Watching the sunrise from the boat makes those 4:30 wake up calls worth it
This guy was a beauty!
I love watching that eye roll back when they breach
Well, after
a fun and delicious braai last night, our alarms went off at 4:30 this morning
to get us up for another morning out at sea! It’s interesting that, though 4:30
sounds dreadfully early to get up at home, here it’s surprisingly easy to get
out of bed that early and start getting ready. I’m sure it’s because here I
know that I’m getting up to go hang out with my favorite people in the world
and see the gorgeous sharks that I love so much. Lizzy, Cake, Beth and I were
the first volunteers in the garage, meeting Jerome to start packing up the
truck to drive down to the boat. Soon the other ones joined us, and in not too
long we got the prep work done and returned to the house to have a cup of
coffee before the boat launched at 6:30. There were only ten clients, so there
was room on the boat for all the volunteers (I think there’s currently nine of
us), plus the crew, which today was Grant, Bee, Mandla, Sibo and Benz. Jerome
has been really busy with inland stuff, so he hasn’t been on the boat for a few
days.
Once we got
out to our spot and dropped anchor, Bee started chumming the water while
Mandla, Benz and Sibo worked on getting the cage in the water and attached to
the boat, while Grant gave the clients a last briefing. Then the volunteers
passed out wetsuits to the clients that wanted to get in the cage, and then we
waited until we got a shark around the boat. As usual, I climbed up on the fly
deck as soon as I got a chance and got out my camera. This morning was pretty
slow at first- it took over an hour to spot our first shark, but eventually one
showed up. The first one we saw was a beautiful male that was pretty big; he
was a little longer than our 3.6 meter cage. He was also pretty inquisitive,
and stuck around our boat for quite a while. We saw another shark as well, but
that first one was the highlight of our trip. At one point, we saw him breach
as he went after the bait, and I finally got a shot of those dark blue eyes
rolling over white when they attack something. That’s one of my favorite things
to see on the boat, and it’s so hard to get a picture of.
When the
guests had all seen the sharks from the boat, and the ones that had wanted to
had gotten their chance in the cage, we pulled up the anchor and headed back to
the harbor. With all nine volunteers working together, we finished cleaning the
boat and the wetsuits in only about half an hour and were done with our work
day by about ten am. After coming home and moving the pictures I took from my
camera to my computer, we made lunch and hung out with the other volunteers. This
afternoon Lizzy, Cake, Beth, Dax, Tom and I went out to do a beach clean. In
the nearly two weeks that I’ve been here I’ve been on four beach cleans, two
with groups and two by myself, and we always find stuff. Even though it’s a
simple thing, knowing that by picking up plastic off the beach, I very well
might be saving an animal’s life is so satisfying. We stayed out for about two
hours, walking along the beach with trash bags, picking up whatever we could
find. We just recently got back from doing that, and Lizzy and Beth went with
Dax and Tom to a nearby pub to watch some sports game that’s on. When they get
back we’re making a quick dinner, then we’ve decided that the five of us
(Lizzy, Beth, me, Cake, and Dax) are going back to that cave that we were at
yesterday in De Kelders to watch the sunset, have a few beers, and just hang
out. We’re going to buy some wood to build a fire in the little fire pit that
they have there, and Jerome has said that he’ll drive us. Even though our work
day was done by ten this morning, it’s turned into another full day of fun here
in Gansbaai. I love this place so much. This post’s food for thought: “An
investment in travel is an investment in yourself.”- Matthew Karsten
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