Until Next Time, Gansbaai...

            Well, as sad as I am to say it, my third trip to South Africa is almost over. I’ve checked into my first flight, most of my stuff is packed up, and tomorrow after one final trip out on the boat, I’ll be boarding the White Shark Projects’ van to the Cape Town airport. As I’ve said before, both the beginning and end of my adventures always bring about a range of emotions, both happy and sad, and tonight is no exception. But first, let me go over what I’ve been up to over my last couple of days here.

            Tuesday evening we had one final braai as a send off for the vols. Lizzy, Beth, Cake and I were four of a total of thirteen new vols that arrived on June first, and all of us were staying for either two, three, or four weeks, so all my fellow vols that didn’t leave a week or two ago are leaving either today, tomorrow, or the next day. One thing that I’ve learned through my experiences traveling is that you can get to know people remarkably well in just a matter or weeks, and it’s amazing how quickly these people have gone from being strangers to good friends. Also, even more importantly, traveling the way I do has taught me that transient relationships can be so important. With the obvious exception of Lizzy, Beth and Cake, I’ve only known these fellow vols for a few weeks, and although I may see a few of them some time in the future, chances are when I say bye to them tomorrow, I’m saying bye to most of them for good. Of course I’ll be back here- that goes without saying at this point- and of course I’ll see Lizzy, Beth, Cake, Jerome, Tom, Mandla, Benz, Grant, and the other crew members again. But as far as the others go, chances are slim that our paths will cross again. Either way, I think we’ve definitely made each other’s time here in Gansbaai a little better.

            Tuesday evening after the braai Jerome drove us into town to go to the weekly trivia night at Oppidek. I was on a team with fellow volunteers Mike, Erik, Rhiannon and Ruth. Mike, Rhiannon and Ruth are British, and Erik’s from France. The topic of trivia this week, appropriately, was the World Cup. We didn’t expect to do well since most of us didn’t know much about football (aka soccer), but we were lucky enough to have Erik on our team, who’s an absolute whiz on the topic and amazingly enough we won! We didn’t stay out late since we were headed to Cape Agulhas the next morning, but it was still a fun night.

            Yesterday at about 9 am six vols jumped into the van, with Jerome at the wheel, and headed down to Cape Agulhas for one last day out before everyone had to leave. I can now officially say that I’ve visited the southernmost tip of Africa five times in my life; wonder how many people can say that. We spent most of the day out and about exploring the cape, visiting the lighthouse, and having lunch before heading back to Kleinbaai. Since Wednesday is karaoke night at Jimmy Rocket’s, another pub in town, we all went out for one last night on the town. Some of them, including Cake, were leaving for Cape Town bright and early this morning, heading to either hostels or the airport, so we had to say some goodbyes last night. It was a little bit sad to hug Cake one more time, but at least with him I know there will be a next time.

            Today has been a quiet last full day here in Kleinbaai; some of the other vols were driven in to Cape Town, but Loryn and I stayed around here. We did one last long beach clean- we’ve collected a lot of trash from the beach in the month that we’ve been here, and it feels really nice to know that we’ve helped even a little bit. Tomorrow morning we’ve got a 6 am start in the garage, followed by a 7:30 launch for one last trip out on the boat before leaving. Hopefully we can see a few more sharks. After the trip we’re putting our bags in the bus and heading back into Cape Town with the clients from the trip, and will be dropped off at the airport. My flight isn’t until four, so I’m sure I’ll have some time to chill there before my short flight up to Johannesburg, then the long 17 hour flight back to Atlanta. That flight is always rough, but I’ve survived it four times before.

            So tonight is my last night in my bed here at the lower vol house in Kleinbaai. Tomorrow night I’ll be on a plane, and the following one I’ll be back home in San Antonio. I know that saying goodbye to the crew tomorrow will be hard. Even though I know I’ll see them again, leaving is hard. This place really does feel like home to me, and the people here feel like family. So until next time, Gansbaai. Thanks for another month of wonderful memories. This post’s food for thought: “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

Beginning of the End...

