A tribute to some of the best people I've ever met

So I said my last post would be my last.... Psych!!!!! I'm sat in Jo'burg airport (after almost s*£#tting a brick on the plane thinking I had got on the wrong one, Jo'burg airport has two names apparently!!! Oooops), and I can't stop thinking about all of the wonderful memories and friends I have left behind (who are currently getting W*NK%RED in Delphinos!!!! Titties!!!).
I've never travelled anywhere on my own, so going to SA to meet 13 other crazy american/canadian interns was a rather daunting thought!! I was being silly because from the moment I arrived, I knew you guys were all going to be fricking awesome. Hey, you'd have to be to be doing an internship on great whites, right?! These girls and boys are boring. Pause. NAAT.
I've had some of the best moments of my life on this trip, and every moment was enhanced simply because I shared them with the awesome people I was there with.Some of the best-Tracking: chunder tastic, to put it simply, but my team-Alysha, Alexis and Brittany were ON FIRE! And not just because we all had to share Enrico taking a crap off the side of the boat, deeeelicious, but because we were the best darn trackers ever to grace the planet-fact. Cage diving- WHEEYOOOOOOO! I think we can safely say that that was one of the best god darn days ever.Vleesbaai-simply made because of the company (BRID-GET [my latest girl crush, mayn she so hat], and beautiful ladies audrea, brittany and alexis), because we saw sweet F.all! Well, a few casual dolphins, and I pretty much almost instigated a planned attack by Dassie's. I also learnt far too much about Alexis's ball shaving activies. Mmmm nothing like a tale of smooth balls to send you off to sleep at night. Wine tour- sneaking off with papa bear for reasons we shall not mention... (ahem jackie, natalie), being racially abused, meeting other english people (who all had dreadful northern accents, ew, sick, gross [jokes]), dropping my handbag, eating twice as much cheese as necessary, a great day all in all!Scuba diving, and all of that urine (I blame lauren entirely for encouraging the pee, but daymn was it so warm).
You're also all a bunch of raving drunkards, just like meeeeeeee. LADS ON TOUR!!! I would never mess with Brittany when drunk- DON'T YOU TALK ABOUT MY MAMMA! I would never talk about Brittany's mamma, I'm sure she's a very lovely lady. I definitely think Mike (pie n graaaveh lover) regretted mentioning anything, silly northerner.
I was also very pleased that my continual south park referencing was welcomed and even joined in on, especially by Zachary (JACKIE! WHAT DOES YOUR DAD LOOK LIKE? DOES HE HAVE LARGE HOOVES WHERE HIS FEET SHOULD BE?!), and of course, Anchorman: Where'd you buy your accent Andre, the toilet store??
This brings me smoothly on to Zachary (not literally on to him, he wishes, SICK BURN!) - Oh zach. 220 lbs of certified lethal weapon, the name Bubbles kind of kills it a bit, but I still believe that 40% of your body weight is held in your pecs. God bless you and your deluded brain!! I will miss you, weirdly.
There was never a dull moment on this internship, even if we were just sat in our room chilling, whilst I was farting on Jackie's head (sorry jackie, your head is just so fartworthy), giggling continually at my dreadful attempt to fit in with you 'mericans (oh you roast beefs[language barrier]), watching endless episodes of animal planet in the lounge (whilst wearing my lounging trousers), singing RIDICULOUSLY loudly in the quantum (especially at BEAUTIFUL PEOPLEEEE), vomiting at the boland food. I am kind of sad that I don't have any Boland to whinge about anymore, it may have been a hole, but it was a hole full of lovely people. I also learnt a lot about country music. I might try and get into it. No promises though, I don't like guns as much as you 'mericans.
I have been going through my photos and creasing up, I've never seen such a bunch of beautiful girls pulling such GORGEOUS faces, I'm gonna post a few of my faves on here before I put my album on facey b, just so you guys can appreciate your fit faces.

To sum- all of you interns are fricking great and I won't forget the time I've had with you and I will miss you so much!!!!!!!! I wish I could do it all again. CHRIS. BROWN! OH MY F'ING GOD im not even kidding I posted this and only blaady Beautiful People comes on in the airport!!!! It was hard to not squeal like a little piggy, but I was definitely squealing inside. It's fate.

