babies at six, which is a job that only two people get a day, and they try to rotate it so no one has to do it too often. Getting up that early made me feel kind of like I was back at White Shark Projects, but since it’s not as cold here as it was there, it wasn’t so hard to get up this morning. After making the bottles, I had an hour hanging out in the nursery with the babies. It was my first shift being in the nursery with all the babies. We have five that are in there in the morning, before going to the river- three girls and two boys. They certainly all have very individual personalities that make them easy to tell apart. Princess is a bit of a brat in the nursery; she loves to scream and just overall be kind of annoying. She’s also the only one that doesn’t go down to the river at all since she likes to run away. Yana is almost always eating in the nursery, so we can tell her by her full cheek pouches. She’s also a bit of a bully, especially towards Yolo. Mika is the lowest ranked in the baby troop, so she’s the smallest of them, which is weird because we think she’s the oldest. She’s also the cheeky one of the group; she loves to try to steal my cap and sunglasses at the river. Mr. Darcy seems to be the leader, so he likes to chase and fight with the others. He also has a very adorable way of sleeping in the nursery by sitting on someone’s lap and propping his head up with a bottle. Last is Yolo, who’s pretty low ranked, though he has to be my favorite. He’s a total klutz, which makes him really funny to watch. We think he may have even had some kind of ear injury before coming to CARE since his balance is so off; it’s not rare for him to sit up on my knees to drink his bottle, then just randomly fall off! This morning in the nursery he burrowed up under my shirt and fell asleep in there to keep warm.

            After my time in the nursery, followed by cleaning one of the enclosures, then lunch, I returned to the nursery to collect Yolo and Darcy to go back to the river for their afternoon playtime. As usual, Yolo picked me to carry him to and from the river, even though there were five volunteers going down there. My time with Yolo is always my favorite part of the day here at CARE. After dropping them off with their troop for the rest of the day I had another bottle making shift, then ended the day walking the dogs around the sanctuary. The enclosure that was cleaned today was one that was especially hard to clean, and all the volunteers had at least an hour and a half working on it, so Sam said that, as a reward, we were ordering pizza for dinner tonight. It’ll be another fun evening here at the Mountain Lodge! This post’s food for thought: “You can judge a man’s true character by how he treats his fellow animals.”- Paul McCartney

YOLO

            It’s been a very eventful few days here at CARE! Today was my third full day of officially working here at the center. I guess I’ll start with yesterday’s events and go from there. Yesterday was a pretty exciting day, since it was my first day with the baby baboons! I spent the morning walking a few of the dogs around the center (followed by Stella, the very friendly warthog that also lives here), then making some enrichment for a few of the troops, and making bottles for the babies. My first afternoon shift was meeting Patats, who’s the only adult baboon that the volunteers are able to go in with, since she’s so gentle and calm. She’s living proof that these animals can endure a lot, and that they have individual personalities. She was captured from the wild when she was very young by a witchdoctor, who kept her welded in a steel drum, with hardly any space for movement, to help make his “medicines”. I’m not sure how long she was kept there, but it was years. Considering that, it would seem like she has every right to be vicious and mean, especially towards people, but when I went into her enclosure yesterday she was very gentle throughout the entire hour that we were together. It was just the two of us in there, and as I sat down around the hay that lines the bottom of the enclosure, she slowly came up and began to explore this new person. The first thing she did was pull at the Velcro on my sandals, so I removed them and rolled up the legs of my jeans to the knee. She then did some lip smacking at me, which is one of baboons’ main ways to communicate, and I reciprocated. Then, slowly, she began to “groom” my legs. We spent the next hour grooming and just being around each other. I originally was wearing my hair pulled back, but about halfway through the hour I let it down, and she loved grooming and gently pulling at my long hair. It really was crazy to see that this creature, which had been so mistreated by people for years, could still be this calm and gentle towards me.

