Living Shark Week: Great White Shark Cage Diving

Theresa had her baby!!!  This made me so happy, and I have been showing everyone the pictures of my precious nephew Nathan.

My roommate for the past two months, Emma, had her last week in Cape Town this week as she left Friday for a trip up to Kruger for a safari so we celebrated Wednesday night.  We went out to Bob’s on Long Street for karaoke.  No worries as I did not participate in the singing although the DJ asked if any Americans were in the audience and proceeded to play American Woman for us.  Thursday night we had another supper club – this time with Indian food.  Leila is a very good chef.  We had some delicious Malva Pudding, which is very popular in South Africa.  Unfortunately I do not have cable, so for the Olympic opening ceremonies a group of us went down the street to the Kimberly Hotel Bar to watch.  I was rather disappointed with them, although apparently they were received well all around.

One of the new employees at work who is South African actually lived in Nebraska and went to UNO for a while!  She is the first person I have met here that has been to Nebraska at all which was very exciting for me.   The 19^th annual International AIDS conference took place in Washington DC last week and my boss was there for the beginning of it.  This was a huge milestone for the USA because we have never hosted the conference before due to our harsh VISA restrictions that banned any HIV positive individual from entering the country.  Obama reversed this rule and we finally hosted the event.

A bunch of different things are happening at work as all of us try to figure out what we are doing and how to effectively plan all the local forums as well as the annual forum in December.  Preparations are already starting as we amass content and a speakers list to try to address the current issues occurring in all of our clinics.  We have received a research grant so PATA will be conducted its first research project at this forum.  Word of mouth about PATA continues to spread in Africa as clinics in Somalia, a country we have no clinics in as of yet, have requested to join our network!

I went back to my favorite market Saturday morning on Hope Street.  It is just a great atmosphere with local foods all around for purchasing.  Afterward Rebekah and I walked through the Company Gardens behind parliament.  There are tons of museums on this stretch including the National Gallery.  The park is pretty and will be gorgeous once spring hits and the flowers all bloom, especially in the rose garden.  We found the sundial, during which I realized that I can accurately read one to tell the time.  There are very friendly squirrels in the park that are used to being fed, so if you have food out they attack you.  Someone told me that they had been in the park and the squirrel literally climbed their pant leg.  This park is not safe to be in at night because lots of homeless people sleep here, but during the day it is perfectly safe.

We started walking toward the beach down the fan walk, passing the tragic location where my camera was stolen.  We ended up walking 3.5 miles around Signal Hill (and hearing the noon cannon blast) to a beach at Sea Point near the sea water pool.  It was a nice walk once you get around Green Point with a promenade on the seashore.  This path is right on the edge and you follow the ocean and beach as it curves around.  We sat on a rock by the water just soaking up the gorgeous sunshine.  We put our feet in the water for awhile just enjoying it before our 3.5 mile walk back home.   

Unfortunately at this point I saw one of the grossest things I have seen occurring on the streets.  A homeless man was sitting on one of the nice benches on the edge of the promenade that faces the ocean.  He literally just pulled down his pants and let them sit around his ankles while he was sitting.  He proceeded to urinate on the promenade just sitting there.  It was gross and now I never want to sit on those benches ever.  He could have at least walked down to the beach and urinated there or something.

We went up to the rooftop to watch the sunset.  The colors are absolutely gorgeous and although we can’t see the part where it sets on the ocean because Lion’s head and Signal Hill are in the way, the view was still spectacular with the oranges and pinks and greens out over Table Bay and the surrounding mountains north of the city.  The best moment occurred when we checked to see if the sauna was working.  We try to check every week since it broke and this time our efforts paid off as it was fixed.  It only took 6 weeks during the winter cold for this to happen, but it made me very happy.

For an early birthday present (to myself) on Sunday, Rebekah and I went Great White Shark Cage diving!  Our pick up time was at 9:40 in the morning; however our driver definitely picked us up at 9:20.  It was a good thing we were ready to go.  At this point we took a pill to help prevent seasickness – other friends who have gone on this trip said that the water is very rough and on their trip over half the people were throwing up when out on the water.  We drove around picking up more passengers and then hit the road for the 2.5 hour drive to Gansbaai, the Great White Shark capital of the world.  The van was equipped with a television and a specific set of movies that would play and could not be changed.

First movie:  Alien Occupation from the Sci-Fi channel.  It is about a mom killing her daughters husband so that they can get the life insurance money, but the body is in a shed and aliens attack so they can’t get to it.  It was definitely a winner with stellar acting and an interesting plot line, not.  I highly do not recommend watching it. 

Second movie:  Alien Tornado from the Sci-Fi channel.  A town is being attacked by weird alien tornados that the FBI is covering up, but a young girl who has no money for college is figuring out how to communicate with the aliens.  Also a great movie….

