Great White Shark Update

South Africa is renowned for having one of the world's biggest populations of great white sharks. In fact, it used to be the country with the most great whites; that distinction now belongs to Australia.

So once we were here, we had one of those "should we, should we not" conversations about trying to see a great white shark up close and personal. Ultimately, we landed in the "yes, we should" camp and Tim booked us a trip with White Shark Africa (www.whitesharkafrica.com) out of Mossel Bay, a popular town along the Garden Route and a popular area to spot great white sharks.

We left Oakhurst Farm about 7:15am on Monday and arrived at the White Shark Africa office just before 8:30am. Going on the boat with us were two diving interns -- a woman from Canada and a woman from Switzerland. They were staying in Mossel Bay for two months to do dives and make several trips on the shark boat. They were both hoping to land jobs in marine biology.

Tony from White Shark Africa gave us a brief orientation in the office and then we walked down to the harbor. At the boat, we greeted Chris, the captain, and Eric, another crew member. And then we got going.

On our boat at the dock. Gulp, that's the shark cage behind us. And yes, those are shark "bites" in the blue part.

About 15 minutes later, we arrived at Seal Island. Interestingly enough, there are no seals on Seal Island -- just sea lions. But the name Seal Island has stuck.

That's Seal Island in the background.

Chris motored around Seal Island while Tony chummed, throwing fresh pieces of bait fish overboard. Tony and Eric also gathered some oily ocean water -- made oily by the sea lions -- to add to the chum. This was all done to hopefully attract a shark. 

That's Tony chumming.

Tim's looking for sharks.

Once Chris dropped anchor, Tony gave us an orientation on the shark cage. That thing both terrified and fascinated me. Tony reminded us several times NOT to put our hands or feet outside the cage (he said you'd be surprised about how many people DO do that when they're under water in the cage).

And then we waited. And waited. And waited. And while we waited, we talked with Tony, Chris, and Eric and asked a zillion questions about sharks. 

We learned that Discovery Channel's Shark Week is filmed on the boat we were on, plus one other out of Mossel Bay. We learned that, even though the general consensus is that great white sharks are colorblind, Tony feels differently. He's convinced they can see color, in particular yellow, based on sharks' reactions to certain Go Pro cameras and the buoy that White Shark Africa uses.

The White Shark Africa crew are constantly studying the sharks that they see. They take photos and record data and share all of it with shark scientists and researchers. They're absolutely obsessed with conservation and sustainable ocean ecosystems. Turns out the company's founder fought for great white shark legal protection in South Africa in the early 1990s; South Africa was the first country in the world to protect sharks. 

The stories and information that Tony, Chris, and Eric shared were beyond captivating. We learned a ton about sharks that day.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?!), after three hours near Seal Island, we did not see a great white shark...so there was no need to go down in the shark cage (thankfully...that water was freezing). However, we saw several whales, both humpback and southern right whales. Now THAT was amazing. In fact, we saw two whales mating, which was wild. And we saw a mom and baby whale, and that was wild, too. 

Whales!

While we were bummed not to see a shark on our boat trip, I really hope we do not see a shark the rest of our time here. If we do, that is a vacation gone wrong! (We've seen lots of Shark Bite Kits at the beaches around here...) 😉

Thanks for the adventure, Mossel Bay!


Btw, I want to thank Medazine, South Africa's version of Dramamine, for making this boat trip possible. Never felt better on a boat. I am sold on motion sickness meds! 👍

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 9, 2024 at 6:49 AM

    Oh my, I would have said firmly "we should not!" But I am glad that you ended up learning a lot about sharks without a sighting! Maggie

    ReplyDelete

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