            It seemed like that hour would be hard to top, but two hours later I got to meet the baby baboons for the first time, and join a few of the more experienced volunteers in taking them down to the river to play. The two babies we took were two little boys named Darcy and Yolo. All the volunteers sat down in the sand by the river and let the little ones play around us. Yolo approached me first, and decided to say hello by jumping into my lap and planting a big fat kiss right on my lips, which was pretty hilarious. They spent most of the hour playing with each other instead of the volunteers, which was fine since watching them was great entertainment. At one point, one of the other volunteers, Abby, pointed across the river and said, “Hey look. Is that a warthog?” I looked across and immediately saw that it was way too big to be a warthog- it was a rhino. It was too far to see too many of the details, so I assumed it was a white rhino, which is more common around this area. One of the other volunteers mentioned that there are probably only one or two black rhinos living in this entire reserve. Thankfully, one volunteer had his camera, so we took a picture of the animal, and when I zoomed in I saw that, in fact, it was a black rhino! Being that they’re so endangered, I could hardly believe that I was actually looking at a black rhino, but when I zoomed in on the picture I was sure that I was. Getting to meet the babies was great enough, but seeing that just made that afternoon even better. We all said it was kind of sad that our first sighting of a wild black rhino might also be our last, but either way it was a great experience.

            I figured that yesterday would be hard to beat, but today might have been even better. My first shift was another round of walking the dogs around the area. I kind of like having that as a first job, since it’s pretty easy and is a nice way to just get the day going. After that was an hour of cleaning, then the shift I was really looking forward to- my hour in the nursery with Darcy and Yolo. It was me, Cindy, who’s a volunteer from Australia who arrived with me, and Holly, a volunteer from Missouri, who spent that hour in the nursery. Darcy mainly hung around Holly and Cindy, while Yolo curled up in my lap almost as soon as I sat down and spent that hour playing and napping all over me. I could tell that he was quickly becoming my favorite baboon at CARE. I didn’t want that hour to end, but it wasn’t quite so hard to leave the nursery since I knew I’d be back that afternoon to take them to the river again. After having a shift of making and cleaning bottles, then having lunch, a few other volunteers and I headed back to the nursery to collect Darcy and Yolo for playtime at the river. The babies always choose which volunteer they want to carry them from the nursery to the river by climbing onto that person when the volunteers enter the nursery. I heard that usually it takes close to a week before they trust a person enough to let them carry them. When we walked into the nursery, Yolo looked around at all the volunteers (I think there were five of us), and then began tugging on my hand to pick him up. Yeah, at that moment I was sure of it- that little baboon has absolutely stolen my heart. Yolo let me carry him to the river, then carry him back to his troop when the hour was over. We also saw some more greater kudu by the bank on the other side of the river. That spot by the river is definitely one of the best wildlife viewing spots around!

            That’s all for this post. Sorry for the lack of pictures in these last couple of blog posts- the wifi here is really slow, so adding pictures to blogs has been really hard. Hopefully I’ll be able to include some soon. This post’s food for thought: “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”- Anatole France

Greetings, CARE!

            Well, after two nights in the hostel, one very early morning airport transfer, and two plane rides, I’m here at CARE baboon sanctuary! This trip is definitely giving me a lot of experience traveling solo, and I feel like I’m much better at maneuvering around airports now. The plane that I took from Atlanta to Johannesburg at the beginning of this adventure was, by far, the largest plane I’ve ever been on. This most recent flight, from Johannesburg to Phalaborwa, was by far the smallest. There were only nine rows, each with three seats. There weren’t even overhead bins; we all put our carry on bags in a box at the front of the plane. Thankfully that flight only took about an hour. Upon arriving at the tiny Phalaborwa airport, I met with Hannah, one of CARE’s employees. Turns out there were two other volunteers arriving on the exact same plane as me. When we got picked up, after making a quick stop at a nearby grocery store, we headed into the nature reserve that CARE is located in. Only a few minutes after passing through the gates, we saw a small group of greater kudu beside the road. Being that they’re one of my favorite ungulates (nerdy statement, I know), I thought that was pretty cool. We also saw several impala and a jackal on the drive into the sanctuary. When we arrived at the Mountain Lodge, the house where the volunteers live, we were told to leave our bags in the car and some of the men would come and get them and bring them in. There’s a troop of wild baboons, very affectionately dubbed the “longtits”, that lives around CARE, and turns out baboons are very sexist animals. They can clearly tell the difference between men and women, and treat them differently! They’re very respectful towards men and steer clear of them, but if women walk around carrying something that they think might be interesting, they’ll come try to steal it. Hence us letting the men carry our bags from the car to the Mountain Lodge.

