Yay - it's shark day!

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EARLY START

Got up at 5am, that’s right FIVE, to get ready for our early morning pickup. Drove for 2 hours to Gansbaai for cage diving with Great White Sharks. In our van there was a couple from New York, a girl from Eindhoven and a guy from Croatia. Didn’t find all this out till later when we all woke up a bit!

It was freezing cold and road was covered in fog most of the way. It was a really windy road, lots of 'U' bends through all the mountains, any motorbike riders out there would have a ball riding it! But as for us, we were waaay to sleepy to really truly appreciate it…

We got to the lodge that the diving company operates from and there was a light but hot breaky waiting for us (a few people may have wished they skipped this in a few hours time…). Joining us were 3 girls and 2 guys from Cape Town.

On the boat looking after us was Lala (our videographer, dive master and all round shark expert), a skipper and X-Man (he’s the one who made the yummy treats to tempt the sharks to come for a look).

There was a pretty big swell heading out but boat ran through it all nice and smooth. When we got to the right spot that’s when the boat rocking really kicked in, swaying side to side, side to side, side to side….. and that’s when people starting dropping, slowly at first, then by the end of the day all but 3 of us were feeling unwell or adding chum to the ocean to attract more sharks, I was one of the 3 and unfortunately Tim was in the unwell category, but have to add he kept his breaky in.

Changed into wetsuits then it was time to jump in. Tim and I were in the first group to go in. The water was freeeeeeeeeeezing! It quite literally takes your breath away!

In the cage you can stand up with your head out of the water, Lala is on the boat and when he spots a shark he tells you to go under the water and which way to look.

We saw our first shark within the first few minutes and it was HUGE, it just cruised passed us and then it was gone. Had the underwater camera but was so taken in by the shark didn’t even think about taking a photo at first, but then got a few shots in. It was hard for me to stay still under water as I kept floating up! There was a bar at the bottom of the cage to hook your toes under but I was too buoyant for even that to work!

The guy from New York was in the cage with us and got seasick, they got him out really quick so he wouldn’t be sick in the cage with us, hope he knows how much we appreciated that!!

We switched around so everyone had a good go. Tim went in again and the sharks were coming right up to the cage and banging into it, it looked awesome! He said it was really loud and he could feel the cage banging onto the boat. He came out icy cold but and was all smiles, he said it was worth freezing for.

I was so cold, I didn’t go back in, but I had such a good long go the first time and saw the sharks go pass so many times I was more than happy.

They packed everything up and we headed back in. The tide was so low the skipper had to creep the boat in passed all the rocks in the harbour, did a really good job of it. There’s a tractor that pulls the boats out of the water and then all the passengers get off when it’s up on land. There’s 8 different boats that go out to see the sharks so this way everyone can get their boats in without having to wait for passengers to get themselves organized at the ramp, let’s face it, we’re tourists and are in no rush to do anything!

Went back to the lodge where they had a nice hot lunch waiting for us (really nice thick Pea Soup and toasted sandwiches) and also the footage that Lala took throughout the day. He made a DVD up that we got a copy of. Funniest thing about it is at the end when everyone was getting off the boat and there was an awful lot of very pale faces, not many smiles!

Was driven back to Cape Town. The Dutch girl fell asleep before we even pulled out of the Lodge’s driveway. The guy from New York showed us some video footage from when was in Kruger and also Cape of Good Hope (where we are going tomorrow). He saw lions and leopards both really close to where they were staying in Kruger. And he videoed the baboons near the Cape taking over someone’s car, going through everything and stealing all the food. It was so funny because they couldn’t get them out, and it wasn’t us!

When we dropped the Dutch girl off, she was staying in Rose Street, this is the street where all the buildings are each painted a different bright colour. Another thing I can cross off my list of places I wanted to see!

Very tired and looking forward to what tomorrow holds for us…

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