Marine Dynamics Blog

We had a very international and diverse group on board today, this definitely allowed for some communication hurdles to be crossed :)! Even though we were all from different parts of the globe, one thing brought us together here in Kleinbaai, our passion for the Great White Shark! Baring that in mind made communication a breeze, everyone knew what I was talking about and where to look as long as I included shark in my sentences hahaha! We had some great weather and perfectly timed, because the clouds are starting to look a lot darker than they did this morning! We had several big sharks around the boat around the 4 meter margin; however they were dwarfed by a massive 4.8 meter female! She just seemed to appear and disappear out from the abyss and cause an awkward silence on the boat. A truly fantastic animal with several “tiger stripes” on its tail making her very recognisable! We will see if we can find her tomorrow...

Even though we have been having some Great Visibility and people might start to think that they have arrived in the tropics, you haven’t! Though the conditions are tremendous, our water temperature has not changed :)!  Our cold nutrient rich waters allow for incredible diversity and splendid shark viewing, but cold waters will always be part of the experience. I have grown accustomed to these waters and I honestly perceive them as being normal; well worth it in the end! We had some very nice passes and leaps in front of the cage to everyone’s surprise and delight! The sharks gave us several toothy moments as you can see on the pictures! Great fun out at sea...

Some of the best visibility that we have had in quite a while around the island! We could see all the way down to the sea bed and beyond. Its days like today that I need to restrain myself from jumping overboard and indulging my desire to swim circles around the boat! Great bunch of people on board today who were very happy with the shark activity, despite the waiting time. It had to happen sooner or later; our zero waiting time had to run out at some point. The delay was only about a half hour, nothing to bad though, well worth it as you can see on the photos! Let’s see what tomorrow brings...

The best conditions needed to host two very successful trips! If the number of sharks today weren’t good enough, then the sea conditions truly put the icing on the cake. We had some very great sharks on our first trip with several ones being in the range of the 4 meter margin. They were very constant and stayed around the cage for the entire duration of our trip! The second trip had the only tagged shark of the day, “Brenda”, which was especially jumpy today. We had two full breaches on our decoy in pretty spectacular fashion. If you weren’t paying attention to the sharks today, you would have definitely missed that photo opportunity! This means that you have to come join us on the trip again! Great news for you :)! See you soon...

It was a bit chilly going out today and we did have a light drizzle at our dive sight, but all and all it was worth it! Our dive site allowed us to view the sharks and the seals from up close and personal. It is really nice to be able to see how the hunter and his pray behave around each other in such close proximity. The seals are always vigilant and on alert whereas the sharks are always waiting for the opportune moment to strike and we were right smack in the middle of it! We had two satellite tagged sharks arrive on scene today, “Brenda” and “Dorien”. It has been quite a while since we last sighted “Dorien”, nevertheless always nice to see a familiar face. The largest shark today was around the 4 meter mark with heaps of parasite activity around its tail, we’ve been seeing this shark quite regularly over the past few weeks. A great time at sea as per usual! On that note, I did include one photo (nr.3) on how not to take a brilliant shark photo :)...

A very early start to the day! Everyone looked like zombies entering the front door of the white house this morning. Thankfully our restaurant staff cooked up a special pot of coffee, extra strong and everyone felt right as rain again! Whoever said that caffeine was bad for your health :)! My favourite part of an early morning trip is definitely the spectacular sights of the surrounding nature! Our sharks did not keep us waiting very long this morning, however some of the individual sharks were a bit sluggish. On the flip side of the coin we had some very active smaller sharks that were leaping out of the water. There was a shark for all types, the people who preferred the slow passes and for the people who came to see some flying sharks. As our dive was coming to an end today we could clearly see the weather changing in front of our eyes, hence the reason we had an early launch this morning! Hope the weather holds out...