            There are a lot more volunteers here than at my last project; I think there are about nineteen living here right now. It’s funny, at the white shark project I was the only American volunteer, but here there are two others from Texas alone, plus a few more from other states. We also have at least one from Canada, one from Scotland, a few from England, a couple from Australia, and more.

            After getting settled in, we got a quick tour of the Mountain Lodge, and by then it was time for dinner. We were all pretty tired from a day of traveling, and went to bed pretty early, ready for our official day of work. I knew that breakfast would be at eight the next morning, so I set an alarm, but as it turns out I didn’t need it. The wild troop plays on the tin roof of the lodge starting at about six in the morning, which serves as our alarm clock.

            After finishing breakfast, the next hour of my day consisted of getting a tour around the entire center, mainly the front part of it, that’s currently in the process of being turned into a better veterinary clinic and education building. Samantha, one of CARE’s employees, showed me and the two other new volunteers around, followed as well by the three dogs that live at the center.

            There’s a schedule written in the lodge that has the names of all the volunteers and our day’s events, broken down by hour. It’s nice that they have us switch assignments every hour, so we don’t get bored. Basically, my day consisted of cleaning one of the enclosures, making enrichment, making bottles for the youngest baboons, another little tour of the veterinary clinic, where we met a few of the baboons living in there, and more. I worked with several different volunteers throughout the day, which was nice since I got to get to know them a little better. I mainly talked to Brittany, who’s from New York, and Becky, who’s the one from Scotland. I also got to add giraffe and bushbuck to my list of wildlife that I’ve seen here, both of which I saw down by the river this afternoon. That spot by the river is absolutely beautiful, and feels very peaceful.

            By about 4:30 I was done for the day, and ran back to the Mountain Lodge to get showered. With nearly twenty volunteers and only two showers, there’s often quite a line at the end of the work day! After cleaning up, I relaxed in my bedroom until dinnertime. I definitely feel like I’ve put in a day’s worth of work, and am excited for what tomorrow brings. This post’s food for thought: “For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.”- Leonardo da Vinci

Until Next Time, White Shark Projects!

One last picture with the group. I'm already missing these people! 

            I’m writing this post from Atlantic Point in Cape Town, the delightful little hostel that I stayed in my first night in Africa, and will be staying at again the next two nights. This morning I had my very last trip out on the White Shark Projects boat with the sharks. The conditions were pretty rough and quite a few people on the boat were getting seasick so it turned out to be a shorter trip than normal, but we still got some great shark action while we were out there. I brought my camera but decided that I’d just live in the moment and enjoy the sharks with my own eyes instead, especially since the rough conditions made it hard to get a good shot.

            When we pulled back into the harbor I jumped off the boat, ran back to the volunteer house to quickly change and bring out my suitcase for the bus to pick up, then returned to the boat to get a couple of final pictures with the people that have come to feel like family in the past month. After we got a few pictures by the boat, we all went back up to the volunteer house.  The “Old Bean” and I each “skulled” one last beer in honor of my final day, then it was time to say goodbye. There were tears in my eyes as I hugged my fellow volunteers and crew members goodbye, and as I got in the bus I promised myself that I will return to work with this project again. This has been a truly unforgettable and life changing month. From serenading the great white sharks with Backstreet Boys songs in the cage on the volunteer exclusive trip to catching the brown shyshark with my bare hands while snorkeling in Hermanus to nearly getting swept off the rocks of Devil’s Cave at high tide, I’ve made so many memories here that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life. Perhaps most of all, I’ll treasure the friendships I made here in this short month. That being said, I’m going to dedicate this next section to the people I got to know here while working with White Shark Projects.

            Cake (Ryan)- Thanks for going full exorcist on our first morning out on the boat, so I wouldn’t feel like a wimp being the only volunteer to do so. I think you still hold the record for loudest puking. I absolutely love your crazy Cake-isms, like “don’t worry, I work in IT” and “how romantic. This is like I have six wives”. You will always be the king of falafel in my mind, as well as the king of really bad pun jokes. And yes, we somehow managed to fix the television after you left. You just turn it off and on again, right?

