My last night in Cape Town
Nothing beats the waterfront at night!
Mermaid's purse I found at the beach this morning
Today has
been my first full day here at WSP. This morning Cake and I got up and ate
breakfast at about eight. We’d heard from Tom last night that we should meet up
with the rest of the volunteers at the other house at nine o’clock this morning
to decide what we were going to do today. We knew it would be a no sea day, for
a couple of reasons. The simplest reason is that the WSP boat is going through
some maintenance today, but there’s a much bigger reason too. About three weeks
ago, some orcas were spotted in the bay here in Gansbaai. It’s rather unusual
for them to be in this area; people think they might be looking for food or
something like that. Orcas and great whites coming into contact with each other
doesn’t happen a whole lot in the wild, but there definitely have been
documented cases of it happening, and one thing in that situation is clear- the
orca wins every time. Because of this, in the time since the orcas were seen in
the area, no white sharks have been spotted in this area. The orcas have literally
scared them away! Most of the boats that work out of this harbor have been
cancelling their tourist trips out the past couple of weeks because there are
no sharks for them to see. I heard that one boat went out this morning and
might’ve seen a couple, so we’re hoping that they’ll be coming back soon. It’s
actually pretty fascinating to see how the animals interact and change each
other’s behavior. Great whites are one of the biggest and smartest fish in the
sea, but they know that they’d lose a match with an orca, so when they’re
around, the sharks know to head to safer waters! It’s crazy that even in a
place like Shark Alley here in Gansbaai, one of the best spots in the world to
see great whites, they can all be driven out by a few orcas.
After eating
breakfast, Cake and I walked up to the other house and met the rest of the
volunteers. Tom arrived at the house shortly after we did, a little after nine,
and we headed down to the harbor, armed with some trash bags, to do a beach
clean up. Cake and I had wanted to walk along that path and see the tide pools
anyway, so it sounded like a good plan. The main thing we were looking for was
rope and fishing line, since Tom had a friend that had started up an
organization that took that stuff and made things like bracelets out of it,
which they then sold. He said that when they had earned up enough money, his
friend wanted to buy a boat so they could expand their clean ups to not just
the beaches, but also the reefs and other places a bit farther out. Seven of us
total went out, and we were out there for a good three hours or more, climbing
along the rocks and dried up kelp, pulling out everything from plastic bottles
to flip flops rubber flippers to sunglasses. We found quite a bit of rope and
fishing line, which we put in its own bag to be sent to the organization. We
also saw a wide range of beautiful shells. After walking for a couple of hours,
we came to a beautiful, big tide pool that had formed in the rocks. There was a
huge range of beautiful fish swimming around. Tom said he would occasionally
walk down here and go for a relaxing swim in that pool, surrounded by all the
fish. In the middle of it, the water came up almost to his shoulders.
A little bit
farther along, I found the jackpot of the morning- a big, fully intact
mermaid’s purse of a skate! For people who aren’t huge animal nerds, a
mermaid’s purse is what they call a protective pouch that some species of
sharks lay their eggs in. I’d seen pieces of some on the beach earlier on our
walk, but this was the biggest one we found.
A little
after noon, we walked back to the harbor with our bags full. There’s a little
shop just across the street and a few lots up from the volunteer house, and the
WSP volunteers give them a lot of business! After cleaning up a bit from our
trek along the beach, some of us walked up to the shop to get some stuff for
lunch. We heard that this afternoon, there’d be a shark documentary on in the
house, so after lunch Cake and I returned to the other house to watch that and
chill with the other volunteers.
We just
finished the dinner that Cake made and are hanging out in the kitchen. Tomorrow
our other previous volunteer friends, Lizzy and Beth, are arriving and will
stay with us in this house. The maintenance of the boat was finished today, and
we heard from Jerome that tomorrow it’ll be brought back to the harbor at about
ten, so the plan is to go on a crew and volunteer exclusive trip (no
tourists!), starting at about eleven, to see if we could find some sharks. I’m
super excited to see Lizzy and Beth again, as well as to be back out on the
boat, on that gorgeous ocean that I’ve missed so much. Tomorrow should be
another good day! This post’s food for thought: “A journey is best measured in
friends, rather than miles.”- Tim Cahill
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