Marine Dynamics Blog

The sharks were soaring through the air today; it was great to see them that jumpy! Both our trips were very entertaining with the amount of sharks we had. The first trip had some very funny girls on board making it extremely entertaining. At one stage we had a hagfish enter the cage and after Zane told everyone it was poisonous (which it isn’t), our divers were very eager to jump out of the cage! Sorry about that one guys, but it was funny! The second trip completely gave me a great impression of people from Texas! I had some great laughs with these 14 Americans who were just so entertaining! We were very lucky to be able to spot a Southern Right whale in front of the cage; very close to our boat!  Great way to end the trip...

We had three great trips today and it was very interesting to be able to see the sun rise on the first one, the sun at its highest on the second one and the sun going down on the third one! It’s amazing to see how the landscape changes throughout the day! I believe my best photo opportunity arose on the final moments of the day! We had a lovely father and daughter pare on our first trips that were very eager for some shark action and after a voyage from Gansbaai we delivered! Our second trip had a very lively bunch and some of them said I bare a resemblance to Mr Bean! I would just like to disagree with them on record :)! We even had a seal ‘poop’ in front of the cage! The sharks were just too much for the poor seal! Then came the sunset on the third trip in spectacular fashion! Have a look for yourselves...

James feeds our local skuas! I always knew our volunteers had a big passion for wild life, how big it was I only discovered recently when James decided to “kiss” a skua! That was a big hit with all on board, however I do not recommend that anyone attempt to do this at home! I don’t think it would be a good idea! The sharks themselves were equally as entertaining with several heart stopping moments! Awesomeness...

What a day! It is tuff to say whether we went whale watching today or shark cage diving, either way we had an awesome time at sea for both our trips! We had an early start to our day in order to launch from Gansbaai harbour due to the low tide in Kleinbaai. This allowed us our first opportunity of the day to view an adult Southern Right Whale and her calf just relaxing outside the harbour. A truly beautiful sight. After giving everyone a great time at whale watching we pressed onwards towards our dive site where we had some fantastic shark sightings! Thereafter we were held up yet again by three adult  SR whales on our way towards the harbour. We were so lucky to have such great visibility because one whale came from underneath us! WOW, have a look at the picture! We had no whales on our second trip but we did get to see a predation take place only 100 meters away! There was a point where I thought the seal would make it, but it was not meant to be! Oddly enough we had a smaller shark around the boat that still had some seal entrails hanging from its gills, this was a bit disturbing for some but for most it was fascinating! What a day...

There is a rumour going around stating that you require wings in order to be able to fly, I disagree! I believe you need fins :)! Today the sharks were full of spunk and that from start to finish! They were jumping like I haven’t seen in quite a while; you really do appreciate them more and more everyday! It was not a flat sea day today; however we had a very successful trip nonetheless! We had a sat tagged shark today, which I believe to be “Dorien”. Good to see these sharks are still doing well. Hope you enjoy the photos...

A beautiful day out at sea and we were treated to two smaller white sharks for the first hour of our trip. Both around 3 meters in length they were fairly feisty and made numerous passes of the cage. However it wasn’t until an hour into the trip that things really started to get exciting, our third shark was around 4.2 m in length and our fourth a little over 4.5! Not long after their arrivals we were surrounded by many sharks leaving the final count between 8 and 10 – what a way to end the trip!