Blogs from Gansbaai, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa
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Here are a few more bits and pieces with regards to our Gansbaai trip. The photos are compliments of Paul. Fire in Gansbaai As I mentioned in my previous blog, the fire around Hermanus also reached Gansbaai. This was very close to the houses, so a helicopter was called in to douse the fire. Rather scary when it gets close to the houses, but luckily it was brought under control. Trans-Agulhas Inflatable Boat Race Each year there is the Trans-Agulhas Inflatable Boat Race. Apparently it is known as one of the world’s toughest inflatable boat races. It takes place over a period of 5 days and 700km. They start at Hobie beach, in Plettenberg Bay and race to the Strand, near Cape Town. They stop briefly at various checkpoints along the way with overnight stops at ... read more
Where there's smoke........
Published: January 8th 2013Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » GansbaaiOur Christmas holiday and time in Gansbaai was mainly spent with family, which was wonderful. It was windy most days, except one exceptionally hot day and a couple of mildly windy days. Typical strong cape wind that can last for a good few days, without stopping at all - that is why most trees in the cape don't grow upright. There was a severe fire just above Hermanus that caused some major destruction in its path and with the wind blowing constantly, it flared up near Gansbaai as well. It's always a scary sight and so difficult to control when there is so much wind. Fire-fighters had a difficult task to control the fire. Paul managed to go fishing on two occasions, the catch was small but plentiful, with our brother-in-law very skilfully cleaning and filleting ... read more
Christmas celebrations done and dusted. What a a wonderful day spent celebrating with family and friends and chatting on the telephone with family far away that couldn't be with us. Over indulgence seems to be the key word on Christmas Day. Who can resist a second helping of mom's traditional trifle? The secret to its success is the copious amounts of sherry poured over the sponge cake, which of course makes it the best trifle around! We decided today was a good day to walk off some calories, so ambled down to the harbour and walked next to the sea. There was a continuous stream of boats entering and leaving the harbour. It was so enjoyable to take a leisurely stroll with a bit of a sea breeze blowing off the sea, as it was a ... read more
Rest, relaxation and gluttony!
Published: December 20th 2012Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » GansbaaiFor once I am blogging in the present and not past blogs! It's December and the festive season is upon us. It is time for Christmas holidays and we are going to visit family and friends and spend some time in Gansbaai, territory of the Great White Shark. And NO, I am not going diving with them! First of all, I am a fair weather diver, so I won't be putting my foot in that cold water, let alone a limb or two that could become a tasty morsel for the shark. But you can dive in a cage, you will say. My reply: those cages look far too flimsy for me and I am not a fan of chumming to attract the sharks. (I must confess I do my own chumming, but that's another story....) ... read more
Cage Diving with Great White Sharks
Published: December 5th 2011Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » GansbaaiWe are sorry for the wait! The internet has been quite spotty for us and we are too busy doing things to blog about them! I have decided to transcribe my journal entry for the day since it took up 4 pages in my little Moleskine, so it is pretty detailed. Here is what I wrote: "This experience lived up to my expectations and more! (Yes I do write like this in my journal....) We were picked up before dawn and had a taste of the Garden Route during the two-hour drive to Gansbaii. The Route is well-named as it's very lush with irrigated fields and stretches of vineyards as far as the eye can see. The boat ride out to the dive site was quite cold and windy with big swells and we spent the ... read more
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Well what can I say.......... Shark cage diving was an experience that we will definately never ever forget. It was epic! The day started off pretty calmly, we had the most incredible weather which is really lucky considering how terrible the weather has been in Cape town this last week. We were picked up about 9:00am and started the 2 hour drive out to Gansbaai which would have been fine except none of the 13 people on a 12 seater bus realised the diving was two hours away. Lets just say we all got to know each other extremely well in that 2 hours. Needless to say the drive was amazing, absolutely beautiful. It was quite surreal for me to be driving through towns like Somerset West and Hermanus which I have memories of, but are ... read more
The day had finally come. Daddy had talked about this part of the trip for a long time. He had wished he had done this when he was in South Africa the other 2 times, but did not. There was no way that we were not going to do it on this trip.......the Great White Sharks. At first it seemed pretty scary, especially since he told me that most people on the boat go into a cage and the sharks come right up to it. When daddy called to see if I could go on the boat, not only did they say that I can go on the boat, but I could also go into the cage if I wanted to. NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO WAAAAAAYYYYYYY was I going to do that, and daddy never asked me again, and ... read more
Cape Agulhas and...Great White Shark diving ?????
Published: July 5th 2010Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » GansbaaiAlright, I had been looking forward to visiting Cape Agulhas the entire trip. We were going there initially at the beginning of the trip, while visiting Cape Town a few weeks ago. But we didn't have time and figured we could go there after we knew that our path to the Final would start in Durban, go by Port Elizabeth and back to Cape Town for the semi-final. We got up early, got in the car and drove straight south towards Cape Agulhas. It took us about 45 minutes to get there and we basically had the place to ourselves. To be honest, there isn't much to see at the furthest southern point you can go in Africa. It's a coastline like any other, perhaps with a little more history, that has a little monument marking ... read more
Today was day 3 of my sickness. According to Galen who was sick before me, day 3 should be the turning point of the sickness. From feeling shitty, to feeling ok and just a little sick. I was definitely feeling better after taking massive amounts of vitamins and hot water and vicks and gargling 3 times a day with hot salt water. Today I woke up at 6:45 to accompany Danny to the airport to drop of the Peeks so I could cash my traveler checks and pick up my round of 16 Cape Town ticket!!! We returned back around 9 o’clock with 20 minutes to spare before we embarked on our shark diving! The bus was similar to the wine tour bus and we drove around cape town picking up other individuals before heading to ... read more
Diving with Great White Sharks
Published: May 22nd 2010Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » GansbaaiJust outside of Cape Town you can go diving with the Great White Sharks. They lower a cage next to the boat and you drop yourself into the cage and the sharks swim right up to you and stare you in the face. They attract the sharks to the cage with fish blood and guts called Chum. They even put a large fish head on a rope and try to get the shark to lunge at the cage as they pull the fish towards your face. The cage is one foot square iron grids so the shark's nose even goes inside the cage a bit if the guy handling the fish head is good. If you put your hands or feet outside the cage even a few inches, the sharks can have a bit of you ... read more
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