Thursday, June 7, 2018

Sharks and Birthday Surprises


This beautiful girl is one of the most inquisitive sharks I've ever worked with!

            I haven’t made a blog post in about three days, so there’s plenty of news to report from here in Gansbaai! After I published my last post on Monday evening, I learned that the first trip out to sea Tuesday morning had space for five volunteers- but luckily, the second was a volunteer exclusive trip, so it would just be all the volunteers and the crew on the boat! Vol exclusive trips are definitely my favorite since the vibe on the boat is a lot more chill than it is when we have clients. The crew is more relaxed, and all the volunteers can get in the cage if they want. I honestly don’t really like being in the cage that much, so I stayed up on the fly deck for most of the trip.

            I didn’t go on the first trip Tuesday morning, and when the boat got back to the harbor at about eleven, I asked Jerome if they saw anything, and he said that they had two sharks around the boat! It was a big relief to know that they’re back around. When the guests from the first trip were off and the vols and crew were back on the boat, skipper Grant took the wheel and we were off. Soon we were back where the boat had anchored for the first trip, where the cage still floated. Since the smell of chum was still in the water from earlier, we spotted a shark almost as soon as Grant turned off the engine! It was about a 2.5 meter female that stuck around the boat for almost our entire trip. Not only was she gorgeous, but she was also one of the most inquisitive sharks I’ve ever seen here in these waters, which made her fantastic to watch! She circled the boat many times, seemed very interested in the stern of the boat around the engines, and would regularly come up and gently bump the cage with her snout, exploring it. We saw her and another bigger male on that trip. They were both inquisitive and stayed around the boat for quite a while.
            After the vol exclusive trip Tuesday, most of the rest of that day was pretty relaxed. Yesterday was a British volunteer named Vicky’s birthday, so we were planning on going out for dinner at the Great White House, a restaurant up the street owned by Marine Dynamics, another shark diving company out of this harbor. Before that, though, we had two trips out to sea. The first one only had seven clients on it, so all the volunteers got to go on it. The six am start in the garage was a little tough, especially since it’s so cold here in the mornings, but once we were out on the boat it was so worth it. Grant always likes to be the first boat out on the water in the mornings, which usually means really early starts, but also means that we’re the first to see the sharks. It took a little while to get some sharks on that trip, but when the first one did show up, we quickly recognized it to be the same female that we’d seen on the vol exclusive trip the day before. She has a black, old looking scar over the last two gills on her left side that makes her pretty easy to recognize, and she was just as inquisitive as the day before. Her behavior makes her so much fun to watch- she seems to really like hanging out around the engines, likes to watch and gently bump the cage, and she does a LOT of spy hopping, which is my favorite thing to see the sharks do! We also saw the same male from the day before on that trip, as well as a third shark.
            I didn’t go on the second trip yesterday, and a lot of the vols spent part of the afternoon down here at the lower house getting some stuff ready for Vicky’s birthday. We made her a happy birthday sign that we hung up in the backyard and made her a cake. Lizzy and Cake were also planning to have a massive “flankyball” tournament, the ridiculous drinking game that has become a tradition for us to play, since yesterday was also Harry’s last night here. Cake broke the vols up into four teams of three, with me serving as the ref. Jess also made us a reservation for dinner at the Great White House. We also arranged for Jerome to drive us into Gansbaai after dinner so we could hang out at a pub.
            Late yesterday afternoon, someone walked Vicky down to the lower house, while the rest of us were already waiting down here. We surprised her with the decorations and cake, and we hung out down here until 6:30 when we walked up to the Great White House for dinner. When we were done with that, it was time for the flankyball tournament! I had the job of ref, which was very necessary because, just as expected, the games got very intense! Eventually, after several heated rounds, Beth’s team won right around the time Jerome showed up to drive us into town. We ended up spending a few hours at Seaview, a pub where Lizzy, Beth, Cake and I had been to plenty of times before, though not yet on this trip. In classic Gansbaai fashion, though, it hadn’t changed a bit.
            We knew that today would be a no sea day, so we didn’t get home last night until after 1 am. Jerome came down to the lower house and hung out with us for a while, telling us one of his shark stories that the returning vols all love hearing.
            This morning Tom lead a lecture on shark biology in the top vol house, then we spent part of the afternoon at the nearby penguin sanctuary. After getting back home and relaxing for a little while, I went for a solo beach clean. I saw some abalone poachers while I was out on it, which isn’t really rare. There are a lot of them that work around this harbor. It is illegal, but apparently not enforced too well, so they don’t really put too much effort in hiding. I’m used to seeing them by now and don’t really worry about it- they’re harmless to people unless you’re an idiot.
            There are two trips out tomorrow and I’ve heard that there’s space for all of us on the first one. Then tomorrow afternoon we have a whale watching trip planned, which should be fun. That’s all the news for now! This post’s food for thought: “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” Isak Dinesen

No comments:

Post a Comment