            Oreo (Aurelie)- Your amazing homemade mayonnaise has forever ruined my taste for the type of mayo that I get back home. I think I’m going to have to start making my own. Hanging out in town the night of your birthday was absolutely insane, though the tradition of it being the birthday person’s job to pay still seems backwards to me. Thankfully, it was not a sea day the next day. Oh, and if I ever visit Belgium, I call dibs on some of that bacon chocolate you sell.

            Lizzy and Beth- that night that we were sitting in the living area in the dark during load shedding singing along to Green Day was a really great night. I’ll always think of you when I listen to American Idiot, though you made me realize how ironic it is for an American to like that album. Lizzy, I thought it was pretty hilarious when you asked about guns in America, and how it really blew your mind to learn that so many people have them. It was definitely a lot of fun going out in town for both of your last night here (though the details of that night need not be posted here- you’re welcome).

            Alina Schmidt- thanks for teaching us that crazy German drinking game that the volunteers played so much. I didn’t originally realize how serious everyone takes it though- that game would always start as just us having fun and end with all the volunteers hating each other. We’d get over it after another game though. Oh, and thanks to you I know how to swear in German! That’s going to be very useful back home. Of course, pretty much anything in German sounds like an insult.

            Alina Finch- I’ll probably think of you whenever I hear Everybody by The Backstreet Boys, and remember when we were singing it to the sharks in the cage. Thanks for allowing me to cross “have a cup of tea that was actually made by a British person” off my bucket list- your tea is delicious! Your nickname of mother bird is definitely deserved; even though you were the youngest, you always were the one that was watching out for everyone else. I won’t soon forget some of the great things you said, like “you know you’re a scientist when you can make fire out of water”, “I drink wine to appear more civilized than I am”, and “I’ll trust you with my life, but not my eyebrows.” When you get back home to the lab, please take some pictures like the ones I posted in that link on Facebook!

            Amber- I’ll never understand your serious dislike of snakes, spiders, roaches, moths, and ants, yet love of sharks. You made me realize that I guess I’m not a typical Texan when you were constantly saying you were cold, though I always felt fine. Spending time with you has made at least one type of British accent recognizable to me- hard not to recognize it actually!

            Now for the staff members. Jerome- I never understood how you were able to be so bright and perky in the garage at six in the morning when the rest of us were still mostly asleep. Thanks for taking care of the volunteers on multiple occasions, from giving us rides to making sure you were the last guest to leave the volunteer house that one crazy night. Sorry I didn’t get to actually say goodbye to you today, but hopefully I’ll see you next year. P.S.- your son still owes the volunteers a dishwashing session for always using our wifi.

            Karla- Thanks for taking the volunteers to explore the caves on the shore by Hermanus that day, though you weren’t crazy enough to go all the way to Devil’s Cave. Oh, and thanks for coming to save the volunteers when the power went out at our house that night. Hopefully I’ll see you next year. And, as I said when I was leaving, email me if you want me to write more for the White Shark Projects blog!

            “Old Bean”- I saved your section for last because I knew it would be hardest to write. I think I’ll miss you the most out of everyone I’ve met in the past month. Thanks for being the only other person that actually speaks normally around here (what the hell are crisps? They’re called chips!). I’ll miss your love of taking pictures yet hatred of being in them. I’ll always love the crazy things you say, like “I plan my spontaneity well in advance!” and “people need their buttons pushed. Otherwise they’re too comfortable.” You showed me that not everything needs to be planned out, and it’s okay to just live in the moment instead of constantly think about the future. As you said to me in the volunteer house one night, “saving is for people that think they have an unlimited life span. We could die tonight, so let’s drink.” Thank you so much for talking to me at the house on Lizzy and Beth’s last night, after most of the other volunteers were out, and convincing me to go out even though I originally wasn’t going to. I’m glad I went out. I’ll see you next summer. Take care of Mitzy for me.