Dad, seeing as how you love alien movies you really should have been on this car ride.  Instead all of us were laughing at the horrible selection especially after our initial relief at the end of Alien Occupation only led to the beginning of Alien Tornado.  To add to the excitement we stopped 2 hours into the drive just outside Hermanus to pick up 5 more passengers. We pulled into this wooded area to wait for them to hike up the hill from their lake house and get in the van.  It took them over 30 minutes to get to the van, so we sat in the woods watching the alien movie.

Finally we arrived at White Shark Adventures.  While snacking on sandwiches, they make you sign your life away on indemnity forms in case you get hurt or die.  I even had to put down an emergency contact for them to notify if anything happened to me.  Then we get a brief safety lesson including do not stick any body parts outside of the cage because the sharks could easily bite you. 

A crew of 5 took us out on the Nemo.  The boat took us out 20 minutes to an area between Dyer Island and Geyser Rock, where over 60,000 Cape Fur Seals live.  This stretch of water is known as Shark Alley.  This is also one of the main locations where Discovery Channel films for the annual Shark Week (which is coming up soon in August).  It is high season for the sharks in the area since it is winter.  Rebekah and I bet on who would get seasick first, my pick looked very hung-over from the night before.   I lost however when her pick, the young Asian girl, was the first to succumb.  The boat definitely rocks back and forth a ton on the choppy Atlantic water, but I felt fine the entire time.

They provide wetsuits for you to change into while anchored out on the water.  It is definitely a challenge to put one on in the rocking boat, and we all got thrown around a ton.  Then they give you wetsuit-socks to wear on your feet as well as goggles.  Last they put a weight sash over you (I felt like Miss America) to help you stay down to view the sharks.  I was in the first group to get in the cage.  The cage is hanging over the side of the boat with about a foot on top above water so that we can breathe.  There is a bar inside to hold onto when you want to go down.  Rebekah was on my left and a Spanish doctor on my right. 

To get the sharks to come near, they attach dead, bloody fish to this rope and throw it out into the water and wiggle it around.  In the tank parts of the fish and little chum bits float by, but I barely noticed.  Then the sharks come swimming by, getting as close as 3 feet to me!  They chase the food around and make their slow passes.  We can see out of all sides of the cage and are spinning around, holding our breath, watching them move around.  The waves are constantly rocking the boat and all 5 of us in this cage became best friends real fast as we were pushed up against each other as we all get air and sink under the water to watch.  The bait-man shouts out “shark” when he sees one approaching and we all dive under gripping the inner support bar as it passes.  Sometimes the shark is coming head on at you to get to the bait. It is an unreal feeling watching this massive creature swim leisurely straight towards you and then speed up attempting to get the food.  Other fishes were swimming around every time we pulled the main bait out eating the remains until the bait was back in and the sharks reappeared.  Occasionally I would turn around to look the other way and a shark would be directly behind me passing by without me knowing that it was near me at all.

The Atlantic water was freezing, but it was well worth it.  When my turn was up after about 30 minutes, we climb out of the cage and change out of our wetsuits while the next batch of people gets a turn.  The 3 people who got seasick did not get in the cage.  On top you can see the sharks swimming by pretty well.  They start chasing the bait and when the crew member pulls on the rope at the right time the shark will breach, leaping out of the water trying to grab hold of the fish guts.  One time the shark succeeded in grabbing on and the rope went taut as he fought for it, in which case we let it go and the shark won the meal.  A different time the fish parts were close to the side of the boat and the shark thrashed against the side splashing everything and those in the cage got a very good show.  A different shark kept swimming in circles around our boat.

We were told by the expert that we saw a minimum of 4 different sharks based on the size.  There could have been more that look similar, but it is hard to tell.  The largest one was around 3.2 meters in length.  Back on dry land we get to watch all the footage taken by the videographer and recover after our delightful dip in the ocean with our shark friends.

The van ride home consisted of another winning selection of movies.

Third movie:  Bad Ass about a Vietnam veteran (40 years after the war) who becomes famous for protecting a black man on the bus from a hate crime.

Fourth movie:  Big Miracle about the whales stuck in the freezing ice in Alaska.

These did not compete at all with the random alien movies of earlier.  I mean really, who makes these movie choices?

Below is a  clip I cut together from the video footage our driver took:
1) A shark neraby as I get in my wetsuit and ready to go
2) A shark nearby as I climb into the cage
3) A shark leisurely swimming around
4) A shark breaching from the underwater view
5) A shark breaching from above
6) A shark catching the bait and splashing the boat

This is a picture that Rebekah took on her iphone.  Her finger only got in the way a little bit.

Hopefully my friends who took pictures of me e-mail them my way at some point and then I will post them up here too!