Blue Sharks, Mako Sharks, Cow Sharks, and drunk interns

This will be my very last blog post from South Africa! Boo hoo. This is a little story about the awesome time we had in Cape Town.

Another early start-1.30 in the morning as the dive started at 7am from Simonstown (near cape town). We weren’t particularly impressed because we were told we would get a nice big Catamaran for our two hour boat ride to the dive spot (our dive was about 25 miles out from the coast, they had to find the place where the Atlantic meets the Indian ocean and creates a warm current), but we were given one of those rubber dingy boats. It was very, very cold, and we were made to suit up and boot up there and then. It was not a particularly pleasant journey as the swell made us go flying up into the air on the boat and hit our bottys very aggressively whenever we landed! The journey definitely brightened up when we only saw some bloody Humpback whales! Oh yes. The only whales I’d seen so far over here were Bryde’s whales and that was from miles away. These guys were about 20 metres from our boat and it was very exciting to see them travelling and blowing (heh heh).

We were getting sceptical about every finding this supposed dive spot, they kept saying “we’re going to find the blue water” because apparently the water we were flying over was “very green” (it definitely all looked the same!). About 2 hours later, we FINALLY pulled up to the right spot (definitely no bluer than before), in order to hunt some blue sharks and mako sharks! We were all in 5mm wetsuits with ridiculous hoods to squeeze our large heads into ungracefully. It was another baited dive because we were literally in the middle of the open ocean with nothing around us but some greedy Albatross’s, so we had to lure the sharks in. Also, being that far away, we were told not to do anything stupid because medical help would also take up to 2 hours, so no sticking your arm in the sharks mouths is the advice we were given.... Thanks for that! Reeeeeal helpful. After an HOUR of chumming, some glittering silver slithers started appearing around the bait box, so we were ready to go in. Further advice- don’t get lost at sea. We were at a drop off of 2000feet (yes, 2000 feet!!!) so no swimming too far down. We all flopped in and boy, were these sharks beautiful (first picture). There is no picture that will do a Blue shark’s colourful back justice. They sport a rainbow of iridescent, glittering blues and silvers, and they were just beautiful. They ranged from about 0.5m to 1.25m (baby lil sharks compared to our great white friends!). They were so curious and friendly, they literally behaved like puppies who are just learning to use their feet. They would swim up to you, nudge you, push you around, and even nibble on anything they could get their teeth around (my wetsuit zip was a favourite!). If they got a little too nibbley you had to give them a little smack on the nose, again like a puppy. But they just wanted to play and it was such a fantastic experience tickling sharks bellies and stroking their gorgeous blue backs. There is just nothing like being that close to an animal that most people will never get to see in their lifetime!

In the last half an hour of the dive, a shark suddenly darted into view. It was swimming lightspeed so we knew it wasn’t a Blue who are pretty dosile. We finally got a better look at it when it charged full speed towards us (I definitely peed a little at this point, it was s%&t scary!!!), and it was confirmed-a Mako shark!! They are the ugliest, most evil looking sharks in existence (second picture). It was faaaantastic to see one! They swim SO fast it’s unbelievable, one blink and theyre gone, which is part of the reason they were so scary, you didn’t know when they would appear next and show you their gammy ragged teeth which they keep out all the time, just so you don’t mess with them. I tried to discourage it from eating me with my fins, but it didn’t seem too interested in us anyway. It was super awesome!

Next, a seal turned up! It was somersaulting around us, staring at us with its huge brown eyes. It was adorable and I just wanted to cuddle it! Sad to leave with only 50 bars of oxygen left, we surfaced.