            Well, having just read over this post, I’ve noticed that it’s probably the longest blog post I’ve ever made, and it kind of makes it sound like the White Shark Projects volunteers and staff are all raging alcoholics, which, at least most of the time, really isn’t the case. This post’s food for thought: “May your adventures bring you closer together, even as they take you far away from home.”- Trenton Lee Stewart

Every New Beginning...

Some action on Shark Lady's boat yesterday

            Well, it’s been another very busy few days with White Shark Projects! Today was the eighth day straight that the volunteers have been out on the water, which has been absolutely wonderful! That one week straight of no sea days was nice because we were able to go out and do other things, but now it’s also been great to go out and see the great white sharks that all the volunteers love so much. Yesterday there actually weren’t any clients scheduled on our boat, but Karla managed to get us all spots on the boats of other companies in the area. The two Alina’s went with Shark Diving Unlimited, and Amber and I went on Shark Lady. It was nice to see how another boat does things differently from ours, and was also nice to not have any jobs on the boat, but rather to just go up on the fly deck with my camera and enjoy the great view.

            This afternoon, after getting off the boat and returning to the house I learned that, since the weather is due to turn bad again in the next couple of days, there won’t be a trip out to sea on Sunday, the day I’m scheduled to leave. The bus only goes to and from Cape Town on days with trips to sea, to pick up and drop off the clients. That means that, unfortunately, they have no choice but to drop me off back at Atlantic Point a day early. Jan came and told me the news, saying that they’d pay for my extra night’s stay in the hostel, but that’s just the only option available. So it turns out tonight will be my last night here at the White Shark Projects volunteer house.

            I just got back from a long walk around the harbor and along the beautiful coastline of South Africa. I’m very sad to say that my time with White Shark Projects is almost over. I’ve been in this beautiful place for almost exactly a month, and it had been one of the best months of my life. I’ll never forget the first time I went in the cage with the sharks, the volunteer exclusive trip when I went in the frigid water without a wetsuit, the time I caught the brown shyshark with my bare hands while snorkeling in Hermanus, visiting the coastline of the Southernmost tip of Africa, or any of the other incredible experiences that I’ve had here with this project. I’ve always loved the ocean, and I’m going to miss living five minutes from it, as I’ve been lucky enough to do the past month. My fellow volunteers have come to feel like family, and it’ll be very hard to no longer see them every day. A lot of volunteers get involved here multiple times, and I’m confident that I’ll return to this project sometime and work with it again, hopefully for longer than four weeks. Either way, though, this month has been so incredibly special. Not only have I learned a lot more about white sharks and come to love them even more than I did before working here, I’ve gotten the most wonderful adventures around this place and made some friendships that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. Staring at my suitcase sitting in the corner of the room, I’m really dreading getting it out and packing up all my stuff. However, I’m trying to stay positive, and as a song I know says, “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”. I’m glad that I have CARE baboon sanctuary and the second stage of my African adventure to look forward to, and I’m very excited to get involved in that great project! Tonight, hanging with the other volunteers and our wonderful “Old Bean”, will be a night of celebration, not sorrow. This post’s food for thought is a quote that I know is so very true, especially in my life: “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.”- Pascal Mercier

Swop Shop and Other News

                        Today was the fifth day in a row that the White Shark Projects boat has been out on the water. I think this is the first time in my history with this project that I can say that. Thankfully, the dreary weather that kept us inland last week has completely passed us now, and the last few days have been absolutely beautiful. Yesterday morning was particularly cold out on the boat; it was in the 40’s, and the wind made it feel even colder.  Since there are now only four volunteers, we’ve all been able to go out on the water every day, which has been really nice. The volunteer house feels really quiet now with just me, Alina and Amber here. Thankfully our lovely “Old Bean” (Maarten- and that’s what I’m going to call him from now on) is hanging out here all the time, and brings along that extra energy. We just heard from Karla that tomorrow we’ll be going out again, but the start will be at eight instead of 7:30, so we’ll have another precious half hour of sleep in the morning. Hearing my alarm go off every morning at 5:30 has been the least enjoyable part of the past week, but I’ve gotten used to it since being with this project.

