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.
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