Gondwana Game Reserve

Back: Derek, Natasha, Georgia
Middle: Elayna, me, Stacey
Front: Anna, Jon-Michael

Another weekend of outings. Today, I went with a group of interns to Gondwana Game Reserve. The reserve encompasses 11000 hectares and is a free-roaming game reserve, meaning the animals are entirely loose within the grounds of the reserve. In other words, the predatory animals are in with all the other animals and can hunt at will. 

We got to the reserve around noon, after visiting another smaller reserve in the morning (I hadn't attended the activity at that location). We were first served a light, buffet style lunch in one of the camps/hotels that are located within the reserve. After eating, we went out for the game drive. We saw a nice assortment of antelope, giraffe, zebra, and elephants but, unfortunately, no lions or cheetahs. 

One of the hotels within Gondwana

Lunch in the reserve

Elayna, Stacey, and I on the game drive

Bull African Elephant

Burchell's Zebra

The elephant comes over to investigate our vehicle.

Hippo

Driving through the reserve

Impala

South African Giraffe

No Need to Breathe

Today the free-diving class went over to a pool to practice our skills in the water. We spent a total of four hours in the water, with the first two spent on static apnea and the next two spent on dynamic. 

For a few definitions, in case you're wondering about anything. Breathing-up is the process you go through right before a breath-hold attempt in order to fill your body with as much oxygen as possible without hyperventilating. Hyperventilating, in this case, can lead to other issues. Once you're holding your breath, at some point you begin getting contractions. These are the signal from your body that you've reached a certain level of carbon dioxide in your system. Normally, this is when you take a breath. When free-diving, however, you've filled your body with oxygen during the breathe-up so the first contractions can simply be used as a marker--an indication that you're about a third of the way through your dive. You learn to recognize the increasing frequency and severity of contractions as an indication for how far you are into your dive and, consequently, how much longer you can safely hold your breath.

It felt very different to me to simply sit there underwater and hold your breath. In some ways it's easier--you know for certain you can't and won't cheat--but in some ways it almost feels harder. As the contractions to breathe become worse, it's easy to start worrying that you're going to accidentally inhale a bunch of water. The added stress, of course, does nothing to help your breath-hold time. I was only able to make it to 3:16 minutes today. I was pleased to note, however, that 1 minute is now a breeze (I can do it without bothering to breath-up) and I really don't start getting contractions until around 2 minutes. 

Working in buddy teams during static apnea. The
buddy simply double checks that the other person
is ok and can help if something starts going wrong.

Katelyn (back) and Stacey (front) breathing-up before a breath-hold.

Dynamic apnea I found much easier today than static. I think it was because I could easily see how far I was along the pool by gauging off the lines on the bottom. The tile decoration had broad, blue stripes approximately every five meters--very helpful! Jason, Sarah, and I were able to make it to around 75 meters. (In case you aren't too familiar with how far that is, for comparison, an Olympic pool is 50 meters.) For Sarah and I, that's a new record for female Oceans interns! 

Another intern practicing the recommended stroke for dynamic

Georgia (front) and Jon-Michael (back) completely focused
during their breathe-up before a dynamic attempt.

Trapping an Octopus

An absolutely beautiful day in Mossel Bay. It was sunny and clear all day with just enough wind to keep it from being too hot while dressed in waterproof pants for the boat. 

This morning I had an assignment new to me: trapping. This is part of a tag-and-release project to get a better idea of the population of benthic sharks in the area. While the Great Whites, of course, have been studied here for years, no one really has a good idea of what the population of smaller sharks looks like. We deployed traps with a small baggie of bait in the middle and pulled them up about half an hour later to check them. The first three that we pulled up had nothing but the fourth had something in it. We trapped an octopus! Currently, she's been installed at the aquarium, but she might actually be large enough that she'll be released fairly soon. 

Setting up the traps on the dock
(Natalie, one of the field specialists, left; Emily, another intern, tying the bait to the trap.)

Emily and I getting ready to drop a trap

The octopus we caught

MacGyver-ing a carrying container for the escape artist octopus

This afternoon was another chum trip. This time, my job was to actually chum. Even standing up to my ankles in fish guts all afternoon, I can't really think of a much nicer way to be spending a Thursday in October. I mean, the alternatives like Biochem tests and studying for World Music just don't really compare. We saw a total of 6 individual sharks, though only two gave any decent attempt at going for the bait. At the end, however, we tried towing a dummy seal (2D seal shaped piece of carpet) behind the boat. It's not the season in which Great Whites are usually breaching but the field specialist who was skippering indulged us interns. We got one! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture. One of the two photo interns on board, though, did! 

Heading towards our chum site at Seal Island with two photo interns on board

Good game while chumming: send the fish racing back and forth by dropping the
chum at different spots in the water.

Looks yummy, right?

Dragging the dummy seal behind the boat.

Quite literally, moments after I took this photo, the shark did a full breach.

Just another average day

Three Minute Breath Hold

Last night, we began a free-diving course. The course is covering both static and dynamic apnea which is basically a fancy way of saying it's covering holding your breath when you're holding still (static) and when you're moving (dynamic). 

