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22/03/2017
Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 15.4’C + 15.0’C + 17.4’C
Depth: 10.8m + 10.5m + 11.0m
Visibility: 3.0m + 3.0m + 2.0m
Number of Sharks: 9 + 8 + 7
Conditions: Flat, still conditions with clear skies.
What a gloomy start to the day with overcast skies and mist blanketing the bay. The conditions on the water could not have been nicer though with flat seas and a slight wind coming through, not only were the conditions nice above water but we had an increase in temperature from yesterday and also an estimated 3.0m visibility, which I can all hear you saying “that’s not much”, but for this area at this time of the year it certainly is. The sharks appeared not too long after we did with a female just under 3.5m in length the first to arrive and also the one that stuck around for most of the trip. We had a nice range of sizes this morning with the smallest a pale juvenile just over 2.0m in length and the largest a female 4.5m or similar in size to our cage. The stand outs of the trip happen to be some sharks we are very familiar with as “Dolphin Fin” the juvenile female biopsied by Dyer Island Conservaton Trust appearing towards the end of the trip and a surprise visit from “Mini Nemo” one of Marine Dynamic’s Iconic sharks, a juvenile male we haven’t seen since January of this year. The stunted right pectoral fin earnt him his name and his behaviour and ability to be a favourite amongst those lucky enough to see him earnt him his iconic shark status and it was great to see the same active behaviour today that we associate with this shark. Welcome back “Mini Nemo”.
The second trip saw the mist and clouds clearing to reveal a beautiful day and the sharks seemed to bask in the sunshine with the fantastic activity continuing from the first groups experience into this one. The sharks appeared quickly and activity was seen pretty much consistantly throughout the trip with many of the sharks from the morning trip returning, including our star of the morning “Mini Nemo” who just made it in time towards the end of the trip and the females “Dolphin Fin” and “Gray”.
The third trip of the day was off to a great start with a shark spotted yet again not too long after we arrived back in the Shallows, a juvenile that happens to be part of Dyer Island Conservation Trust’s tagging program and has a r-coded acoustic tag attached since last year. The sightings did not continue and we picked up anchor and moved a little further out in the bay and were lucky enough to attract a large female over 4.2m in length known to us as “Gray”,this female has been around the last few days and is recognised quickly from the boat due to her size, being the one of the largest we are currently seeing in the bay and also because of a fresh wound on the right side of her peduncle. We had multiple juveniles around much of the rest of the trip however a large male over 3.5m in length approached with a recently deployed continuous acoustic tag that was only attached this morning. This male not only displays amazing behaviour around the boat with slow approaches but will also fill a gap in the telemetry program in that there is little data on the movement of larger males in the Shallows. Things became a little quite for our last cage however after some amazing patience from our eight divers in the cage both “Gray” and the newly tagged male reappeared for a few more passes to finish off the trip.
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