            Every morning out on the boat has had some great shark sightings, and every day is a little bit different. While I was up on the fly deck taking pictures yesterday, a guest asked me if that trip was about average in terms of sharks. I said that it’s hard to say exactly what “average” is for these trips. The sharks are completely wild, we don’t feed them, we never know for sure what’s going to happen, and we can’t promise anything. Every trip is a bit different. The past two mornings I’ve actually seen the smallest white shark that I’ve seen in my time here. I can’t be sure that I was seeing the same shark both days, but I think I was. At about one and a half meters, it’s clearly a very young shark, since that’s about the size they are when they’re born. So I’ve seen sharks in these waters that are anywhere from one and a half meters up to four and a half- pretty big difference.

            This afternoon, Amber and I helped out at the White Shark Projects Swop Shop for the first time. Swop Shop is a program where kids that live in the area bring plastic, glass, and other recyclables to the shop, and in return they earn a certain number of points that they can then “spend” in the little shop. The shop has little toys, school supplies, clothes, and other things, and this afternoon we had close to 200 local kids come through it. When we were finished we learned that they’d brought in over one thousand pounds worth of recyclables that they’d picked up from around their neighborhood. Seeing and helping the kids around the little shop was really interesting- there’s definitely some big differences between here and the US! Some of the kids were very small- as young as maybe four or five years old- and they’d all walked over to the shop by themselves. The lucky ones had shoes on, but most of them were barefoot. Almost all of the kids had very short hair, and the way they dressed sometimes made it hard to distinguish the boys from the girls. Probably the biggest difference I noticed about the behavior of the kids was that none of them ever cried. As I said, they each had a certain number of points that they could use at the shop, and some of them didn’t have enough to buy their favorite thing. Back home, if a kid in a toy store wanted something but was told they couldn’t have it, they’d burst into tears. But in the Swop Shop if I was helping a kid that wanted a toy they didn’t have the points for, I’d shake my head and they’d just put it back on the shelf and keep looking. Not even the really little ones ever made a fuss! Most of them were very quiet as they looked around, and it was pretty strange to see. A lot of the kids clearly weren’t used to seeing long blonde hair like mine, and they touched and stared at it in a pretty puzzled way, which I thought was pretty funny.

            As I said, tomorrow we go back out to sea at eight, and there’s room for all the volunteers again. Karla also mentioned that she’s going to try to plan another volunteer exclusive trip soon- hopefully Thursday or Friday-which should be great! Having the boat reserved for just the volunteers and crew members is a lot of fun since we don’t have to be very “professional”, but instead can just laugh and have fun. This post’s food for thought is something I thought about while watching the kids in the Swop Shop today: “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”- Robert Louis Stevenson

Four Days of Madness!

Cape Agulhas! Indian Ocean on one side, Atlantic Ocean on the other

Yesterday was a great sea day! 

            Well, as those that regularly read my blog can probably tell, I’ve been pretty busy the past week or so. Thankfully, I’ve finally found time today to make another blog post. So, like the last one, I’ll go over the events of the past four days, starting with Wednesday the third.

            Knowing it would be a no sea day, Karla had planned a trip to explore some of the caves along the shore around Hermanus. At about ten, Karla picked up the two Alina’s, Amber, Aurelie, Maarten, and me at the volunteer house. It was about an hour drive to the caves around the coast, and when we got there it was cloudy and pretty windy, but thankfully not raining. There’s a well defined pathway around part of the area, but to get to some of the other caves (most notably the one known as Devil’s Cave), we had to literally just climb along these sharp, precarious rocks right up against the crashing waves. Amber, Karla, and the German Alina decided to just stay on the path, but Aurelie, the English Alina and I decided to follow Maarten along the rocks to find Devil’s Cave. There were a few times when we almost lost our footing and fell into the water, and a few times that the rocks shook or rolled out from beneath us, but we were determined to keep going. At one point we had to climb on top of some rocks that jutted out over the water much farther than others. They were sharp, keeping a good grip was hard, and if we missed a step we’d fall a good distance on the hard rocks and crashing water beneath us. That definitely got our adrenaline rushing (a feeling I absolutely love!), but we all made it over the rocks unhurt. When we finally came to the opening of Devil’s Cave, Maarten said, “Okay, we have to go in now, while the tide’s still pretty low. If we wait too long the tide will nearly fill up the cave and we’ll just be swept away.” Of course, he waited for that moment to tell us that, but there was no turning back now. We quickly waded through the water, which was a little less than knee deep at the time, to the area at the back of the cave, which was still dry. We took a few pictures in there, marveled at our success, then decided we should head out while we still could. By the time we left, the water we were walking through was up to our waists and still rising. The hike back to the others didn’t seem nearly as hard, and when the group was reunited we went to lunch, then back home.

