Chumming and Wrangling

This video is from the chum trip yesterday morning. It was amazing. We had six sharks show up around the boat and they were all interested in playing (going for the bait, in other words). They were all being really sneaky about it, too. Nick was the first one on the bait rope and he lost two bait heads to sharks coming up unexpectedly. I was the next to try and, as well, lost two bait heads to sharks--one when one of the smaller sharks did a sort of half breach on the buoy on the bait line, the other when the massive shark just came straight for the bait. After that, Dan, the field specialist skippering that day, took over the bait line. He, too, lost bait heads. At one point, the massive shark we'd been dealing with all morning came straight up at the bait. Dan froze, just watching the huge shark and, voila, there goes the bait. 

Poor quality because it's a photo of a screen shot from a video Nick took.
That shark is probably 3-4 feet away from Dan in the photo.

She must have been a good 4.2 meters long and seemed even bigger because we were on Lamnidae. Usually, we chum off Cheetah but Cheetah's out of the water for repairs for the next couple weeks. Not that Cheetah would have made the shark seem much smaller but  Lamnidae's less then twice the length of this shark. 

This morning was dubbed Shark Wranglers: Intern Edition (after a documentary series Ryan did for NatGeo). I was at the aquarium and the duty for this morning was to get all the benthic sharks out of their tank so they could be weighed, measured, and tagged. They aren't being released just yet but the tags will give us a way to identify the individuals in the tanks, especially during feeding (to ensure any shark doesn't get overfed). We also took the opportunity to remove all the rocks in the tank, clean out the accumulation of sand from the bottom, and rebuild the rock caves the sharks hide in. Let me just say, from experience, that it is tough to hold onto a thrashing three foot long pajama jacket!

Nick, Tammy, and Catherine working to siphon sand out of
the tank after the sharks and rocks have been removed.

Cow Shark Dive

Cow shark dive in the kelp forest! That was Friday's activity. The group of divers was much smaller this time; everyone else opted to do land based tourism activities. We headed out to the dive site (only a 10 minute drive this time) under overcast skies but otherwise good weather. The water was slightly colder than the day before but we weren't chilled from a long boat ride so the temperature seemed much more tolerable. Our dive lasted about 45 minutes, cruising around through the kelp looking for the sharks. Cow sharks about as different as you can get from the personalities of the Blue Sharks. These sharks could care less that you've come to take a look at you--they'll simply keep meandering along their way looking like smiley old men. After the shark dive, we drove a little further in the bay to reach a small island where Cape Fur Seals hang out. We dropped into the water nearby and did a quarter hour long dive with them. The seals love checking out divers in the water and will cluster around just watching, occasionally swooping in for a closer look. 

Back: Elayna, me, Derek, Braham, Noah, Johan
Front: Carlie, Sam

I love diving in kelp forests!

Cow Shark, a species of 7-gill shark

Curious Cape Fur Seal

The local seal population come to check us out.

Blue Shark Pelagic Dive

Back from Cape Town and survived without being eaten by a shark. We did two dives out of Simon's Town (about 40 minutes from Cape Town) and made other stops to see sights around Cape Point and Cape Town. Lots of pictures, so I'll put them up in bits and pieces. 

First off, the blue shark dive! We took a three hour boat ride from Simon's Town to our dive site--The Middle Of Nowhere, The Ocean. It was a long, cold boat ride. I was riding on a 9m boat with inflatable pontoons on the side so it was a comfortable ride (bounces over swells don't hurt as much), but much less sheltered than the other, larger boat. About 20 minutes into the ride, I was as wet as if I'd already jumped in the ocean. The dive site really was in the middle of nowhere. There was no land in site and we were sitting over an area of ocean that was about 700m deep. Once at the site, chumming started and, after attracting a few sharks to the area, we hopped in for the dive. The dive itself was about 40 minutes long, max depth of 25 feet, and water temperature 58 degrees F. 

Blue Sharks are amazingly curious. They'll come right up to a diver and actually get so close that you need to give them a little shove. They're absolutely beautiful little sharks. The largest we saw was just over a couple meters and the smallest was about a meter. It's easy to see how they got their name--their dorsal surface is a gorgeous shade of blue. Photos from the Cow Shark dive in a kelp forrest, penguins at Boulder's Beach, and a seal dive are coming soon!

Gearing up on the dock.

On board the "duck"

Rounding Cape Point and heading for the open ocean!

The view from the dive site.

