No Great White sharks, so we wallowed like hippo's

Rob and I went away for the week end with some friends to " The Baths" in Citrusdal. It was great fun.
Before we left I had to make sure that all the guests I had booked on shark diving trip in Gansbaai for the week- end were sorted out, as we did not have proper cell phone contact and I didnt want any problems.

We wallowed like hippo's in the hot water. The temp was 41'c at the source, but it felt as if the warm water was hotter than that.

We had such great fun, just lazing around the camp site, going for the occassional swim, and during the night, whilst my dad baby sat the sleeping kids, we went to the jaccuzi baths. We couldnt stay in for more than about 15 minutes due to the intense heat of the water. Rob actually became very dizzy and had to sit out for half of the time.

We arrived home to a howling South Easter wind. What a suprise!

Intermediate Shark Season????

Golly, it has been over a month since my last post, and I am sure our keen readers must have thought we had dropped off the face of the earth. Alas, no such luck, we haven't been invited to be the next Mark Shuttleworth!

Well,they normally say that no news is good news. Sadly to say, that is not the case here. February is normally the start of our intermediate season. However the sharks have not arrived in the numbers that we have expected and we have had very low sightings indeed. This is a first in 15 years that we are still experiencing "low season". So far in March, the same trend has continued.

Our guests are always told of the latest sightings, or non sightings and most of them have been very keen to take the chance of going out to Seal Island.

The last few days have seen a remarkable shift in the weather and its gone from Sunny South Africa to jolly cold with a severe bite in the air. This cold front has affected the sea conditions and we have had a big swell push. This is a good sign for us, as it usually means the sharks will become more active and we hope to see a increase in sightings now.

Our next Great White Shark trip will be on Monday, and so I will let you know if anything has changed.

Media Hype around shark incident

I have a google alert for tags on Great White Sharks and Shark cage diving. In the last two weeks, I have had about 50 alerts to a year old shark incident off Guadalupe Island, so I thought I would have my say as well.
Having seen the video footage, it is clear to me that there are two reasons why this incident occured.
Problem no 1. The Cage.-The viewing ports on that cage was too big for a normal commercial operation, where you have the average diver involved. Where you have a film crew involved and there is specialised filming equipment, yes, the ports are larger than normal, but those ports where far to large and thus the saftey of the diver was compromised.

Problem no 2. The bait handler. The bait handler has one of the most important jobs on the boat. His job is to use the bait to attract the shark to the cage, yet make sure the diver in the cage is safe.The bait should never be allowed to dangle in front of the cage unattended. The handler dragged the bait directly towards the cage, and the shark went straight for it and ended up with his whole body in the cage. ( The shark did not breach as reported. A breach is when a shark propels itself from the water).

Having dived in Guadalupe myself, there are some differences between our operations in False Bay, South Africa and theirs. One is the visibility. Guadalupe has excellent viz and so you should be able to see the shark from far off and thus handle your bait accordingly. We have sometimes only a few metres of vis and so our bait handlers must be quick on the mark, our aim is not feed them our baits. This takes skill and is not as easy as it looks,when it is done properly.

Saying all this,my post is not to have a dig at another operator. Merely to look at an incident and comment on it.

I had a great time in Guadalupe and was very happy with our operator. Rob

What urkes me is the way the media has portrayed this. Again as a "jaws hype". This sensationalism irritates me, using words like "man eater", "great white rips cage apart", and other such nonsense. Sensationalism does nothing to portray sharks in a positive light! Karen

Mythbusters with African Shark Eco-Charters

Many people have asked us what myths the mythbusters came to bust. Well I have found a site that says it better than I would so I am just going to copy and paste it in for you ( taken from http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2007/11/episode_90_supersized_myths.html )

However the photo's are all ours.

Supersized Shark

See also: Jaws Special

Jamie and Adam shipped their gear to False Bay, South Africa (near Cape Town), where they hired African Shark Eco Charters to take them out into waters infested with great white sharks. Seal Island, located just 5.7 km off the coast, is home to innumerable seals. The huge seal population also attracts the great whites. On an initial site-seeing trip, Adam and Jamie got to see first-hand how many: Jamie couldn't even finish his explanation before a seal decoy they dropped in the water was hit by a great white breaching out of the water. They lured the sharks closer using tuna heads and Jamie went for a closer look inside the shark cage. He got quite a show as a shark got a full nose into the cage and knocked things around. Meanwhile, Adam didn't take enough ginger pills and spent much of the trip seasick.

