SHARKS GALORE

Holy crap. What a day. We woke up to another amazing breakfast bright n early. Fruit, eggs, more amazing bread, yogurt, and granola. Then it was time to drive a short hour to Gansbaai, literally the great white shark capital of the world! At this point, I was feeling terrified and not even sure if I could follow through with it. We arrived to warm welcomes by the workers and then headed upstairs for our debriefing. They showed us a video which talked about myths of sharks, and the difference between real life and movie ones. Did you know that there are only 4-10 fatal shark attacks in the world per year, but 40 by domestic dogs in the US ALONE, and 400 by toasters in the world. We were notified that the most dangerous part of our day was the drive there! I felt a lot better after this, including the video showing what we would actually be doing. We also learned that our boat was the only one in the industry that was specifically built for shark cage diving.

We began our short walk down to the harbour to board the boat. After about a 10 minute ride, we anchored, and immediately we saw sharks!!! At this point, we couldn't believe that we would be getting in the water with them. The crew urged us all to hurry and get on our wetsuits. Those are extremely difficult to get on, by the way. The first group of 8 got into the cage right off the edge of the boat. Two men tried to get the sharks to come, one had something that resembled the silhouette of a seal, and one had pieces of meat tied to a rope. They also used chum: a mixture of fish oil and fish parts which they put into the water and the smell attracted the sharks.

They stayed in for about 30 minute, and then it was our turn. We zipped up, put on some boots, and put on our masks. We one by one entered the cage, which I will post a pic of. That's not us in there, but it was the same situation. The two men attracting the sharks would yell "DOWN LEFT!" "DOWN RIGHT!", or "DOWN FRONT!" So we would know where to look. I cannot believe how close we were, probably about only a foot or less away at times. Some of the sharks were 13 feet long! I am so happy that I conquered my fear and did it.

Our guide said we had a very lucky day, as the group befor us had to wait 45 minutes to see any sharks at all. We saw 12-13 sharks total, and probably at the most 3 at one time by the boat.

After 2 more groups went after us, we took the boat to Shark Alley, Which our guide called "the shark's McDonald's". Apparently, people from national geographic and other major photographers and stuff come there every year to get a look at the sharks! Oh yeah, this little island is covered with about 60 thousand seals. There's the explanation!

We're now back at our houses preparing dinner. Tomorrow I think we're just going 4 wheeling and hanging out. Pictures to come of everything! Hope you all are enjoying!
-Anna