Shark diaries: April 2007

Dear Ultimate Animal friend,

April was a very good shark month for us. The red tide that was so bad in False Bay cleared up nicely. The sharks where very active at Seal Island, and with the good visibility returning, and good sea and weather conditions, shark cage diving once again became a possible. From around mid April, we where shark cage diving on a daily basis. (When I say we, I am talking about Rob and the crew. Me, I get to stay at home and make sure “behind the scene” is running smoothly).

The trips where booked almost every day in April, and there where shark sightings on each trip, which is very good. As mentioned the shark cage diving really picked up from around mid April, as the great white sharks tended to become more and more active around the boat.

Mid April also saw the start of the great white sharks breaching. This behaviour is unique to False Bay, and is what makes False Bay so different. It really is an awesome sight to see a shark fly out of the sea. It just takes your breath away. Time and time we get comments like “that was the best thing I have ever seen in my life”. You will not leave without a new found respect for these super predators. We also had some sporadic hits on our seal decoy. This will pick up and will become a regular thing, come June and July.

There where a lot of good sightings of common Dolphins.

The Pelagic trips also went well. Many of our guests choose to do a combination trip of Great white and Pelagic sharks. This is a fabulous way of really experiencing the sharks. On the pelagic trips we dived a lot with the Blue Sharks, and yellow fin tuna, but the sightings of the Mako Sharks was very slow indeed.

Rob was very busy with film shoots in April. Tygres Productions, (they make a lot of the Animal Planet Shows), came again this year, to film the great whites. Even though they came too early for good breaching behaviour, they did get a lot of very nice footage.

Well, that about sums up April. I know that this shark diary update came very late, but I promise that May’s update will be on time, and packed with exciting news.

Take care all you shark lovers out there.

Rob and Karen Lawrence
African Shark Eco-Charters