            I wanted to make a blog post yesterday, but with a combination of getting home late in the day, being really tired, and having little to no wifi connection, I decided to hold off and make it today. Due to big swells, it’s been about five days since we last went out on the boat. The weather actually hasn’t been bad, but the wind has kicked up a very rough sea here in Kleinbaai. Regardless of rain versus shine, if the swells are too big we can’t go out due to risk of capsizing, or at least most of the guests that aren’t used to the motion of the sea having a miserable time. So instead, we’ve spent the past few days going around Gansbaai, Hermanus, and the surrounding area doing some exploring.

            Saturday morning we received two new volunteers, a father and son from Ireland that are now living in the flat next to Loryn and me. After they arrived the vols all piled into the WSP van and headed to Hermanus, where the plan was to visit one of the vineyards out there for a wine tasting, then spend the evening at a restaurant in town watching one of the football (and by football I mean soccer because I basically become British when I travel) games that some people wanted to see.

            When we arrived at the winery I quickly remembered that I’d been there before, on my last trip here. The winelands of this country are so beautiful- I tried to get some pictures, but no photo can possibly do it justice. After a couple of hours of hanging out at that winery while the others did their tasting, we jumped back in the van and headed into the town of Hermanus where we spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening- we didn’t end up getting home until well after it had gone dark. When we arrived at the restaurant, there was an England versus South Africa rugby game about to start, and for the rest of the evening I had some weird combination of “God Save The Queen” and “Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika,” the two countries’ national anthems, stuck in my head. See what I mean? I really lose the American in me when I travel!

            Sunday was mostly spent preparing for a little presentation/festival that the WSP vols and staff were helping out with for about 100 kids in the nearby town of Kleinmont. It involved us helping out with things like face painting, reading books to the kids, and Tom leading a little educational presentation on sharks and conservation. Yesterday at around ten am we piled in the van again and headed over to Kleinmont, armed with face paint and lots of cupcakes. There were a little over 100 kids at this event, most of which were under ten years old, and according to Jerome most of them have never met people from overseas before, so hanging out with a bunch of volunteers from places like England, France, and the US was a big deal for them. A lot of the kids were very small, and like with Swop Shop, it was kind of emotionally draining but very rewarding to work with them. We stayed there at the event helping with Tom’s presentation and painting the kids’ faces until about two in the afternoon, at which point we passed out cupcakes and headed out.

            By that point we were all hungry, and Hermanus was on the way back anyway, so we decided to return there and spend the rest of the afternoon eating and exploring around that beautiful little town. I enjoyed the fantastic view of the ocean from the side of the cliffs, returned to the spot where I’d caught the brown shyshark with my bare hands three years ago, and ran into some very cute rock hyraxes. There’s not a single place in this country that I’ve visited and not liked, and Hermanus is definitely one of my favorite places here.

            This evening we’re having a braai since a lot of the vols will be leaving soon (sadly including me), then tomorrow we’re heading back to Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa where I’ve been several times before. So far the weather looks like we will be able to go out to sea on Friday, which is great because that means I’ll be able to stay another night. I fly out of Cape Town on Friday, but I don’t need to be at the airport until two, so if we go out to sea Friday morning I should be able to go on that trip, then head into town on the bus with the clients. I’ll try to make one more blog post from here in Gansbaai before I leave. This post’s food for thought: “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”- Gustave Flaubert

In the City

There were some BIG stingrays at the aquarium! 

We found him! 

Spider crab! 

            The past few days have involved more of getting out into Gansbaai- and beyond- and exploring the area, along with some time out on the boat. On Monday of this week the weather was looking like it wouldn’t let us so back out on the boat for a few days, so Jess and Tom made some other plans for us. They gave the vols two options: head over to Mossel Bay, about three hours away from here where the weather was better, for a couple of nights and go out on one of the shark cage diving boats that operates out of there, or stay here and go spend a day in Cape Town at the waterfront. Most of the vols- all except me and Loryn- decided to go to Mossel Bay. Some of them are only here for two weeks, so of course they wanted to see some sharks at Mossel Bay during their time. I’d done Mossel Bay before and, although it is really nice out there, I decided that I’d rather head back into Cape Town for a day since I’d spent hardly any time there this trip. Loryn had also spent hardly any time in Cape Town, and since she’s here for a month and has already been on quite a few trips out to sea, she also decided to stick around here in Kleinbaai.