The next dive I really wasn’t looking forward to. It was a shore dive in a kelp bed, and the water was only 17 degrees (not as nice as the 20 degree water we had just been in!). It took me a loooong time to pluck the courage to jump in, but I eventually did. It was like I jumped into a time machine that took me back to a prehistoric world. The kelp plants were HUGE! They looked like trees underwater, and the whole place had a green tinge from it all. Swimming through them was bizarre, and a bit scary too because they often got tangled in your fins. I got used to the cold pretty quick because it was just so awesome that I didn’t really notice it. I was told I was going to a Cowshark (or Sevengill) hotspot. They were certainly correct! I saw about 20-30 in total. They also really do look like dinosaurs. Or actually, how you would imagine a cow would look if it were a dinosaur! They were brilliant, but you couldn’t touch these ones because they may bite and they were about 2 metres, so a little bigger than the Blues! But they were also very curious and would swim right past you. They also had a tendency to sit behind you so when you turned around you were face to face with a ginormous shark mouth. They were so cool. They’re the third picture I uploaded. We also saw puffadder sharks and pyjama jacket sharks. All in all, very successful!

Finally-WINE TOUR! 4 wineries, 11 screaming girls, and a lot of wine. I learnt how to say “this wine is the best! In Afrikaans, but I slowly started to forget how to say it the more drunk I got. Our leader started off not being particularly impressed with how rude we were, and made lots of racist jokes about the English and Americans. Casual! But he warmed to us, how could you not, we are delightful. We also got to try cheese with the wines, I went round it twice, and ate all of them, mmmmmm, creeeeeamy camembert....I’m not quite nursing a hangover, but I am not wanting to go to bed because when I wake up, I will be leaving Africa. This has been a truly unforgettable, life changing experience, and I will treasure everything I have seen and learnt forever. The only thing I can do is to encourage other people to do what I did, experience something totally out of this world, especially something that involves gorgeous sharks!!! That’s it my sharky friends. Until next time.

My experience of almost being eaten

So the last week has been just a bit of a disaster. One night when we were due to be tracking at 2am the week before last, port control wouldn’t let us on the boat, and wouldn’t let the people who were on the boat come into the harbour. Apparently the home office decided that because we didn’t have visas (not even required for a stay less than 3 months) that we were there illegally as free labour, even though we’re volunteering (welcome to Africa!!!). They decided to let us in to continue with the research after an hour long argument (not welcomed after being dragged out at 2am!), but we were told we weren’t allowed in again after the tracking finished. If we were caught doing ANY research for oceans, we would have been arrested, and potentially put in prison/fined a lot of money- we weren’t really up for the risk!!! This would happen the month we are here! Pretty devastated that there wouldn’t be any more boat activities, we have all been very miserable.  However, by way of an apology, Oceans arranged two cage dives for us for free (normally about £100). It doesn’t quite make up for having a week and a half of no chumming, but boy it really was incredible!!!

The first trip we went on, the visibility was absolutely pants (I think it was 5 metres). We were given 5mm wetsuits to “keep us nice and warm”, errrrrr, still doesn’t protect from the 15degree water!!! We went to Seal island, it was nice to have other people chumming for us! I can’t really describe the smell of seal island, but it is one you will never forget if you’re downwind from it. Years of seal excrement and dead fish all concentrated in one small area, mmm yummy!!! Seal island is the best place to see some shark action because it’s a hunting ground. The other area we often chummed was called Hartenbos which is at a river mouth, and it’s a resting ground so they tend to be more chilled and curious there. Seal island is where it all happens! We were the first group into the water, all of the chum (sardine goop) was just floating around us, deeelicious. I cannot explain just how freaking cold it was getting into the cage, there were lots of swear words flying around!! The cage is mostly under water, and there are bars inside which you are allowed to hold onto, obviously you can’t hold the outside ones because you would literally be eaten!! There were a whole lot of big ass dents in the cage as well, and bite marks out of the foam, casual. You don’t need scuba gear, just a mask and I found a snorkel helped avoid swallowing sick chummy sea water- GROSS. You stay at the surface and when a shark comes you dive down in the cage to see it. Being at eye level with a great white, only inches from your face- the feeling is indescribable.

We were SO lucky on our trip because obviously sometimes you don’t see a lot, but we certainly got our fair share of action!!! I’m gonna skip the first trip and talk about the second trip (today) because it was a lot better. The vis was much better and it was actually sunny which helped. We went in second, luck was on our side because we got alllllll the good action! Me and Jackie were, to say the least, a liiiiitle hungover...(Jackie spent the first 10 mins on the boat trying not to vom). The freezing water def cured my hangover, but not enough to prevent me from accidentally throwing up in my mouth at one point. Being chivalrous and not wanting my friends to swim in my vom, I took one for the team and swallowed it. Yup. That’s just the kind of person I am!

