February 11,
2013 (7:52 P.M.)
The boat
this morning was exactly what I came to South Africa for. We had a total of 14
Great White Sharks approach our boat during the four-hour shift. Yesterday was
the first time in my life I had ever seen a great white and today I was just
casually working with 14 more. Too exciting to put into words.
On the boat today I was a shark spotter
and chum distributor. On my next trip, which I believe is tomorrow night; I
will be recording data for the all sharks seen as well as the environmental
data such as weather and water visibility. After that I will move up to fin
photographer for identification and then finally bait roper. I’m especially excited
for the bait roper position. This is the person who trails the shark along with
the tuna head to allow the photographer to get a good image of the fin. Today I
watched an intern lose two tune heads when the sharks spontaneously shot from
the depths and snagged the bait. It was really cool. By the end of the trip, I was
just calling out random shark locations as if I had seen Great Whites my entire
life. The only rough part about the trip was leaving at 5:30 this morning. By
the time we got back to the facility, I was completely spent.
No time to rest. Today was the
first part of my two part open water ocean dive for my scuba certification. It
was fantastic. We did a beach entry and got comfortable with a number of basic
techniques before moving into deeper water and reviewing everything we learned.
Once the dive master felt we were comfortable with all the new techniques as
well as the old ones, we were able to swim around the reef.
To be honest, I was a little
nervous. I chummed for Great White sharks all morning and saw over a dozen
sharks swim freely around our boat and now I was scuba diving in a location not
that far off from where we were. The visibility was about 5 meters or so, but
it was definitely not enough. When I got back from the boat though, I did take
a long shower to try and scrub any remaining scent off my skin, but I was definitely
a little apprehensive. At one point I lost my “buddy” underwater and swore she
was snagged up by a passing shark. After about 30 seconds of worrying and
stressing, I managed to look up and see her swimming calmly about 2 meters
above my head.
The scuba dive was a success
though. We saw fish everywhere and a number of benthic sharks as well. It was a
bit of a hassle to carry everything back to the car, but overall the day was
great. It was long, but definitely good. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
Hopefully I will receive my scuba certification card and tomorrow night we are
going shark fishing; catch and release obviously. Sometimes it feels more like
a vacation than work, but I guess that’s what people feel like when they love
their job. Hope I never have to lose this feeling again.
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