Another post from Gansbaai

Sissel and me

I've been without internet for a while, and decided to rewrite the last post, so this is what I wrote on Sunday

Sunday 23/6-2013

I've now been at Gansbaai since June 10th working for MarineDynamics, (a Shark Cage Diving company based in Kleinbaai, a small harbour town, part of Gansbaai in the Western Cape of South Africa. This area is known as a hotspot for the Great White Shark and the best place in the world to see and dive with these iconic creatures in their natural environment). They take out tourists every day, as long as the weather permits it. I'm here with 10-20 other volunteers (varies from week to week) who helps out preparing the boats, talking to clients before and during the trip as well as assisting the crew during and after the trips. I must say I've enjoyed every day so far, and the other volunteers are great people. All of us are young adventures who love sharks and travelling from all over the world (Australia, Scandinavia, UK, Seychelles and US). We get along really well and spend a lot of time together either in our shared home or out and always have activities planned together. So far we have had 3-4 no-sea-days which mean the weather has been so bad that we haven’t been able to go to sea.  On those days we go on social activities like hiking, road tripping, wine/beer tasting, penguin-safari, game drive, playing football/rugby/pool or doing beach clean ups.

David, me and Declan having a hug on Declans birthday

Pulling the cage up from the water after a day of shark diving

Jake, Ali, Elias and Sissel (who came all the way to South Africa to visit me)

Me and Elias having a laugh while looking at the days pictures

Our cage dive boat, Slashfin!

Clearance and Nicola posing 

Predation. Copyright: David Allan

Travelling on a day off

Wine tasting with the other volunteers

Beach clean up and shark egg collection 

One of my favourite photos

We get really close to the sharks almost every day!

Playing touch rugby on a sunny afternoon

Touch rugby on the beach

We also have lectures by the marine biologists who work for Marine Dynamics which are very interesting and I learn so much from it. I learn something new every day.

A normal day at Marine Dynamics:
I want to write a bit more about what we do here as volunteers, because a few months ago when I was getting ready for this experience I didn't know much of what we would be doing here in Gansbaai. I looked for blogs but couldn't find any, so I hope that future volunteers will find my blog and therefore get a better understanding of what you do here, except from diving with sharks.
A normal day would start off with getting up at 6:30 AM and start walking to The Great White House (GWH) at 7:15 so we would be ready to work at 7:30. We have to be there 1.5 hours before the boat launch so the time depends on when the boat is launching. Three of the volunteers go down to the bay to get the boat ready, while the rest get the wet suits, life jackets, rain coats etc packed and delivered to the boat before assisting the clients to get ready and walking down to the boat which is now on the water. We assist the crew on the boat while the skipper drives the boat to the diving spot, some of us will then read out the clients names and hand over the wetsuits, while others drop the cage and tie it to the side of the boat. If anyone gets seasick (it’s always someone seasick) it’s our responsibility to make sure they feel looked after. If there is time and space in the cage we (the volunteers) will get to dive. So far I've been diving 6 out of 8 trips, so it’s most likely that we get to dive. It’s such an incredible feeling to get so close to the Great White! Sometimes we see the big sharks up to 5 meters, other times we see the younger ones which are more jumpy (awesome to look at from the cage and the boat).
When the diving is done we do simple choirs like pulling the anchor and cage up from the water (depending on if we are going in the water again later in the day or not) and helping the clients getting ready for the return. After the last trip you assist the crew with cleaning the boat (just pour soap on the windows, motors and rails, so the crew can wash it off). Then we dip the wet wetsuits in fresh water before hanging them up for drying. Big-Bruce (employee) hangs them up in the shed.

We also got a research boat and a whale boat. Because the weather has been exceptionally bad this winter we haven’t had many trips with those boats. Some of us have been on them, but I haven’t yet. I still got 2 more weeks here, so I expect to be on a whale trip or two, and maybe I get to tag a shark, which they are planning on doing sometime the following 2 weeks.
In the evening we always got some activities, for example pub quiz, night out, pool tournaments, table games etc. These evenings makes us bond quite good, and I've got so many good friends which I hope I’ll keep in touch with and maybe see again later. The Swedes are not far away from Norway, I have a lot of friends in the UK already and I love America, so these countries are places I want to visit anyway.

Today, Sunday the 23^rd of June I was not on the morning trip, that means I'm off work until 11:30. Some people are at a Game Drive (safari) while others are on the morning trip with the shark boat. And I'm quite happy I didn't went on the Game Drive because today we saw a predation of a seal, about 100 m  from the boat, so much blood and we saw the fin of the shark and the jumping seal fighting for its life. Amazing!

The internet is not great here, which makes us more social, but it’s hard to post blogs and keep in touch with friends and family at a regular basis (therefore I'm sending a few postcards). 

A picture tells more than a 1000 words

There is always a shark outside the cage