I thought it might be a pants trip because only one shark showed up in the first half an hour while the others were in the water. But within five minutes of us being in, a shark decided to do a full breach for the bait RIGHT in front of the cage. It was like it was in slow motion, propelling its huge black and white body up through the air, then it came crashing down about 3 metres away from us. It made one hell of a splash!! You really do realise the power of these animals when they do stuff like this. That was just the start of the drama. It seemed that once this megladon of a shark (he was about 4 metres at least) got a taste for the bait, he just got hungrier!!! We saw about 4 breaches in total. They were going absolutely crazy, it was like a feeding frenzy broke out. The same shark breached for the bait right in front of the cage again, but this time landed face first right in front of me. He then I think got a bit scared/angry/confused and started biting the HELL out of the one bar separating me from him; there is an area along the top of the cage without bars for taking photos, and there was one singular bar in it, and this is where he was! I was very lucky because if that bar hadn’t been there his nose would have been right in the cage and I think I would have lost a few fingers. He was chomping the heck out of it, I actually had to jump to the back of the cage because his teeth were a matter of inches from where my hands were, to say I was scared is an understatement! I could see every single tooth in his ragged mouth, right to the back of his throat. And when they start going for food, their throat expands and there gills all spread out and flair, it was SO awesome to see this from that close. Apparently nose diving into the cage wasn’t enough for him, he did the same thing twice again, but the next time he slammed into it sideways. I have NO idea how he didn’t dent it, the sheer force of his huge body was very apparent! His fins were virtually in the cage as he was struggling to get the bait, he was not a happy bunny and he was not leaving until he got dinner! He went crashing into the cage from all angles about three times, it was the most intense, exhilarating feeling ever and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like it. Looking a shark in the eye and knowing it’s thinking “I would like to take a chunk out of you” is like nothing else!!! I’m off to Cape town on Monday to dive hopefully with Cowsharks, Mako sharks (also in the top 5 most dangerous sharks, google them, they are scary looking!) and Blue sharks. Then I’m home L See y’all soon! (Yes I’ve picked up the word y’all from my room mates)

Big sharks small sharks and crazy sharks!!

I haven’t been updating for a while because we’ve been tracking and I’ve been ill (and now passed it onto everyone else! I’m popular right now).

So we were supposed to start tracking 2 weeks ago, which is where we get a shark of a particular size to ingest a stomach tag which is sown into a fish, and we also shoot them with 2 external muscle tags. These tags provide us with both the temperature of the shark (from the stomach, muscles and water temperature) and the location. We had to either tag a 4.5 metre shark or a baby 1.5 metre great white. After about 3 hours of chumming, we found a perfect 4.5 metre shark, and we got him to eat the stomach tag (this wasn’t the hard part, sharks eat anything!). However, Enrico our leader wasn’t ready with the gun tags, and our shark started getting very upset that we’d fed him once and wouldn’t let him eat the rest of the bait we were using to get him to come to the surface so we could tag him. He was err, feisty to say the least! He shot up from the depths at some amazing speed, grabbed the bait and was jerking it around like crazy, soaking all of us yet again with his tail slapping the water. But then somehow he managed to let go and we pulled it out of his mouth. He got very grumpy at this point, so decided to swim directly into the boat! At some force… He smashed his head into our motor (I have no idea how he didn’t break it), and then got very confused and darted off. We thought that we might be able to track him enough using the one tag he ate in order to put the other tags on, but he reaaaaaally didn’t like the boat after he hit his head, and wouldn’t come anywhere near it… After six hours, Enrico lost him and gave up (no need to say just how pissed he was that he lost a $900 tag!!!).