The session last night was lecture, covering things like techniques to use, safety--recognizing potential signs of loss of motor control (LMC) and blackout (BO), the gear used in free-diving (slightly different than scuba because you want very lightweight, flexible gear), and various disciplines within free-diving. 

Tonight's session was practicing both static and dynamic apnea but both on dry land. We would lie on the ground, breath-up (breathe slowly and carefully building up to holding your breath), and then test to see how long we could last. Right at the get go, using just what I'd heard about last night, I lasted far over a minute longer than I anticipated with a breath-hold of 2:16 minutes. We did two more static breath-holds after that and I made it up to 3:24 minutes. Finally, we walked around the room while holding our breathe to try our hand at dynamic apnea. This time I got 2:52 minutes. 

I'm excited to get in the pool on Friday! Ryan, one of our instructors and one of the Oceans directors, says people generally improve about 10% once they're in the water and I'm aiming for at least 4 minutes!

Aquarium and Chumming

Yesterday was an easy day. I had recreation time in the morning (I didn't have to work) and in the afternoon, I helped with a shark dissection. We dissect sharks that have died (usually small ones) to help compile a database about sharks in the area (measurements, weights, tissue samples) but more on that another time when I have some pictures to accompany it. 

Today, I was at the aquarium in the morning and on the chum boat in the afternoon. It's been cold and windy all day and, while we were out on the boat, clouds rolled in to cover what portion of the sky was not already overcast, and it started to rain. 

A baby Pajama Jacket in the aquarium.

Getting ready to feed the baby sharks. Catherine, one of my roommates, is grinning down in the corner. Georgia apparently missed the memo that we were taking a picture.

Cleaning up the boat in the rain after chumming.

Rinsing the boat, bait bucket, and motors.

World's Highest Bungy Jump and a Cheetah Walk

I can sum up yesterday's activities in two pictures: 

However, I'm sure you want to know a little more, so here goes. Yesterday, a group of interns took an outing to the Bloukrans Bridge bungy jump and Tenikwa Wildlife Center. 

Bloukrans Bridge has the world's highest bungy jump--219 meters (718 feet). It was terrifying. Very fun, but very terrifying. I absolutely refused to watch anyone going off ahead of me (fortunately I was only the second jumper) and made sure I didn't look straight down for fear I'd lose my nerve. Nevertheless, the scream I let out as I went off the bridge was, reportedly, impressively long and loud. 

Tenikwa Wildlife Center serves two purposes. First, they have a hospital/rehabilitation center where injured animals can be brought, treated, and released back to the wild. Second, they keep a number of cats which are used for educational purposes, primarily in outreach programs to schools in an effort to educate children about more effective and less population damaging methods of dealing with the animals which can pose threats to livestock. One program offered to the public, though, is the opportunity to accompany the cheetahs on their morning or afternoon walk.

Bloukran's Bridge. Right there in the center is where the bungy jump launches from.

Not entirely sure why I want to jump off that thing...

Jon-Michael and I, the two interns from our group jumping

Attaching the ankle straps. 

What you can't quite see here is the death grip my other hand had on the railing.

Bungy!

Recovery- getting back on the bridge

Jon-Michael, Megan, myself, and Georgia with the male cheetah we walked

Walking the cheetah

Course Day

Yesterday was a "course day" for the new interns. We had two main lectures to attend and, split into two groups, attended one in the morning and one in the afternoon. 

My first session was about using photos to identify individual Great Whites. Photos provide a non-invasive method of tracking individuals. You simply take a photo of the dorsal fin of each shark and compare it to previous photos. I say simply, but it is actually a fairly tough job to get a good picture of the dorsal fin out of the water, at the right angle, and close enough that the notches on the trailing edge of the fin (the easiest identification marks) are clearly visible. In fact, the main job of the bait handler is to use the bait to maneuver the shark into a position where the photographer can get just such a shot. Yesterday, however, was all about what is done with the photos after they're taken. 

We use Lightroom to sort the photos. Each photo is given a 1-5 star rating based on clarity, orientation of the fin (perpendicular or at another angle and curved or rigid), protrusion (how much the fin is out of the water), exposure of the shot, and composition (how closely the fin was photographed, if things were in the way of the shot, etc). We then narrow down our selection of photos to those which were rated 3 stars or higher. These are then edited to improve what exposure and clarity issues we can, without distorting the color variations that can be used as further identifications, of course. Once the best left and right view of the dorsal fin have been selected, the photos are assigned a sequence of keywords based on the appearance of the dorsal fin as well as other data recorded during the original observation; things like whether the shark is male or female and whether they have significant portions of any fins missing or deformed. All this means that, when a new photo comes in, you can narrow down your selection of photos for comparison so that you can determine if a new photo is a new shark entirely or one you already have on record. 

The afternoon's session was about fishing. In addition to free-diving to collect sharks, we fish for them with rods and reels or hand lines from shore or boats. Braham, a young Oceans employee who works in the aquarium, taught us about the techniques we'll use when fishing for the sharks--everything from tying knots to setting up the line to making good bait presentations. My knowledge of fishing technique and jargon has increased 100-fold since I woke up yesterday morning. We'll see how well I do when it comes to a practical application!