Thursday, March 30, 2006
Sharktown, S.A.
During my nearly two weeks in South Africa, I saw a lot of sharks. Big sharks. So that was pretty cool. I was working on Shark Fever, a big boat (catamaran to be specific) that took 12 tourists, 2 crew, 2 research interns and 1 shark research out to sea every day. Even on weekends. Even if it was cold. And windy. And cold and windy. And...well, you get the idea. Gansbaai was freaking cold and always windy. And did I mention there were no palm trees?
The claim to fame of Shark Fever was it's shark diving cage. And don't let the "diving" thing fool you - it's really just under-glorified snorkelling. You don't even get a snorkel! But you do get a really thick wetsuit for 15C water, a mask, and specific instructions not to touch the sharks. One day, a tourist didn't listen and got his finger busted open by a shark. There was a lot of blood and we tried not to tell other tourists about it. So I went cage-diving one day and it was pretty cool - that's a lot of teeth and jaws coming towards you!
But what I really did was keep track of what sharks we saw during the day by drawing pictures of their defining features (like scratches on their dorsal fins, rope marks, etc.) and then record what time during the day we saw them. All day. Like below (that's Mark the other intern who was actually keen on sharks and doing a fantastic job!)
And then we'd take the tourists to see the seals, come back into shore, have a beer and then Mark and me would go home and watch TV until we went to bed. Since it appears Gansbaai is the sleepiest Bavarian town I've ever been too. We lived outside of town by the harbour where there were no restaurants, groceries, pubs or other form of entertainment. But we did have great neighbours and tasty barbeques (called "braais" - that took me a long time to figure out).
So day in, day out, there were a lot of sharks. For the last week we even had a crazy German film crew on the boat. FYI I'm going to be the next big thing to hit German television. Just so you know.
The claim to fame of Shark Fever was it's shark diving cage. And don't let the "diving" thing fool you - it's really just under-glorified snorkelling. You don't even get a snorkel! But you do get a really thick wetsuit for 15C water, a mask, and specific instructions not to touch the sharks. One day, a tourist didn't listen and got his finger busted open by a shark. There was a lot of blood and we tried not to tell other tourists about it. So I went cage-diving one day and it was pretty cool - that's a lot of teeth and jaws coming towards you!
But what I really did was keep track of what sharks we saw during the day by drawing pictures of their defining features (like scratches on their dorsal fins, rope marks, etc.) and then record what time during the day we saw them. All day. Like below (that's Mark the other intern who was actually keen on sharks and doing a fantastic job!)
And then we'd take the tourists to see the seals, come back into shore, have a beer and then Mark and me would go home and watch TV until we went to bed. Since it appears Gansbaai is the sleepiest Bavarian town I've ever been too. We lived outside of town by the harbour where there were no restaurants, groceries, pubs or other form of entertainment. But we did have great neighbours and tasty barbeques (called "braais" - that took me a long time to figure out).
So day in, day out, there were a lot of sharks. For the last week we even had a crazy German film crew on the boat. FYI I'm going to be the next big thing to hit German television. Just so you know.
// posted by Emily @ 8:46 AM 