So tagging started again the following week. Luckily, the morning group managed to tag a 1.5 metre baby wee shark very early in the morning, who was named Mya (nawwww). Tracking is shift work, because you want to follow it without losing it for a minimum of 3 days. So you take over directly from one group by jumping into one boat from another (this is very difficult when it’s choppy!!!). My first shift was 6pm-2am. It was fu-reeeeeeezing. I cannot describe just how cold it was even though I was wearing 7 layers. We successfully tracked Mya without losing her, she was very skittish and didn’t really know what she was doing. She’s too small to eat seals, but she seemed to hang around them a lot, probably because she knows that one day she is supposed to eat them! She circled seal island for about 5 hours, which made our life easy. When the beeps from the tracking machine become really loud, it means shes right next to the boat. At times, we could look into the water and see her swimming through the bioluminescent plankton-she looked like a bright blue comet circling the boat. It was stunning. The seals would do it too, darting and circling and doing somersaults. It really made it worth the cold! My next shift was 2am-8am, 2 of the girls were ill so we had to man the boat between 2 of us with no breaks-it was painful… She also decided to swim right into the open ocean, and the waves were 2 metres high. With nothing but the stars as landmarks, it was actually pretty scary!!! But we made it through the night, and of course at 7.30am Mya decided to head back to seal island ready for the next team.

This weekend we’ve been diving in Durban to see some more sharks. We were desperate to see some tigers, but didn’t see any unfortunately. We were given a brief lesson on how to dive with the black tips and ragged toothed sharks. It was a baited dive, using a big ball with holes in it full of sardines- the holes were big enough for the scent to get out but not enough for them to get any food and therefore no feeding frenzy would start where they would potentially get aggressive. We were told to keep our hands tucked in at all times because it was likely that they could think it was food and we would be bitten (slightly scary!!!!). We were also told that it is basically a show of dominance. The sharks don’t know what we are, so may start circling us if they think they want to eat us. At this point, you have to lock eyes with them (this is absolutely. Terrifying.) and don’t let them out of your sight, and if necessary kick them/punch them in the nose to stun their senses momentarily. This is enough to show you’re boss and they won’t eat you(one guy was stupid enough to do this dive high, didn’t pay attention and had to be hospitalized from the serious bite he got). Successfully terrified, we headed out into the water. The visibility was shocking, we basically had to descend into a black abyss, not seeing the bottom, or anything really! But once we got in, the sharks were everywhere. It was incredible. These 1.5/2 metre sharks were literally within 2 feet of you, and some would even brush past you (so hard not to reach out and touch them!). It was absolutely terrifying when one would start circling you, but theyre big pansies really and if you started them out they generally buggered off. The raggies on the other hand were a bit more menacing looking-google one, they ain’t pretty!!! But they were harmless and generally not that interested in what was going on. So despite the vis, the dives were amazing and I cannot tell you just how incredible it is to be face to face with these amazing animals in their natural habitat. 

Good time, bait times, and sad times

Aside from all the amazing shark activities, we’re also OCCASIONALLY allowed to have fun (we’re only allowed a maximum of three drinks in the weekday evenings and have a 10.30pm curfew, as get breathalysed in the harbour as they don’t get drunkards operate boats!). It was Friday (braei day), where they chuck loads of yummy meat onto a big wood bbq, and everyone got successfully trollied-woo hoo! This food was a serious shock to the system. Our usual hotel food ranges from unknown congealed goop that they call macaroni cheese (you can lift the entire slab with a fork, I hesitate to name it mac and cheese since there really wasn’t any cheese in it), solid curried lentils, and splasagne (some weird spaghetti lasagne, which didn’t really have meat in it, just spaghetti, tomatoes and potatoes?). The bbq was LIFE CHANGING! You’d think we would lose weight here with the war type rations we are presented with, but since every meal usually has both pasta/rice and potatoes, it just doesn’t happen- serious carb overload.

