Last Few Days

We're down to the last week in South Africa. Actually, we're practically half-way through that last week and I think it's something everyone's trying to avoid thinking about. Beginning of the month seemed like I would be here forever. Ok, not forever, but another month was seeming long. But this month has gone by incredibly quickly. So, savoring the last few encounters with the sharks and trying to figure out which clothes I don't mind throwing away so those can be the ones that get fishy and then left behind. 

We've been trying to find a shark with an acoustic tag so we can track but, so far, we haven't had great success. On Saturday morning, towards the end of our seal survey shift, we stuck the hydrophone in the water and heard signals from two sharks however, in the last two days, the tracking crews haven't been able to find them again. We'll give it one more go tomorrow and will possibly tag a new shark if we can't find one of the old ones. So far, I've been scheduled for middle of the night tracking shifts (which, of course, haven't been happening) so I've been doing normal work routines--chumming, aquarium, fishing, you know the drill by now. 

Chumming!

Yesterday's chum trip. We lost the buoy... A shark bit the rope and we watched our nice yellow buoy float off. Johan and Jackie pulling up the anchor to go fetch the buoy which is somewhere roughly where the arrow's pointing.