Adam: "South Africa has been pretty crazy to us so far. We did see an air attack, Jamie almost got eaten, I threw up -- Now we are able to start our tests."
Supersized Shark Myth 1: Sharks attracted to noises

Myth: Sharks are attracted to low-frequency noises (40hz) that sound like an animal thrashing around

The theory is that the great white sharks detect the low frequency noises using lateral lines that run along the length of their body. Jamie supposed that there was some credence to this theory, given that the operators of their shark cruise rap on the side of the boat to attract the great whites.

Jamie once again went in the water along with an underwater speaker system that first blasted the MythBusters theme song to the surrounding sea life.

Jamie (to Adam): "If you're gonna be sick, can you be sick on the other side of the boat, over"

With Jamie in the water, they tried three tests: * 40hz hum for 10 minutes: no sign of sharks * 0-40hz sweep: presuming that 40hz was too precise, they swept the sound from 0-40hz. Still no sign of sharks. * High frequency: they went in the other direction, blasting a high pitched noise instead. A single shark appeared

Not knowing if Jamie was a factor in the sharks (not) appearing, they pulled Jamie out of the water and repeated the same series of tests. This time, no sharks appeared at all.

busted
Supersized Shark Myth 2: Sharks are afraid of dolphins

Myth: Sharks are afraid of dolphins

Marine biologists speculated that dolphins are intelligent enough to be capable of altruistic acts, such as rescuing animals of other species from shark attacks. They MythBusters researchers dug up two incidents from 2004 that seemed to confirm this myth. In New Zealand, lifeguards training on a beach reported a great white appearing on the beach and then swimming away when a dolphin swam up. Similarly, in Australia, a fisherman capsized and was stranded for two days. Great whites approached but were repelled by a dolphin.

Jamie and Adam constructed a foam, animatronic dolphin after studying the swimming motion of Merlin the dolphin at Discovery Kingdom. Adam cut out a dolphin model from a block of upholstery foam. He used a printout of a 3D dolphin model they found online as a guide. Meanwhile, Jamie worked on generating the dolphin tail motion that they figured was crucial to fooling the sharks. He connected an electric drill to an off-centered crank to create the undulations. Bike chain was used as a mechanical spine. When the drill was turned on, the entire rig flapped up and down like a dolphin.

Down in South Africa, they conducted a series of tests to see if the animatronic dolphin was a shark deterrent: * Seal decoy: the seal decoy was hit by a shark within five seconds of being dropped in the water * Seal decoy + animatronic dolphin: the dolphin and seal decoys cruised along the water close together. A great white fin broke the surface between the fake dolphin and seal, but no bite. * Tuna heads + animatronic dolphin: They upped the ante by throwing a tuna head into the water. As a shark approached the tuna head, they pulled the dolphin over -- the shark swam away. They repeated the test again with the same result. * Tuna heads: With the fake dolphin out of the water, the great white went to town on the tuna heads.

The sharks may not have been 'afraid' of the dolphins, but they did seem to be deterred.

plausible

I know they say plausible, but seeing it, it seemed more than plausable to us.It was amazing how the sharks swam AWAY from the dolphin.

Mooove Over

On our way back from the mouth we had to wait for a herd of cows to moooove out the way. The kids just loved the little black calf.

Its hard travelling with little kids, but I think we have little outdoor enthusiasts. Adam thought it was such fun as our vehicle negotiated the sandy roads. He sat in his little car seat being bumped around as if he was on a dodgem car. The harder the bump the more he laughed. Jordan just loved everything she saw, especially the kids. There where an incredible amount of schools everywhere, all in the middle of no where, which is mind boggling. One would think that they would all be at the nearest town or village, not scattered around.

Great pic and planning a holiday.

This is a great pic of an attempted predation. This was taken in July by a friend, Ian Kloppers. It sums up the perfect cat and mouse chase between the shark and the seal. I never get tired of seeing tpics like this.

The last week or so has been great for me, as for the last 6 months we both have worked flat out, and I really have been needing a break. So with no trips, I have had time to catch up with friends and Rob has started to do the off season stuff, like repainting the boat.