In our hungover state we crawled into a safari jeep to cruise around Gondwana game reserve. The fresh air certainly woke us up. We were told they had the big 5, but we’re not so sure! We did get to see lots of Zebra (and have now changed the expression to-hung like a Zebra, with good reason!!!!) and learnt why they have such bloated bellies- they have a LOT of gas, smelt greattttt! We saw an elephant in the far distance, various different antelope, and something exciting- 2 lions chasing Zebras. Unfortunately they didn’t catch any but it was still cool. They walked about 3 metres away from our jeep as well, it was incredible. Our tour guide also made us eat leaves (something to do with them releasing a defence mechanism that makes them bitter to stop animals eating them, really they just tasted like leaves), and TERMITES! Live termites, they tasted like mint, apparently theyre full of protein! Really our tour guide just wanted to see if we would eat anything he put in front of us. We casually cruised around, and then stopped at 10am for some WINE! Yes, wine on safari! And meatballs, very random, but very tasty! After seeing nothing but antelope for 2 hours, we headed back for lunch, all inclusive three course meal. Steak salad, venison (kudu and springbok! so delicious) casserole and chocolate brownie. Unfortunately that was the last good meal we’ll ever have. I’ve stocked up on Cadburys, it’s ok, I’ll live.

On Sunday I was very excited- it was my turn to bait during our chumming trip. Basically, we want to identify the sharks by their dorsal fin, so after attracting them with the smelly fish blood we chuck in the water, I dangle a couple of tuna heads right in front of their nose, but try not to let them eat it. The idea is to judge how fast the shark is going and drag it accordingly, so it surfaces and we can photograph the dorsal. I was a bit rubbish to begin with but got the hang of it, it was really incredible basically guiding sharks around the bow of the boat, and having to quickly jerk it out of the water as they suddenly jumped up and tried to grab it from the depths. One cheeky shark did manage to eat half of the bait, we had a dry spell for about 40 minutes, I took my eye off of it for about 3 seconds and suddenly I was being jerked forwards over the bow of the boat! It really was exhilarating. We were also convinced dolphins did not exist in Mossel bay- every dolphin survey has been dry. At about 5pm, a swarm of bottlenose dolphins appeared across the horizon and cruised past our boat. We counted between 70-100, they were so beautiful and we were all in awe. Dream come true.

Today it was aquarium duty, and we had to go find crabs again to feed our hungry new Octopus! We managed to find one, I use the term “we” loosely. A man came over and asked what we were doing, and he said you need an Octopus to drive them out of the rocks. He grabbed one which I hadn’t even noticed was 3 feet away, and plopped it into the rockpool and suddenly this crab ran right into our bucket! He let us pick it up and it was very strong! Very slimy and soft too. Then I saw the most upsetting thing I’ve seen in a long time. A Chinese man who works for one of the Chinese restaurants in Mosselbaai was catching Octopus’, and chucking them as hard as he could against the rocks to kill them for the restaurant. It was absolutely horrific to watch and hear, he did it to quite a few, I was in floods of tears but there was nothing we could do, you can do this if you have a permit but by law they don’t have to present the permit to anyone who isn’t the authorities. We retreated very disgusted that this cruel inhumane activity is still allowed to happen in what is now a modern country, helpless that there is absolutely nothing we can do to stop it. It really made me think about how critical responsible, sustainable fishing is. This about it peeps!

Did you chum yourself?

First day- it was pretty tough meeting everyone, especially since everyone was already drunk when we arrived on the last flight, and I got “Oh my god, you sound like youre from landaaaan!” about three times, and “Are you from London?” “No, the south” “oh right, Cornwall?” “No...” pretty funny. Everyone seems really nice though and a fun bunch.

We had aquarium duty first; Mossel bay own a research aquarium where they free dive to collect various shark species and bring them in to study them, e.g. tonic immobility studies (this is a defence mechanism animals use, like beetles, where they basically become paralysed for a short period of time, but you can induce it by turning them on their backs [I do it to Alvin when he bites me!!!]). They only have a few sharks in there at the mo, two pyjama jackets (theyre awesome), two leopard sharks and a couple of others. We had to go look for crabs in rock pools to feed the octopus (I named him Sid), thank GAWD we didn’t find any because there was NO way in hell I was picking up a gross crab!!!! We came back empty bucketed, so then got to climb into the aquarium (it was RUDDY cold!!!) in order to rearrange all the massive and ridiculously heavy rocks (no second guesses as to who was the weakling) into 4 evenly sized caves for an experiment on shark grouping during storms. There were gross sea urchins and anenome’s all over them too which I was not happy about. I asked the field researcher if the sharks bite, and he said not generally but one time a leopard shark bit his finger (he did grab it and hold it upside down to be fair, I would have bitten him too!) and scraped all the skin off, so when the sharks started swimming around my bare toes I did squeal like a little piggy, all they said was “don’t wiggle them they’ll think it’s food!”, yeh thanks guys! None of them bit me and eventually I befriended the sharks and enjoyed them slithering around my legs, they weren’t slimy they were quite rough like sandpaper which was cool. Caves were built about an hour later, we were pretty tired, but then all the sharks decided to escape into a different tank after I had to stick my head into the gross aquarium water and barricade them in, they pushed it over!  I was not happy and my friendship was revoked.

