Swimming with sharks

While in South Africa, I decided that I wanted to do a shark dive. You know, when they put you in a cage, chuck you overboard and then chum the seas with blood and guts to cause a feeding frenzy whilst Great Whites circle the boat.

Anyway, I made a few calls and asked around. The price had risen from R45 (about £3.80) when my brother did it 3 years ago to R1200. Now that's inflation! And apparently, there's no guarantee that you'll even see a shark. A bit harsh I thought.

So when we stopped in at the 2 Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town and they offered a chance to dive with their Raggies (Ragged Tooth Sharks) for a mere R450, I jumped at the opportunity.

I arrived at 11am in Wednesday morning. We were read the riot act (no touching the sharks or rays, no scratching the aquarium windows), signed away our lives and then kitted-up on the aquarium roof. Iain, our Scottish instructor, lead the way. He also held our only means of defense, a 2 foot long, wooden pole - "for pushing the sharks away if they get a little hungry". GREAT!

We lowered ourselves gently into the water, not wanting to upset any of the inhabitants of the aptly named "Predator Tank". Sharks tend to attack things that are on the surface, so we had to be very careful.

Soon we were finning around the bottom of the tank with the greatest of ease while Iain kept a weary eye out for Bella, the 3.5m long 'mamma' of the tank. The fish were quite inquisitive and came right up to us. We were also sucked into entertaining the humans on the other side of the 11m glass wall. People waved, blew kisses and took photos of us as we swam past them. The loggerhead turtle kept looking for food as she glided by us. The musselcracker, yellowfin tuna and leervis couldn't have cared less.

Eventually our 40 minute session was up. We slowly made our way back up to the surface, keeping an eye on the 4 raggies.

What an experience! I definitely recommend it. And your money goes to a good cause, not some cash-greedy boat owner. Remember, sharks are also on the endangered list!
Getting out of Bella's way

"Smile for the birdie!"


PS: The son of the other diver in the tank with us spent 2 days at sea with a shark cage operator and saw nothing!
PPS: Bella and her mate, Billy, are soon to be released into the Indian Ocean.

Chat soon,
DelBoy

Foto Friday

Today's photo was taken in March two years ago on my birthday. We were on holiday in Egypt.

The pic was snapped as the sun rose over the Ras Mohammed Nature Reserve at around 5am. We were getting ready to dive on the 'Yolanda' wreck.

Chat soon,
DelBoy

DelBoy on...

OK, so it's been a while since my last post (about 2 weeks!). Time for a little catch-up!

DelBoy on work: I'll start with the boring stuff. Work has been really busy since coming back from my holidays. I'm running two pubs at the moment. The second pub is a gastro pub in Holland Park - very posh! It's fun, 'cos its something very different. They do double the sales that my other pub does and they do as much food in a day as what my pub sells in a week! It's only short-term until they find another manager, but apparently I'm there for at least another 4 weeks!

DelBoy on Carnival: I had a great Carnival this year. Not the working bit or the money we made, but the after-party I had with my staff. We drank steins (1 litre) of Margarita and shots of vodka until 3am. The neighbours were having a wicked party on their balcony which we joined. The next morning I felt it though!

DelBoy on Josh: The weekend before Notting Hill Carnival, we had an incident with Josh. We rushed him to hospital, but he is 100% now. As a matter of fact, they found nothing wrong with him at all!! They can only guess at what happened, but I tell you what, IT WAS F#$£!^G SCARY!! He is great now except that he went for his injections this week which he was not too keen on.

DelBoy on holidays: Malta is great! If any of you get the chance, just do it! Its quite cheap too (well if you come from London it is). The weather was magnificent all week - minimum temperature around 26 degrees C! The food on the island is delicious and very cheap - 3 course meal for 2 people plus bottle of wine for around GBP£15. Not only are there some fantastic beaches, but there is also a lot of history on the isalnds (5 of them) if you are interested in that kind of thing. I managed to do 6 scuba dives whilst there too, including a night dive.

DelBoy on diving: Although the water temperature averaged around 26 degrees C, I was a little disappointed in what I saw under the water. The fishlife wasn't very colourful - a bit like diving in Cape Town. The plantlife was a little better. The night dive was magnificent though 'cos there were loads more fish about. The 2 wreck dives were great too 'cos the wrecks have only been down there since 23 August 2006 and they are still very intact. I would love to go back next year just to see how things have changed! The dive in Comino Caves was also beautiful if only for the magnificent colours!

That's me for now. I will post some holiday snaps soon.

Chat soon,
DelBoy

PS: DelBoy on rugby: Despite getting the wooden spoon in this year's Tri-Nations, I would just like to re-iterate my favourite saying, "You're only as good as your last game". And yes, we beat the Kiwis by one point and then the Aussies by 24 - 16!

Foto Friday

Today's photos is one of my favourite underwater photos. It features a clownfish (or anemonefish) in a sea anemone with 4 or 5 spotted damselfish swimming on the left of the picture.

These fish are actually related. And no, this is not Nemo. Nemo is a Clarke's anemonefish and this photo is of a Two-banded anemonefish.

Chat soon,
Del