As the weather is still very much winter here, except for the odd day which we get blessed with sunshine and no wind, I have said to Rob that I want to go away some where that it is warm. My criteria is warmth, no rain and I want a beach thrown it the mix, (with warm water!) and the usual 4x4 type of holiday that we both love. So with much delving onto the internet, Rob has come up with Kozi Bay, (on the SA/Mozambican border). This is much to my delight, as I have been there before and its one of the most beautiful, pristine places on the earth.
Just one small problem, and that is travelling there from Cape Town, in our SUV with a 13 month baby and a very bouncy three year old. We are just in time for turtle season and If i get to witness these little turtle hatchings racing the odds to get as fast as possible to the ocean, it will be such a thrill for me.
I am going to be looking over Robs itinery just now, and then I can fill you all in on the details. I am getting excited already!

Low season for the Great White Sharks

The sharks have begun to move from Seal Island, and our sightings are down to about 50%. We have had bad weather on and off for the whole of September and it does affect the shark activity. On Friday we did not go to sea, and the trips on Saturday where slow. We had 2 kills in the early morning, but no sharks around our boat. Our colleuges had 3 sharks that day, and so this is the way it goes. Our Saturday afternoon trip was a complete no-show and we will not be doing any more afternoon trips.
We have had some really good whale and dolfin sightings. Yesterday we saw about 50 Southern Right whales, so you could almost say we did a whale watching trip yesterday.

Today has suprised us. I have just phoned Rob to find out how the sharks have been and they are having an excellent day. We have had a shark called "Round Fin", stick around the boat from 9 am and is still there and everyone on the boat has managed to cage dive. Round Fin, is called that for his particularly round dorsal fin. He is a small shark, around 2.5m and we have been seeing him on and off for the past month.
The trip has also seen about 100 dolphins or more, and lots of whales, and even had one whale filter feeding in the harbour this morning.

So it is very much a luck of the draw at the moment.

This month will be the last real shark month for us. We are coming to the end of our season, which brings me to a whole new blog about what we do in off season.

What a bummer

Today's trip was a completely chaotic. Firstly our driver could not find an address for a pick up at 5.45, and so all the guests having a transfer were late, then the when the boat finally left and was about a 1km from the harbour, the engines started playing up (due to what we discovered was dirt in the fuel lines) and so the boat had to turn around, and head back. Most people were very understanding and we managed to accommodate them on the tomorrow's trip, but some guests were very disappointed, which is totally understandable.

Hopefully the boat and the trip will go smoothly tomorrow.

What to do when trips are cancelled

Well we have had a rough week with the sharks. The lousy weather last week end caused this weeks trips to be really disappointing. Only yesterday did we have a good trip, with five sharks around the boat, two nice predations in the morning and we even managed to do some diving. We also saw Southern right whales and Common Dolphins and so it was a great well rounded trip.

Another cold front came in last night, and so today and tomorrow is another no sea day. During the season Rob and I spend very little time together and so with him being home, I dragged him to the shops. We needed a new vaccum cleaner, as our old stinky vaccum was blowing out more dirt and dust than it was cleaning.
We also have pets, and so even though they are only allowed in our scullery and entrance hall,pet hairs manage to get everywhere, and so I wanted a vaccum that actually cleaned and then blew clean filtered air out, instead of having me sneezing after each use.

So off to Makro we go, and return brandishing Karen's new toy with a picture of a dog and "HEPA filter" written boldly on the box. We start in the lounge, which only has wooden floors and one large rug. How much dirt can one rug hold I think? Well, after 5 minutes, with this brush that resembles a mini combine harvester combing away, my eyes nearly popped out of my head and my mild obsessive-compulsive trait started blinking red lights rapidly in my brain.
I think, if that what a rug holds, I am petriefied to think what our bedrooms look like. So off to the rooms I go with a wild look in my eyes and Rob retreats to the newly spring cleaned lounge with a beer in his hand and a bemused look on his face.
Well, after Rob cleaning the filters and see-through "no bag" container, even he was sold on the vaccum.

So, now I am chilling with a glass of red wine, our toddler and the baby are merrily eating rice cakes on my clean rug and Rob is watching Rugby highlights.....not a bad end to a no sea day Sunday.