There have been some serious storms in Gansbaai lately!
We love it when the crew join us for Braais! Even though Mandla refused to smile
What better way to welcome new volunteers...
There have
been some serious storms the past few days here in Gansbaai that have kept us
on land, but we’ve definitely been making the most of our free time! Wednesday
evening most of the vols went to Jimmy Rocket’s, a pub in Gansbaai, because
they had karaoke night going on. When we arrived, we saw Marius, the newest
crew member of White Shark Projects- he just started working here around the
time I arrived. We’d been on the boat and in the garage with him plenty of
times, but I think up until Wednesday night I hadn’t heard him say anything
other than “good morning”. When we walked into the pub, he immediately ran up
and hugged all of us, and at first I almost didn’t recognize him. We’d never
seen him so happy and talkative before! He excitedly told us that he already
had four songs lined up for him to sing. Over the course of the next few hours
he sang at least a dozen songs, all while dancing and chatting with all of the
vols. It was definitely a big change from the way we were used to seeing him! We
stayed there at Jimmy Rocket’s singing karaoke and having a good time until
close to one in the morning before calling it a night and heading home.
The next day
we were originally planning on going to Bark, the local dog rescue, to walk the
dogs, but we were woken up that morning by a big storm blowing in. In the past
two days, it’s rained more here in Gansbaai than I’ve ever seen in Africa
before. Thursday turned out to be a pretty quiet day here- we did our usual
grocery shopping in the morning, which we do just about every Thursday and
Monday. Lizzy and Beth were originally supposed to leave on Thursday, but
they’re not flying back to the UK until this Wednesday, so they asked Jess if
they could stay a couple of extra days, and she said that’d be fine if they
could just move into the flat right next to ours, where Tom used to live, to
make room for new vols. Where they’re now staying is actually attached to our place,
and they’re really just using that place to sleep- other than that, they’re
still over here. After they moved their stuff over Thursday afternoon, Jess and
I decided to offer to move fellow volunteer Loryn down to the lower house with
us. She’d been spending a lot of time down here anyway, and joining me on some
of my beach cleans, so we offered and she said she’d like that, so as of two
nights ago, she’s my roomie.
Thursday
afternoon Jess led a lecture on the topic of the two orcas that have been coming
into the bay here in Gansbaai the past year or so. Orcas have been passing
through this area since long before these two, but these two are the first ones
that we’ve seen predating on and causing problems for the sharks. Whenever Port
and Starboard, as the two orcas have been named, are spotted in the bay, it’s
usually followed by at least one dead white shark, with the liver removed,
washing up on a nearby beach, followed by a few weeks of no sharks being seen
in the area. After they passed through about a year ago a few dead sharks
washed up, all missing their livers, which was then followed by 46 days of no
shark sightings in this area at all, which is very unusual for that time of
year. The vols all talked about things like why the orcas might be here, what
their relationship might be, why they aren’t in a large pod like orcas
typically live in, and what their presence means for the sharks. The main thing
we wondered was this: orcas are not considered an endangered species, while
white sharks definitely are. These two orcas are rogue males for the most part,
so they’re not beneficial to a pod and probably aren’t going to reproduce,
while causing big problems for the shark population in the area. So, for the
sake of conservation, would it be acceptable or appropriate to take out the
orcas? Most of us were leaning toward yes.
Friday was
another fairly quiet day- we did end up going to Bark because the weather was a
little better. Also, being that it was the 15th, three new vols
ended up arriving, all of whom are staying in the top house. There’s one girl
from California, and two women from Britain. We decided that evening we’d have
a braai for the occasion. It was still a drizzly, dreary day, so we decided
it’d be best to do it up at the top house on the indoor fireplace. As usual, a
braai is a real occasion here! We played a bunch of different games throughout
the evening as the food was prepared, while also getting to know the new vols.
As usual, we invited all of the crew to join us. Jerome stopped by for a little
while pretty early on, but he needed to head to Cape Town so didn’t stay too
long. Thankfully Mandla also took us up on our invitation and stayed for most
of the braai. He typically doesn’t come out to do stuff with us, and Jerome and
Jess said he comes out even less when Lizzy, Beth, Cake and I aren’t around. We
always love it when the crew hangs out with us, and it was so nice to have
Mandla around for the evening.
I’m not even
going to talk about what we did this morning, because honestly it could be an
entire blog post in and of itself, and this one is long enough! This post’s
food for thought: “The more I traveled, the more I realized that fear makes
strangers of people who should be friends.”- Shirley MacLaine
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