Making Waves: Swimming with the Fishies

As regular volunteers at the fantastic Two Oceans Aquarium, my friend Jamie and I were awarded the opportunity back in September to join delegates from this year's International Aquarium Congress to go on a trip to Gansbaai, with the option of either going Whale Watching or Shark Cage Diving with the lovely people at Marine Dynamics.

We picked the Shark Cage Diving of course (who wouldn't want to see Great White Sharks up close in a safe way for free??)
Due to some bad planning, late / over-booking, and bad weather, we ourselves, along with the rest of the volunteers, unfortunately never got the chance to go on the boat, and so we returned home disappointed. Luckily for us the staff at the aquarium managed to cop a deal with Marine Dynamics to get us vouchers so that we (the volunteers who got up at 5am, drove all the way out there and spent 6 hours there just waiting around) could also finally get the chance to cross that little adventure off of our bucket lists.

Hello, gorgeous.

Turns out this was the closest we would get to taking a photo of a Great White Shark that day.

Best film ever.

Pretty lehdeh.

Not the greatest day weather-wise.

One day we will go!

We had initially all planned to go cash in our vouchers at the same time, but because of my crazy work schedule, I could only ever attempt to do such a trip on a Wednesday, which was never suitable for others, and so we consolidated to go our separate ways.
Several failed booking attempts later, Jamie & I finally had our day BOOKED: Wednesday, 28 November 2012, just two days before our vouchers were due to expire.

A few days leading up to the Tuesday before our scheduled day, my car had started giving me trouble, making strange whirring noises. I had the mechanic check it out, scared that it would affect our already three-times rescheduled trip, but he said that it was all good to go. I had finished work on the Tuesday morning at 7:30am, and decided to head to the Aquarium to see if I couldn't steal one of the aquarists under-water cameras for our dive.

I decided to stick around for a bit, knowing that I had to keep myself awake all day so that I could sleep that night to be up early to leave the Wednesday morning by 6:30am. This was no easy task seeing as how I had been awake since 4pm the Monday before, but I knew it had to be done, even if I did wander about, zombie-like in the back-rooms of the aquarium.

Around 12pm I managed to score one of the senior members' new cameras, and was about to head home to crash when my aquarium boss, Tinus, heard of my and Jamie's plans. Tinus checked the wind-conditions for us and told us that we picked the best day of that week to go because the wind would be perfect, blowing the sea flat and clearing our the water, allowing for good visibility underwater.
Because he is so incredible, Tinus offered to go home and fetch his GoPro underwater camera just for me if I wouldn't mind waiting for him to come back.
Of course I was gonna stick around for THAT.

After about an hour Tinus got back and taught me how to use this nifty little device. I thanked him profusely and finally headed home, driving at like 50km/h, happy that the last little piece of the puzzle was to await the sms from Marine Dynamics telling me what time exactly I had to be there the next day.

I got home, all ready to crash on my bed, when my mother came in to ask me how I planned on getting to Gansbaai the next day. I told her I planned on taking her car since Jamie doesn't drive or have a car, and I didn't trust my car to survive the journey. That's when she broke the news to me that Ford had told her to bring her car in on the morning of my trip because something was wrong with the brakes.

No.

NO. NO. NO.

Over-worked. Over-tired. Over-stressed. This was not what I needed to hear.

I finally had everything all planned and perfectly set up, how could I be out of TWO cars? I asked my mother to take the car to Ford right then to ask them if they could not fix the car that afternoon instead. And then I fell asleep.

I woke up around 11pm that night, anxious because I had no idea how I was getting to Gansbaai the next day, or what time I would need to be there, and I knew Jamie was waiting to hear from me.

I checked my phone, saw the message from MD telling me to be there at 9:30am, and I immediately found my mother to ask her what the deal was.

THANK THE LORD Ford had managed to solve the problem in time and I could take her car the next day. I messaged Jamie to tell her we were all set to go, and that I would be there bright & early to collect her so that we could be on our way.

All that was left to do was pack my bag for the trip and make sure that everything was charged.

Farhana testing out the GoPro the night before.

Of course for some reason we got lost and ended up in Caledon. We somehow managed to take the long route there and what was supposed to be a 1.5 hour drive turned into a 3 hour one, with me speeding at about 160 km/h. By the time we eventually got there we were shaking from the nervousness & anticipation of seeing the Great Whites, coupled with the adrenaline of driving so fast in trying to make it there on time.

Only 5 minutes late, the people of MD welcomed us, got our wetsuit details, and sat us down to get a quick bite of breakfast before we had our pre-trip de-briefing.

Then we all went to collect our life-jackets & water-proof coats, and headed down to the pier for our dive.

Welcome to Shark Alley, the Great White shark capital of the world.

Our boat for the day: Slashfin.

The on-board marine biologist, Nicola, giving us a breakdown.

Horrid day.
Jokes.
We REALLY were blessed to have picked the best day to go do this.

Finally, we anchor our boat and the cage is deployed.

The water is chummed.

The seal decoy and the bait are out.

And then we spot out first shark of the day.

They are curious creatures.
Very much like cats.
What I'm saying is, sharks are the cats of the ocean.

Playful creatures.

And somewhat intimidating as well.

Look at that cutey. It almost looks like a seal.

'Jaws' was really not that bad in real life.

In go the first batch of people.

Although they did swim up to the cage a couple of times, they were really not interested in us at all.

This guy was a bit too quick and managed to grab the bait.

And decided to try and drag the boat with him.

SUIT UP!

With all the adrenaline of seeing a shark up-close, its was hard to remember to click the damn shutter button on time. At least I got it all on video!

My ONLY regret was not getting in the cage with the first batch of people, because by the time that I got in the cage, the water was pretty murky from the chumming.

We did it! Another bucket-list goal accomplished!

Nicola snapped this photo of me. You can see more of their blog on our trip that day here.

Honestly, these animals are just incredible to see in person. They're much calmer than you would think. Even when they try to 'catch' the bait or the seal decoy, they're not as aggressive as it seems on television. The people handling the bait and the seal decoy would even drag these away from the sharks instead of yanking them away like you would think, simply because these animals are more curious than vicious. Just like cats!

The seagulls, on the other hand, are feisty bastards.

If you do have a fear of Great White Sharks, I highly recommend that you go do this. It will make you appreciate them and become fascinated with them more than anything.

Thank you, Marine Dynamics!

A tractor.
Of course.

We survived!

After our trip we headed back to 'The White House' for a post-dive de-briefing with a much needed cup of soup.

At our de-briefing we found out that in total we saw 13 sharks that day, and the longest shark we saw was between 4m-4.7m long. The volunteers on board had said that we definitely came out on one of the best days to go diving.

At this de-briefing we are also told that Marine Dynamics do these whale watching & shark cage diving trips as a means to fund their Great White conservation and study efforts. They do this because they are not funded by the government and rely on tourists and thrill-seekers alike in order to continue their research and the conservation of these magnificent creatures.

I would definitely love to go out with them and study these sharks, ANY DAY.

Professional, safe, and pleasant, I highly recommend going to Marine Dynamics if you ever decide to go Great White Shark cage Diving.