Blue Shark

Just a shark coming in for a little closer look.

Well... got half of me and the shark!

New Plans for the Week

We're heading to Cape Town for some diving (among other things)--tomorrow! We found out at noon today that we'll be leaving at 5 am tomorrow morning. We had originally been told we'd leave either Thursday or Friday but it looks like the best weather for diving will be Thursday and Friday so, tomorrow it is! The abrupt change in departure time added some nice scrambling for packing, mall runs for necessities, and laundry but, other than that, the day was fairly normal. 

This morning I had dissection. We dissected a spiny dogfish, as we had last time, and this time I was the one actually doing the cutting. In the afternoon, I had another chum trip. The time was, like yesterday, split between chumming and towing the decoy. The sea state made things quite interesting (lots of wind so the sea was nice and choppy) but, otherwise, it was a fairly dull trip. We only saw one shark the entire 2.5 or so hours and that one was nearly underneath our boat while we were driving out to Seal Island. 

Double Chum Day

Today I ended up with two chum trips. I was scheduled for one in the afternoon already and then traded morning assignments with another intern who wasn't feeling well. Unfortunately, there is nothing exciting to report from either trip. In the morning, it rained on and off (fortunately more off than on) and we had continual 2m swell. We were also checking an "exploratory site," so called because it's a site where we don't expect to find sharks this time of year. In the afternoon, we chummed for a short while and then picked up two visiting researchers. They're doing experiments involving Great Whites and Killer Whales so we spent a couple hours towing dummy orcas behind the boat to see in any sharks would breach on them (no such luck). 

The morning chum trip.

The afternoon chum trip.

Rigging up the dummy orcas for towing.

CAW

Right before I left home, a South African friend told me that vehicles from George (a city about 40 minutes from Mossel Bay) have the letters CAW on their license plates. She said the joke is that CAW stands for Cold And Wet. Well, I can't speak for George, specifically, but Mossel Bay is definitely living up to cold and wet. We woke up to rain yesterday morning and it continued on and off (mostly on) all day. Today has only had a couple sprinkles of rain but there's been some wind and lots of clouds. 

Due to the weather, this weekend's formally scheduled activities were put on hold so we had lots of time to relax instead. Yesterday, with all the rain, we didn't really leave campus. Today, though, the weather was very nice around mid-day so a large group of us went to the beach a five minute walk from the Boland Hotel. We got a game of rugby going but, with teams consisting of one Brit, one Australian, one American girl who's played rugby in college, and nine Americans (who have very little notion of the rules of the game), who knows how much it actually resembled rugby. 

Rugby on Diaz Beach

Another intern having fun with settings I didn't know my camera had!
(I was in the game)

Braai

Braai is a South African tradition, basically a barbecue. The way you'd see campsites advertising barbecue pits or a store selling backyard barbecues, you see braais advertised in South Africa. Every Friday night, the field specialists, interns, and graduate students take the time to have a braai here on campus. It's a lengthy affair, lasting several hours and giving plenty of time for socializing while the wood burns down to coals and the food cooks. 

Watching the cooking food.

The small building on campus designated for braaiing.

Socializing while waiting for the food. 

Evening Activities

Today I was scheduled for aquarium and chumming but the weather turned nasty in the afternoon and chum was canceled. Instead, we helped clean out one of the freezers where we store bait for chum and trapping trips. Since aquarium was the same set of duties as always (feeding, cleaning, water tests) and the freezers were the most disgusting things you could possibly imagine (you never, ever, ever want to smell dead, frozen whale and the smell lingers), I'm going to tell about something I realize I've left out so far. 

Every evening there are activities that the interns can join: 

-Monday nights are movies. The movies always vary based on what people are interested in that night and what people have on their computers. 

-Tuesdays are trivia. We draw on the collective random knowledge bases of this whole group of biologists to answer questions about what cotton fabric is used to make curtains and dresses and was named after the city of Mosul, where is the only place that allows ATM transactions in Latin, and who discovered Australia. 

-Wednesday nights are bingo. Awards for winning are cake so competition is fierce. 

-Thursday nights are left open in case people want to go eat at a local restaurant that offers half price on Thursday nights. 

-Friday nights are braai. Braai is a South African term for barbeque. There is an entire small dining room on campus for braaiing and it turns into a lengthy event of food and company. I'll have to remember to get a picture of it this week and post just about that; braaiing is a big deal in South Africa and possibly even more so among the interns here. 

