Our research team spent the whole day of yesterday out at sea, in order to find “Slash Fin” and possibly tag him! That’s why I find it very ironic that our 7th shark to arrive at the boat today, after 45 minutes, was none other than the shark himself! It was great that this shark made several passes by the cage on three separate occasions and not just once off like usual. We also had two other sharks that were over the 4 meter mark; really big sharks today! The smaller sharks arrived later on in the trip, of which the smallest one was around 2.9 meters. The guys from Denmark came up with the expression “SICK”, which seemed to become the phrase of the day for every shark sighting! Nice one guys, hilarious trip…
We were forced to launch our boat in the afternoon rather than the morning today; this was due to the low tide forcing us to do so. Nevertheless the sharks were waiting for us when we arrived and the first shark was a massive 4.1 meter male shark, not a bad way to start the trip:)! The weather has been a bit cloudy the last couple of days, hence the reason we all have gained a deeper appreciation for sunny days like today. It was an awesome family day on the boat, with one family being the most people from one family that I have had on board! 14 people ranging from very young towards not so young, it is great to see that shark cage diving has become an experience for the entire family. When you kids grow up, you can bring your children to Marine Dynamics :)…
Even though it wasn’t a flat day on the sea, we still had some awesome sunny conditions! The voyage towards our dive sight and back was very entertaining for most of the guests on board, however some did mention that their bums were not equipped to handle all of the bumps :)! The dive site itself offered the perfect protection from the swell and wind conditions, well done to the crew! It was great that the waiting time was virtually zero until the sharks arrived; our visibility today was very variable. At times we had visibility all the way down to the sea bed (5 meters) and other times it turned more murky, unfortunately there are always factors beyond our control. The sharks were giving some lovely passes by the cage, but they were reluctant to come up and pose for my camera today, hence the limited number of shark pics today! I’ll get you next time sharkies…PS. the skate on the last pic was released unharmed.
The weather today was an added bonus to the phenomenal shark viewing! I am pretty sure that everyone left the boat with a tan today. We had some great sightings of other animals today, there was a hagfish at the back of the boat and it did venture into the cage at times! Giving some of our guests quite a fright :)! The highlight of today’s trip must have been “Kevin”, a small Cape Cormorant who thought he was a super hero! This bird had absolutely no fear of the massive 4.5 meter sharks that were around the cage today, he made a game of chasing the sharks around the boat! This bird also came into the cage on several occasions in order to see what our guests were doing, a truly fascinating individual. A White morph Southern Giant Petrel (Macronectes giganteus) was spotted on the horizon and it was noted that the bird was injured. We promptly dispatched our sister company Dyer Island Cruises to the area and they were able to save the bird! We had two very large sharks today of which “Slash fin” was one of them; he however did not come close to the cage today but rather remained at a distance. A real entertaining day…