In the afternoon we went dolphin watching from the shore for dolphin surveys, it was soul destroying, 2 hours of standing there with a monocular like a pirate and saw sweet naff all. Thankfully we were placed about 300 m away from the chum boat, all of whom on board also looked very bored from the lack of great whites despite their chumming effort (chumming=throwing sardine guts into the water). We lost all hope and suddenly this MASSIVE white shark did a full breach (jumps completely out of the water) into the air, it was incredible!!! It was about 10m away from the chum boat and it went for the dummy seal. It was amazing, I was very jealous of the people on the boat, I was squealing again when it happened though. And then we went home! Day 1 over.

Day 2- I was finally on chumming duty, so I clambered out of bed at 5.45 am (I know right!!!) and had to find a pair of gammy old boots for the boat, I later found out they made little water proof difference. We had to collect the chum and bait, which was two large tuna heads (I nearly vomited down myself at the sight) and loads of sardine bits soaked in a pool of blood, yummyyyyyy mm mmm really got me in the mood for breakfast! The smell never leaves you, trust me. We went out to the site and started our duties; I was on photography (for a while I couldn’t work out why I couldn’t see anything, turns out removing the lens cover helps). Natalie was chumming so basically crushing up the sardine bits to make a gooey bloody mush to chuck over the boat to entice the sharks in. About ten minutes passed, and suddenly all I heard was “whoa whoa, shark 9 o’clock”. I ran to the side of the boat. Suddenly, time stood still, it was the most surreal experience of my life. A dark shadow emerged from the depths and slowly started to come into crystal clear vision, swaying gracefully and rippling the water as it surfaced. It wasn’t this huge, fearsome, menacing creature that I expected, and I immediately gained so much respect and adoration for this animal. It wasn’t aggressive at all, merely curious and swam around the boat a few times. We recorded its markings and it disappeared. This was the first of many sightings, there was not a dull moment that morning. Ten sharks in total, which is pretty rare, varying in size from about 2 and a half metres, to over four metres (this doesn’t sound big but believe me, when its half the size of your boat, you are all swearing in disbelief of its sheer size, weight and power, right in front of your eyes).  Some are jet black, others can be a fairly pale grey. They also all had different personalities, some ignored the bait entirely and were just curious and exploring what was going on gently, others were a different story... The idea of the bait is to draw them to the surface so you can observe their markings and photograph their dorsal fin to identify them (there are over 300 in Mossel Bay alone), you don’t want them to actually eat it. One guy, who was actually pretty small, less than 2 ½ metres, made a real impact. They drew the bait in towards where I happened to be leaning over the bow, and all I saw was this huge open, ragged toothed mouth drawing towards me above the surface, only about 3 feet from me. He suddenly got very ticked off that we didn’t let him have the bait, turned on a sixpence and went for it, surprising us all. He grabbed it and jerked the guy holding the rope pretty ferociously, he was not letting us take it away from him and he was aaaaaangry. Not being able to hold him on his own, Andre ran to the bow and grabbed the rope as well. He was thrashing around something good, absolutely soaked me who was just stood there like a fat kid in a sweet shop unable to move with sheer excitement. He was rolling onto his belly and pulling the bait rope down as hard as he could, going at it from every angle. No second guesses as to who won!!! It was an absolutely life changing experience, being that close from something like that, and I will never forget it.  There will be plenty more exciting experiences to come since I’ll chum 3 times a week, but for now since I’ve rambled on enough, fin!