Shark tooth that we got during yesterday's trip!
Mandla, the bait handler, showing off his prize
Yesterday
was a really interesting day here at WSP! It started nice and early, with Lucy
and me heading up to the garage at 5:30 to get everything packed up and ready,
then heading down to the boat for the launch at seven. There was only one trip
out to sea yesterday, but it was a really good one! We saw a total of eleven
sharks, and on that trip I saw one of the best shark breaches I’ve ever seen.
“Breach” is the behavior of sharks leaping out of the water; if you’ve ever
watched Shark Week, you’ve probably seen it. Full breaches don’t really happen
in this area, but yesterday I saw a really impressive partial breach- this
shark’s entire upper body was out of the water, nearly all the way to the
pelvic fins. I was lucky enough to be in one of the best spots to see it too- I
was sitting on the ladder behind the bait handler, near the stern of the boat,
which I think is the best vantage point on the whole boat. What was interesting
about this breach was that the shark wasn’t striking the bait, like most do when
breaching- he just randomly popped out of the water. We knew that there were
several sharks around the boat at that time, so what most likely happened was
that shark noticed another, probably bigger, shark swimming underneath him.
Like a lot of animals, the underside of a shark is their weakest point, and we
always notice that they don’t like things under them. So what probably happened
was this shark was swimming near the surface of the water, then spotted another
shark underneath him, so he immediately took off from that spot, which lead to
the impressive breach.
That wasn’t
the only really cool thing to happen on that trip, though. Mandla was the bait
handler yesterday, and at one point he saw the approaching shark at the last
second, pulling the tuna head back just before the shark bit into it. When he
pulled the bait back up onto the boat, we noticed a tooth sticking out of the
Styrofoam float that’s attached to it! This shark’s tooth was perfectly whole,
which is so rare to find- usually we can just find broken ones. We were all
pretty jealous of Mandla as he showed it off to the rest of the crew when we
got back to the harbor.
By the time
we got back on land a little after ten, the new vols were here. We’d heard the
previous evening that, of the eight new vols that we’d be getting, there was
one couple among them, so they’d be going into Lucy’s room, and she’d be moving
up to the other house. When we got off the boat Lucy quickly went to move her
bags up to the other house, while I helped finish unpacking the boat. As I
headed up to the garage to clean the wetsuits, I noticed the new vols standing
outside the other house with their bags, but decided to wait until I was done
with work to officially go meet everyone.
When the
wetsuits were hanging to dry I went back to my house to clean up a bit, which
is when I met my new housemates. Tom was in the house showing them around when
I walked in. Most people that volunteer with projects like this are in their
late teens to mid twenties, often in the middle of a gap year or something like
that. This couple is an exception to that; Philip and Julie are a retired
couple from England, who are very well traveled! They told me that, even though
they’ve been traveling a lot, this is their first time doing a volunteer
project like this, so they’re here for two weeks.
After
chatting with them for a while, I headed back up to the top house to meet the
other six new vols. Among them are two sets to friends traveling together, all
of which are American- there’s friends Mark and Andre from Colorado, and two
girls from Wisconsin, who both happened to be named Jennifer. There’s also a
girl from England named Sofie, and a guy from Germany named Mo. As we all sat
around the front room of that house chatting, it was interesting to hear so
many American accents again.
Around noon,
Jerome came to the house with the WSP bus to take us to the store. Shopping
days are typically Monday and Thursday, but since we got a bunch of new people,
we decided to go ahead and go yesterday. I didn’t really need anything, but I
decided to come along anyway. It was kind of fun to play tour guide once we
were all dropped off by Spar, the grocery store. On the way there, Tom said
that he’d do a braai that evening so we could all hang out together and get to
know each other. Sounded like a great night! When we got home from Spar, I went
out to do a beach clean for about an hour, as usual. By the time I got back, I
could smell that Tom had already started the fire for the braai. A braai is
quite a process- it takes a good four hours from the time you start the fire to
the food being ready. By about five, most of the other vols had come down to
our place to chat and hang out. We were also joined by Mitch and Lalo, two of
our friends that work for White Shark Diving Company, another shark ecotourism
boat that uses this harbor. There are about seven or eight companies that work
out of this harbor, all doing the same type of work with the sharks. A couple
of vols asked if there’s a level of competition between the companies, but I
don’t really think there is.
We knew that
today was a no sea day, so this morning Tom gave the group his lecture on shark
biology as an introduction for the new volunteers. Since they were all pretty
new to sharks, it was a great first lecture because it answered a lot of the
questions that guests typically ask on the boat, like how old sharks get, how
to tell male from female sharks, what their population is like, etc. After the
lecture and a break for lunch, Tom decided that we should all go for a
walk/clean along the beach this afternoon, so the new volunteers could see the
area a little more. He talked a bit about pollution in his lecture, how much
trash is being thrown into the ocean and what a terrible effect it’s having, and
mentioned to the group that I go out and do beach cleans every day.
Tomorrow is
going to be a sea day, but I haven’t yet heard how many trips are going out or
how many spaces will be available. Considering we now have so many vols, some
will only be here for a week, and Lucy’s leaving in a couple of days, I
seriously doubt I’ll be going on the boat tomorrow. I don’t really mind that
though; I can always find something to keep me busy around here! This post’s
food for thought: “The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and
brings eternal joy to the soul.”- Robert Wyland
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