Woke up to glorious sunshine, ready for my next outing! This time I was going to trial my data capture sheet to see how easy and effective it was. As soon as the boat reached its anchor point for the cage diving, I grabbed the Secchi disk to measure water visibility. However, looking over the side of the boat, we could see the bottom of the sea! Crystal clear visibility like this is very rare, according to one of the crew. It apparently only happens for a couple of weeks in the year!
It was pointless using the Secchi disk, so I turned my attention to helping Ali by noting down the properties of the water itself (dissolved oxygen content etc.). As soon as we lowered it to get the surface information, a humongous shark rolled up. As amazing as it was, this meant Ali couldn't collect any more information due to the fact sharks enjoy a bit of a nibble on shiny electrical implements!
And so I took my post on the top deck for maximum visual range, ready to record behaviour. Despite the amazing visibility in the water, this was not as easy as it seemed. The sharks were in an interesting mood today, and at one point there were six individual sharks swimming around the boat! Brilliant if you're a tourist, but extremely difficult when you're trying to keep an eye on only one shark! The crew, Amy and Ali were all very excited, but I was with the guests in that I didn't realise the treat that lay before me (due to lack of experience in these things). The number of individual sharks ran into double figures, something that is apparently very unusual.
After recording data for three different sharks, I stopped. Clearly this was an unusual day, and there were far too many sharks to follow effectively and record good data. Instead, I enjoyed the view in front of me, and watched as shark after shark swam around the boat, almost like a school of fish (sharks are not social animals normally). The sun was shining, and this was an experience that I didn't want to miss completely with my head down in a spreadsheet!
And so we headed back, everyone on the boat was buzzing at what they had just witnessed.
That evening there was a braai (a South-African style barbeque). I made homemade burgers - although I didn't realise that burgers are a taboo for braais! Although I was assured that I was the exception for making them home-made, phew! So eventually the beers were flowing and the braai was burning away. An eccentric Mexican by the name of Pepe arrived, along with home-made dips such as salsa, guacamole and some hot tomato stuff (immense), as well as some home-made tortilla chips!!! Absolutely delicious!
Everyone having filled up on the delicious starters (which included some corn casserole and mac 'n' cheese made by a lovely American woman called Tammy), it was time to get some meat on the braai. All nine burgers went on, but I only had room for one. I hadn't realised that it was customary for everyone to bring their own meat, and that there were also a few vegetarians... d'oh! So there were eight burgers left over, and nothing saddens me more than good food left over! However, at least I was sorted with food for the next couple of days.
Amy and I headed home at about 10.30 (we only live a few seconds away), and I got in bed with a satisfyingly full stomach, read a chapter of The Hobbit and fell fast asleep, ready for the following day's adventure.
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