Swimming with JAWS (Part 1)
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2008
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84
87
Trip End
Oct 03, 2008
Hermanus, Western Cape, South Africa
Sunday, September 28, 2008
And so it was that the great finale to our incredible 9-month around-the-world adventure was poised to end in a great gut-wrenching disappointment as angry weather buffeted the quaint sea-side town of Hermanus on South Africa's south-west coast during the final few days of our trip.
It was exactly a year to the month that Kirilee and I had laid down in bed one evening and discussed the seemingly unrealistic idea of travelling around the world for most of 2008.
Surely this was the domain of millionaires we kept pondering... unconvinced we had the financial capacity to embark on such an adventure... unconvinced we were willing to jettison the shrewd, perhaps sensible train of thought in favour of saying, forget about the money... let's just do it and follow our dreams.
But follow our dreams is exactly what we did.....we dared to dream of seeing predating killer whales in Argentina, penguins and icebergs in Antarctica, samba stars in Rio, the mystique of Machu Picchu, the aura of Mount Everest, the grandeur of the Taj Mahal, the indomitable Great Wall of China, beautiful geisha's in Japan, fearsome bears in Yellowstone and Katmai, ferocious lions and leopards in Botswana.... and finally... swimming with terrifying GREAT WHITE SHARKS in South Africa.
I hung onto that dream of diving with great whites through each and every one of those 9 months circling the globe... telling everyone along the way of my ambition to dive with these man-eating monsters in our final week abroad.
So now you can understand how downhearted I felt.... there I was lying in bed, on the FINAL NIGHT of our 9-month adventure, listening to raging winds pound the walls of the guesthouse in Hermanus, watching a torrential downpour pelt the skylight with constant rain.... thinking I would wake up in the morning to a text message from the shark diving company telling me that our trip was cancelled as it had been done the day before.
The thing is that the overnight weather seemed infinitely worse than the day before so we were prepared to receive the bad news, pack our bags and head back to Cape Town for our afternoon flight.
It was Tuesday morning and our flight would be leaving that afternoon but in holding on until the very final second, our prayers were miraculously answered as the text message came through to tell us that our tour was going ahead.
Now before you read on, I should explain why you're seeing copywrited sharks pics and my whale pics in this blog. It's because our two day stay at Hermanus waiting for the shark dive just happened to coincide with the famous Hermanus Whale Festival and the shark pics are in Part 2! Plus, all my (actually, Kirilee shot most of them) JAWS pics are in Part 2.
The festival coincides with the peak period when Southern Right Whales venture into the bay at Hermanus to give birth and raise their young calves.
It's a beautifully quaint little town and despite the downpours and cloudy, windy conditions, we had a really nice time here... just walking along the coastline watching the whales frolick around with their young. And as you can see, we also witnessed the spectacle of one of these enormous whales breeching in the distance in the middle of the bay.
Incredible stuff!
And so to the final morning of our 9-month around-the-world adventure.
To be honest, the weather was still looking pretty grim by the time we arrived in Kleinbaai but we just kept praying to at least get out on the boat and out into the bay to perhaps catch a brief glimpse of the incredible great white shark.
Once aboard the boat and out into the open sea, we were greeted by some serious swells... our powerful 30ft cruiser bounded over the 3 to 4ft waves as it charged towards the opposite side of the bay where great whites had been spotted earlier that week.
Unfortunately, we faced the distinct prospect that the terrible weather had sent them scurrying out to sea.
After about 20 minutes, we came across two other shark diving companies. Radioing through to them, one wasn't having any luck and so we ventured over to the other to learn that they had spotted some sharks.
Eagerly milling around the boat amid heightened excitement that we might see some, our captain and crew took us through a briefing before instructing the eager ones among us to start getting into our wetsuits and diving gear.
The crew began the process of 'chumming' where a gross concoction of fish guts and blood is sent trailing behind the boat with the hope that sharks pick up the scent and follow it to the boat.
Within about 5 minutes of beggining to chum, our captain excitedly alerted us to activity around other boat which was some 100 yards away from us.... it was then that we saw it... a distinctive and huge shark fin carving through the surface of the water as it circled the boat. We had seen one! Well, almost.
Now what we wouldn't give to have a shark swim around our boat!
And then it happened as one of the crew yelled out... 'SHARK'!
Read on for the exciting climax and pics in Part 2