            So this past Tuesday morning, ten of the WSP vols piled into the van and headed off to Mossel Bay for two nights. Since Loryn and I are staying at the lower house anyway, our place didn’t really feel any less empty. That afternoon the two of us went and helped out with Swop Shop again, which is done most Tuesday afternoons. Swop Shop, while not actually a hard job to help with, can be pretty draining emotionally. It’s a job that definitely helps remind me that I’m in Africa.

            At eight o’clock Wednesday morning, Loryn and I jumped into the White Shark Projects’ van, with Jerome at the wheel and Jess riding shotgun, and hit the road to my favorite city in the world, Cape Town! Jess and Jerome had some work related stuff to do there in the city that morning, so Loryn and I had planned to spend the morning at the Two Oceans Aquarium at the waterfront, then to meet up with them for lunch later. Lizzy and Beth had left Gansbaai a couple of days before, but they were spending a few days in Cape Town before heading back to the UK. They were flying out that evening, so they were also meeting up with us for lunch.

            I’d been to the Two Oceans Aquarium before, the last time I was here, but some things about it had been redone and it was really nice to spend the morning exploring it, especially with a fellow animal nerd. Loryn and I spent about two hours walking all around it, admiring and taking photos of stingrays, sharks, African penguins, spider crabs and more. We caught the stingray feeding at 11:30, which was really cool to see. They had some huge short-tailed stingrays in this place! We’d seen a few of them around the boat when we’d been out on the water, so it was really nice to see the species again.

            After finishing up in the aquarium, it was just about time to meet up with the others for lunch, so we walked over to the restaurant we’d agreed on. It was a beautiful day and was so nice to be back walking around the city I love so much. Jess, Jerome, Lizzy and Beth had just arrived and sat down when we got there. I hadn’t officially gotten to say goodbye to Lizzy and Beth when they left Gansbaai a few days earlier, so I was really glad that I got to see them one more time.

            After lunch we all walked around the waterfront a little more, then, after stopping to get some ice cream within the huge shopping mall there, it was time to say bye to Lizzy and Beth and try to beat the traffic out of town. By now it goes without saying that we’ll see each other again, so we all knew this wasn’t “goodbye”, it was “until next time”. Still, we clearly weren’t thrilled about parting ways, and we were all holding back tears.

            The main reason that the others went to Mossel Bay was because there was bad weather due for the next few days- but weather in South Africa can as sporadic as weather in Texas sometimes! As it turns out, the bad weather cleared up and we scheduled a trip out on the boat for Thursday morning. There were fourteen clients, which meant room for six volunteers, but since Loryn and I were the only ones here, it was just us! The slight downside to that was that it was up to just us and the crew to get all the work done like packing the wetsuits, towels, coolers, chum, and everything else on the boat, passing out wetsuits to the clients, and cleaning up the boat and washing wetsuits after the trip- but it was worth it for a great trip! The clients we had were all really nice and fun to talk to, and just a few minutes after dropping anchor, we spotted the biggest shark I’ve seen so far this time around. He was a gorgeous, big 3.6 meter male who was very inquisitive- he stole the bait almost immediately! For the next two hours or so he did plenty of circling the boat, chasing the bait, spy hopping, and swimming by the cage. After a couple of hours, Grant decided to call it a day since there were other boats around us that hadn’t seen a shark yet. On our way back into the harbor, we spotted a large pod of dolphins swimming through the bay, almost right beside our boat! I’d hardly ever seen dolphins out of Kleinbaai before, so that was pretty special. Loryn and I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that the trip that had just the two of us on it turned out to be one of the best trips we’ve been on. Thankfully when the others got back Thursday evening, they told us that they’d also seen some cool stuff out in Mossel Bay.

            We’re getting a few new vols tomorrow, and the plan after they arrive in the morning is to head over to Hermanus to hang out there and possibly visit SASC, the South African Shark Conservancy. On my first trip here in May 2015, it was in the waters right outside SASC that I caught the brown shyshark with my bare hands while snorkeling- definitely an experience I’ll never forget!