Mondays through Thursdays, we also have presentations from the directors or grad students about various research projects. On a couple occasions, we've also watched documentaries that Oceans has helped make. Oh, also, the updated Walls of Fame for free-diving were posted. I made both lists: 11th in static and tied at 1st for dynamic!

Trivia last night in the lecture room. My team lost by ONE POINT.

Oceans Research Dynamic Free-diving Wall of Fame

Oceans Research Static Free-diving Wall of Fame

Course Day on the Wrong Day

The weather was awful yesterday and today was supposed to be even worse. The schedule was adjusted accordingly. Today, we had course day which is normally held on Friday. We had lectures on aquarium maintenance, shark husbandry, and a basic introduction to GIS. During the lecture on sharks, we discussed tonic immobility. Tonic immobility is a state where the shark goes entirely limp, almost playing dead, in fact. It's incredibly useful for researchers or aquarists because it enables handling the shark easily without using anesthetics. Also, with many of the small sharks, putting them into tonic is as easy as turning them over for a few seconds. In a Great White, it's even easier. By simply pushing back their rostrum, they'll often go into tonic. Because of this, it's quite a simple matter to accidentally put a Great White into tonic when it bites onto the bait on the bait line. However, since tonic wears off quite quickly when the shark is out of the specific position, accidentally causing tonic for a Great White in the open water isn't a problem.

If the weather does what it's predicted to do, it should clear up tomorrow and we'll be back to our normal work. The wind had slacked off this afternoon but, since it's picking up again, I'm not particularly expecting to wake up to a brilliant sunny day. 

Stacey, Jason, and Noah watch Allan demonstrate how to put a shark
 into tonic.

A Foggy Day

It was cloudy, rainy, and windy all day long. We tried to do a survey for cetaceans in the morning but weather was so poor we ended the attempt after barely an hour. There was no way we were going to spot cetaceans in the bay with the sea state what it was. The weather was so bad, in fact, that all water based work duties were canceled. The morning chum trip came back after having barely been out and the afternoon chum trip that I was supposed to be on was not even attempted. Instead, I spent the afternoon at the aquarium. While I was there, a new baby Pajama Jacket hatched. That brings us up to five baby sharks; two Pajama Jackets and three Puff Adders. Their names are Sweetness, Katie, Wolfy, Thor, and Zeus. 

At the top of another local hotel, attempting cetacean survey.

Catherine and I identifying dolphins via dorsal fin photos
after giving up on surveying.

Baby Puff Adders--Thor and Zeus

Nick, Elayna, and Georgia admiring the newest shark.

The brand new Pajama Jacket, Katie

Cage Dive!

I spent this morning living in a documentary about cage diving and Great White Sharks. Or that’s what it felt like--as if I’d stepped into an episode of The Blue Planet. This morning’s activity was a cage dive right here in Mossel Bay. 

We went out with an outfitter called White Shark Africa. They run cage diving outings in the bay every day and we frequently see them while we’re out on chum trips. The cage is dropped into the water and then tied to the side of the boat. You climb into and out through the top and, since the cage is sitting partially out of the water, you simply hold your breath when a shark comes by and duck under water. Cue recently acquired skills in free-diving! 

Giant fish heads for bait.

It was a phenomenal day for a cage dive. The visibility in the water was around 10 m (excellent for Mossel Bay) and the water temperature was around 16 ℃. Minutes after we anchored, a shark showed up and began circling the boat, showing interest in the gigantic fish head on the bait line. It was very nice, for a change, to be able to focus on just being a tourist while watching the sharks and compete for space along the rail in search of a fantastic shot. The cage holds six people at a time. Each group of six would go in for about 15 minutes at a time to ensure that everyone had a chance to see the sharks, in case one decided to disappear and not return for a long time. The rotation of people in the cage provided an added benefit of allowing time to warm up a little between times in the cage. 

The cage

We saw three different individuals while we were out, although we only got good looks at two in the cage since the last showed up right as we were leaving. The first one actually had tags on it (satellite and acoustic) from a project Ryan ran about a year ago examining the home range of sharks that spend time in Mossel Bay. (It was also made into a miniseries documentary for NatGeo under the name Shark Men. You can also take a look at the sat. tag telemetry data here: Ocearch Global Shark Tracker).

Now, enjoy the photos and yes, I took all of them! (There's also a video at the end.)

Me, Sarah, Megan, and Elayna on the boat.

Another intern climbing into the cage.

Inside the cage

A shark investigating the cage a little closer.