            Thursday morning Jan and his girlfriend Jen picked us up to head down to Cape Agulhas, which is the southernmost tip of Africa. It’s also geographically recognized as the place where the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean meet, so it was really cool to go and take some pictures there. We spent some more time climbing and exploring around the rocks near the ocean, then Jan took us to a lighthouse that we could go into. The woman that let us in said to be careful as we were heading up because it was steep, but it wasn’t until we actually saw inside that we truly understood her. We originally thought she just meant pretty steep stairs, but not, it was about five or six sets of actual ladders we had to climb to get to the view at the top. I thought it was pretty funny; I’ve been bungee jumping, cliff jumping, swimming with great white sharks, and yet climbing up those ladders really got my adrenaline going yet again! When we eventually made it to the top, we took some more pictures of the beautiful view that we were taking in.

            Thursday evening we learned that we would FINALLY be going back to sea the next morning. It had been about a week since the last sea day, and although we’ve done fun things those days, we were all eager to go back out on the boat. We also learned that the weather was predicting pretty strong swells early in the morning, but it would calm down later, so we were planning to head out at 8:30, instead of 7:30 like usual. Getting up at seven Friday morning felt like sleeping in for a sea day, since we were usually in the garage by six. It was pretty easy to get up because we were all excited about being back out with the sharks. When Maarten met us in the garage he told us that there would actually be two trips to sea that day, so some of us would get to spend almost all day on the boat. Amber would just be a client for her first day instead of volunteer, so there was room for me, the two Alina’s, and Aurelie on the first trip out.

            The first trip had some pretty rough swells, and several clients, as well as Amber, got pretty seasick. The sharks put on a great show though, so everyone said it was worth it. I brought my camera, but only used it on the second trip. We were out at sea for the first trip a bit longer than we often are, and didn’t return to the harbor until close to one. Amber decided she wasn’t feeling up for a second trip, but all the other volunteers stayed on the boat, and only about fifteen minutes after returning to the harbor, we were back out on the water. For the second trip I went up to the fly deck of the boat, which is the best place for taking pictures, and set up my camera. It took us over an hour to get a shark to our boat for that trip, but once we did they once again put on a show, and I got some more good pictures. We were the last boat in the area to head in that day; by the time we returned to the harbor, I’d been out on the water for about eight hours, with only that short gap in between trips.

            Today was another great sea day, thankfully. It was Aurelie’s last day today, so we said she should go on the first trip to sea, but she said that, unfortunately, she wasn’t feeling good and shouldn’t go out again. Amber also said she’d wait and go on trip two, so the two Alina’s and I were on the first trip. I was given the job of data collection for that trip, so I sat up on the fly deck again and wrote down the data on the sharks we saw. It was another two trip day, but I only went on the first one, then said goodbye to Aurelie before she got on the bus to leave, and just hung out in the volunteer house for a while.

            Now there are only three volunteers here in the house- Alina, Amber, and me- and it feels really quiet. Thankfully Maarten’s also here to provide the extra energy that he always has. We’ve heard that tomorrow will probably have two trips as well, so we think we’ll all get to go out at least once.

            I think this post is more than long enough! This post’s food for thought: “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”- unknown

No Sea Days Are Fun!

Lizzy, Jan (looking creepy), Beth, Aurelie, Alina, and me at the first wine tasting

Aurelie, Lizzy, and Alina at another! Living the life! 

I love these girls! 

            Okay, friends and family back home, I’m not dead! I know that I haven’t made a blog post in four days, which is weird for me, but I’ve been quite busy, which is especially weird since the weather has kept us inland! So, the past few days haven’t included great white sharks, but they’ve still been a lot of fun! I guess I’ll start with Saturday’s news and go from there.

