Cape Town Day 4 - Sharks! Sharks! Sharks! (and a Lion's Head)

In early August this past summer, I was sitting at my aunt and uncle’s in Calgary. My cousins Kevan and Brayden were hanging out with me before I left for Ottawa again, and then on to South Africa. Some of you will know that my relationship with B & K is a little different than many cousins. In many ways, they are like little brothers to me. I have lived with them on numerous occasions through summers and for a whole year awhile back. We also get to spend a holiday in South Carolina most years together. Four and a half years ago when I was headed to Africa for the first time, Kev took a great deal of time to educate me of all the possible animals I may encounter. This trip was no different, except this time, Kev had one focus. Back in August he told me that I should really go see the great white sharks and that he would really appreciate it if I could get a picture of one breaching for him. I said I would try… Last Tuesday I followed though with my promise - or at least for the most part.

It was an early morning and 10 of us were waiting in the hostel common area. We piled into a van, with lots of anxious chatter and discussion about how scared people were. I fully admitted that there was a good chance that I would not be getting in the water. After two and a bit hours, we arrived in Gansbaai, the launching point for shark alley. After breakfast and a briefing session, we were kitted out and headed out to the boat. I was starting to get excited, still super nervous, but excited.

I was surprised how quickly we arrived at our anchor point, but it was beautiful and there were a few other boats around, clearly having some success in finding sharks. We were told to start getting our wet suits on and the first ones ready would be the first ones into the cage. I was not particularly anxious to be first, so had a few moments to relax on the top of the boat and wait for the sharks to arrive.  And then…there one was – a GREAT WHITE SHARK! It was totally surreal. At some level, I was waiting for the music to start playing, but nope, just a beautiful majestic creature. 

I started to quicken my getting ready pace and headed down to the main area of the boat to get booties and such (the water was cold, much colder than our comfortable Durban ocean temp). I took a ton of pictures from the boat, so hopefully you enjoy these. I don’t have any under water ones for two reasons – first, I am not particularly comfortable in really deep water, even if there is a cage and such, so I decided not to worry about taking pictures and just try to be ok with being in the water; two, taking pictures under water isn’t particularly easy if you don’t have the right filters and such, so if you want to see what it is like to be in the water with a great white (or four), you should do a cage dive at Gansbaai.
Sequence shots ...

We ended up seeing four different sharks, varying in size from approximately 2.7 meters to 3.9 meters. They were amazing. And I have to say much of my fear was gone once they were there. They are beautiful majestic animals. I was surprised at their size. For some reason I pictured them to have much bigger heads (clearly Jaws has impacted my perception). I guess I just pictured them to be bigger around. They definitely get much larger than the ones we saw, but the perception of them being these absolutely massive creatures, bigger than boats, that is generally false.

I’m not going to write much else about this, just know that I thought it was amazing and definitely think people should take the opportunity if it is there. Thank you so much Kevan for being that voice in my head saying, Ali you should totally do this. There aren’t any breaching pictures as it is apparently the wrong time of year for that, but we did take a little boat ride further out to Dyer Island, which for you shark enthusiasts (or Shark week watchers) will know. The seal population is huge out there and it stinks to high heaven, but I enjoyed the baby seals.

Back in Cape Town five of us from the shark trip and an extra from the hostel decided to make the hike up Lion’s Head to watch the sunset. Did not occur to us that because of the full moon there would be ridiculous numbers of people up there. The hike kind of circles the mountain, so you have to be on the Camp’s Bay side to see the sun set, with the moon rising over the City Bowl side. 

Part way up the hike (on the City Bowl side), we encountered something I have never experienced – a line-up on a hike. 

Of the 6 of us, 3 decided to head back lower to the Camp’s Bay side, 2 of us decided to head up to the Camp Bay’s side and we all thought the sixth was with the other group. Oops. Well, after some skirting of the trail, and following the locals, Gavin (an American) and I made it up to see the sun set. It was really beautiful. 

After some pictures and such, we headed back onto the trail to head down, headlamps in tow. Well, the line-up had not dissipated at all, we had to wait quite some time to get down the ladder areas, 

but eventually found our way back to the other three. We promptly asked where Stephan was. We thought he was with you. We thought he was with you. Uh oh. We waited for a good chunk of time (and took some pictures), 

but no sign of Stephan. We decided with this many people on the mountain he must be ok and the five of us headed down. We eventually, after a late dinner, found Stephan at the hostel. He had also gone up the mountain, but somehow lost us (probably where we followed the locals not the line). Anyways, everybody was safe and sound and exhausted. It was a really awesome day – adventure, adrenalin, interesting people, what more can you ask for. Another great day on the Western Cape adventure week.