            That’s enough news for one post. Hopefully I can really make the most of this final week that I have here at WSP. This post’s food for thought: “Quit hanging onto the handrails. Let go. Surrender. Go for the ride of your life. Do it every day.”- Melody Beattie

Panthera Africa

Me and Benz! 

This one was right up at the front! 

Obi and Oliver- the two lions that started Panthera

            Okay, so for this blog post I’m going to focus mainly on what the volunteers did Saturday morning, the morning after the braai and the day I made my last blog post. I didn’t mention it in that post because it was already pretty long and I felt like this deserved a blog post of its own, so here goes. Because it was a no sea day, Jess had arranged for the vols to spend the morning getting a tour of Panthera Africa, which is a big cat sanctuary about half an hour outside of Gansbaai. Panthera is one of only seven true big cat sanctuaries in South Africa- “true sanctuary” meaning that there’s no breeding, trading, or direct interaction between people and the animals. There are plenty of other places that disguise themselves as sanctuaries, but really are tourist traps intending to make money and nothing more. These places have lots of lion and other cat cubs that they charge people to come in and cuddle with them, disguising it as “conservation” so the tourists often don’t know what’s really going on. When the cats get too big for that they’re moved up to the cat walking stage, where people can again pay to go into fenced in areas and walk around with these juvenile, tame animals. When they outgrow that, they are used for the sick practice of canned hunting, where wealthy trophy hunters can pay to shoot it, or are shot for the use of “traditional medicine” in Asia. These places often keep some adult cats as well, for the sole purpose of breeding more cubs, so the whole process can start over again. Two women saw what was happening through working at one of these places and decided to start a real sanctuary, where these animals would live both protected and as close to wild as they could create. The result was Panthera. I’d heard about this place on my last two trips here, but I’d never actually been before.

            We arrived around ten on Saturday morning and got a guided tour that lasted about two hours. Most of the cats they had were lions, but they also had a caracal, a few leopards including one black leopard, and a pair of tigers. Each animal had their own story, and it sounded like they all had pretty sad lives before coming to Panthera. The tour guide said the two that she thought had the saddest story were two lionesses that came from the same fake “sanctuary”, and were used as breeders, so their entire purpose was to make more cute cubs that tourists could come and pay to cuddle with. One of the two lionesses had a total of seven litters of cubs in only three years, which is definitely not natural for a lion! In every case, the cubs were taken away from her at three to ten days old. And yes, sadly, all of this is legal (trust me, we asked that question).

            All the enclosures at Panthera were big and very natural, with trees to climb and give shade, access to clean water, places to hide, and lots of space to move around. There was one lioness that we all loved to watch- when our group arrived at her enclosure, she came right up to the fence to look at us, and when the tour guide threw in a hard plastic ball, she had a lot of fun batting and rolling it all around the front of the enclosure. Our guide explained that she’d come from Argentina, where she’d been owned by a circus that had closed down. The circus hadn’t actually used her to perform, but just kept her in a cage- she loved toys like the ball because she wasn’t used to having them! She’d only been at Panthera since November.

            We were also introduced to Obi and Oliver, the two lions who were the first residents of Panthera and were really the reason it opened in the first place. They’d previously lived at the “sanctuary” where the two women who opened Panthera had worked, and they felt a special bond with them. So, when the women found out what was really happening and left, they promised those two lions that they’d come back and find a way to get them out of that situation. Thus, Panthera was created! It took about six months, and when they eventually returned to get them, Obi was seriously malnourished- in the pictures he’s so thin he hardly even looks like a lion. The two women said that he was in such bad shape that they were afraid if they tried to move him now he wouldn’t even survive the trip. It took another few months of them regularly going and bringing Obi food for him to improve enough that they could take them both to Panthera with them.

            All in all Saturday at Panthera was a very humbling morning in which we got an unflinching look at the horrific mistreatment and exploitation of those gorgeous cats- but also a firsthand look at the wonderful work being done to help them. Tomorrow morning we’re heading into Cape Town for the day to visit the Two Oceans Aquarium and spend some time hanging out around the waterfront, then hopefully back on the boat on Thursday. This post’s food for thought: “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.”- George Bernard Shaw