            The volunteers- Lizzy, Beth, Alina, Aurelie and I- got up and made breakfast together before getting picked up by Jan and his girlfriend Jen in the volunteer bus at about ten. It turned out to be a day of driving around Gansbaai, Hermanus, and the surrounding area, watching baboons run along the side of the road, and getting intoxicated at free wine and beer tastings. There are a lot of vineyards around Cape Town, and the volunteers ended up going to three different wine and beer tastings with Jen and Jan, and admiring the beautiful South African scenery during the drives in between. It was a cloudy and slightly drizzly day, but South Africa is an absolutely beautiful place no matter what the weather.

            We returned to the volunteer house at about four that afternoon, and relaxed for a while. We were originally planning on just making dinner here, but the other Alina and her boyfriend Lalo told us that they were going out to a pizzeria in Gansbaai for dinner and invited the rest of us to join them. Maarten soon came over to the house to hang out with us and he said he’d come too. It turned out to be one of the busiest, and best, no sea days that I’ve had in my time here with White Shark Projects.

            Sunday was a pretty simple day here at the volunteer house- during the day at least. It was Lizzy and Beth’s last full day with us, and we were all pretty sad that we’d soon see them go. The volunteers knew we’d go out into town that evening for their last night to have fun. At first I said that I would stay in that evening instead of going out, and I really thought I would until most of the other volunteers had left. There’s one guy in Gansbaai that serves as pretty much the only taxi service, and his car is big enough to seat four passengers, so he first came to the volunteer house and picked up Aurelie, Alina, Beth and Lizzy, planning to come back to pick up Maarten, who’d agreed to come out as well. After talking to just Maarten after they were gone, he talked me into going out as well. At first I wasn’t too enthusiastic about it, but I later thanked Maarten for convincing me to go out with everyone else. We didn’t stay out too late because we knew we were getting picked up at nine the next morning to head to Cape Town. It turned into a really fun night.

            The next morning Karla picked us all up at the volunteer house to drive over to the beautiful city of Cape Town. The bus contained me, Karla, Beth, Lizzy, Alina, Aurelie and Maarten, as well as the other Alina, Lalo, and Gerome, who are taking a diving course in a town on the way to Cape Town, not to mention Beth and Lizzy’s luggage. The volunteer bus was pretty full!

            It was a cold, wet day out in Cape Town, but it still turned into a really great day. Our first stop was picking up a new White Shark Projects volunteer at Atlantic Point Backpackers, the same hostel that I stayed in my first night in Africa. Her name is Amber, and, like most of the other volunteers I’ve met, she’s from the UK. It’s a really alien feeling for me to be the only American around here, but in a way I like it. The only person that I think sounds like I do here is Maarten, who grew up in Canada.

            After picking up Amber, we went to eat lunch and hang out around the waterfront of Cape Town. Eventually, after several hours of walking and driving around that great city, it was time to drop off and say goodbye to Lizzy and Beth. It had been two great weeks with them, but now it was time for them to return home to Wales. We all exchanged hugs and promises to keep in touch, then officially said goodbye. I said this when Cake left, and I’ll say it again. It’s crazy how people can come into your life, begin to truly feel like family, then be gone again in a matter of two short weeks. Sitting in the living room with Lizzy, Beth and Cake that one night during load shedding, the room lit only by candles, listening and singing along to Green Day from my phone (is it ironic for an American to love an album titled American Idiot?) is an experience I’ll probably never forget. I’ll really miss Lizzy and Beth.

            Today has been a really simple day here at the volunteer house. This morning after breakfast we pulled out the South African version of Monopoly-yes, that exists- and spent the next couple of hours playing that. We went grocery shopping early this afternoon- usually we go on Mondays but we didn’t get home until after dark last night, so we postponed it until today. It feels emptier and quieter here today with Cake, Lizzy and Beth gone, even though we now have Amber as well. Maarten has been here most of the afternoon hanging out with us, and he probably will be until later tonight. Tonight is my night to cook dinner, so I’ll get started on that pretty soon. I guess this extra long blog post should make up for the several days of no news. This post’s food for thought: “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”- Maya Angelou