Jaws
You know how I was whining in my last journal entry about how I thought I'd come to Brisbane prematurely and how that wasn't the best of ideas? Yeah, well, I was completely wrong about that. Like the seemingly endless bits of odd luck I've had here in Australia, where I thought one thing was a bad idea, it actually ended up being a blessing.
I've spent the better part of my time here in Brisbane with my most ultra generous friend Andrew. But prior to freeloading in his living room I spent a couple of nights in a hostel. In the two days I'd stayed in that hostel I'd hung out with two girls I was sharing the room with: Andrea from Spain and Jocelyn from Canada. At one point I'm swapping travel stories with Jocelyn and she tells me she's going to be doing a Great White Shark cage dive sometime in December. I think to myself "Holy Cow, that is awesome, I've thought about doing one of these before, why in the world did I let it fall by the wayside?" She tells me about this company called Calypso that does *relatively* inexpensive one day tours out of Adelaide (city on the south central coast of Australia) and that I should look into them if I really want to do a dive. Good idea. I called up Calypso under the complete impression I'd be told "No, we're booked solid until well after you've left Australia" but was instead told "We've got October 14th, 17th, and several other days open". Holy cow. This may actually work. I get the details, figure out some dates, do a bit of planning, and before I knew it I was off to Adelaide. I spent about two days wandering Adelaide aimlessly before I caught a brief (although ridiculously overpriced) 45 minute westward flight from Adelaide to Port Lincoln, where the boat shoves off from.
I spent one night in a local hotel (as in pub downstairs, rooms upstairs), met at the docks at 6:30am, did a hi and hello among participants and crew, and boarded. How could I describe the boat? Um, I can't, just look at the Facebook photos. It wasn't big, it wasn't small, but it comfortably housed about 16 participants and 5 crew. We traveled south for nearly two and a half hours before we arrived at a cluster of islands inhabited by seemingly nothing else other than birds and seals. The engine was cut, the cage thrown in, and a safety briefing commenced. Basically, don't be a dumbass when you're in the water and keep your hands and legs INSIDE the cage at all times. Dually noted. However there was one considerable and justified concern with everyone onboard and it wasn't about being in the water with the sharks. It was about being in the water and not seeing a shark at all. Simply put, their wild animals and can do pretty much whatever they want, whenever they want. And if that includes not showing up at all, that's their decision. Luckily, for our party, this wasn't the case at all. Two crew members proceeded to douse the water with fish blood and massive chunks of frozen tuna suspended by large Styrofoam balls strung along rope lines off the back of the boat. FYI, this is known as "chumming" the water. Sure enough, within about 20 minutes, one Great White was spotted within yards of our boat.
"Alright, who's in the first group?" our captain asked. My hand shot up, I hastily threw my wetsuit on, and proceeded to lower myself over the back end of the boat into the cage.
I have to be honest, the cage wasn't the most comfortable of places to be in but I'll never forget staring at the profile of that shark the first time it gracefully passed by our cage, maybe two yards away from me. It's so surreal, it's like you don't even comprehend what you're looking at. And while I was in total awe of this creature I didn't feel scared at any time. I suppose if it had rammed the cage (or broken through the bars) my feelings may have quickly changed, but that wasn't the case at all. Besides, I was most focused on just looking for them as they would do one circle around the cage, pass on by, and then disappear into the vibrant blue water.
My only real fear was getting seasick. When I was on the boat, no problem. Once I got into that cage though and was at the mercy of the choppy water, different story. After about 15 minutes of being knocked around by the water, and the cage, my stomach decided the lite breakfast I'd so cautiously eaten was not welcome. So up I came, and up it went. Just to clarify something real quick, the cage isn't completely submerged and you're only about 4 feet underwater. So coming up for a quick breath of fresh air, or to puke in my case, is easily accomplished. I recomposed myself, put the regulator back in, and went back down. The shark passed us about 4 times in total and while the first couple of times it was a slow, inquisitive swim around the perimeter of the cage, it's demeanor changed very quickly when approaching a cross section of tuna, thoughtfully placed right next to the cage by our crew on board. Once the shark is within a foot or two of the tuna it's massive gums explode out of it's mouth to reveal a set of teeth I wouldn't want to be anywhere near in open water. The tuna chunk, roughly the size of a human head, is swallowed within one or two gulps. Comforting, eh?
I spent about a total of about 35 minutes in the cage with the shark, eventually popped on out, and watched the remaining 4 groups go in one after another. While being in the water with them was amazing to say the least the view from the deck was quite good as well. Since the cage and food were all near the top of the water, the sharks remained within easy viewing range. A little too visible sometimes as one of them came bursting out of the water at one point, literally flying towards the back of the boat. No joke, another two feet and this thing's head would have been on the back of our boat's platform. I'm still kicking myself for not having the camera rolling at that moment.
All in all I think we had a good five or six hours of "shark time". We saw a total of six sharks in that period, but never more than two at a time.
Saying something like "I had an amazing time" is trite at best when trying to describe an experience like this. It's like my brain it still swirling it around, trying to comprehend exactly what I'd done and recollect every little detail. Two things I do know though: I loved this, and will be doing it again at some point in my life.
I've got a decent bit of video footage but considering it takes an insane amount of time to upload videos onto YouTube, and I'm sick of paying for overpriced internet, viewing may have to wait until I get home. Until then, check out the Facebook stuff. All the photos you see taken from the boat I took and the most excellent underwater stuff was taken by one of the crew members.
I've spent the better part of my time here in Brisbane with my most ultra generous friend Andrew. But prior to freeloading in his living room I spent a couple of nights in a hostel. In the two days I'd stayed in that hostel I'd hung out with two girls I was sharing the room with: Andrea from Spain and Jocelyn from Canada. At one point I'm swapping travel stories with Jocelyn and she tells me she's going to be doing a Great White Shark cage dive sometime in December. I think to myself "Holy Cow, that is awesome, I've thought about doing one of these before, why in the world did I let it fall by the wayside?" She tells me about this company called Calypso that does *relatively* inexpensive one day tours out of Adelaide (city on the south central coast of Australia) and that I should look into them if I really want to do a dive. Good idea. I called up Calypso under the complete impression I'd be told "No, we're booked solid until well after you've left Australia" but was instead told "We've got October 14th, 17th, and several other days open". Holy cow. This may actually work. I get the details, figure out some dates, do a bit of planning, and before I knew it I was off to Adelaide. I spent about two days wandering Adelaide aimlessly before I caught a brief (although ridiculously overpriced) 45 minute westward flight from Adelaide to Port Lincoln, where the boat shoves off from.
I spent one night in a local hotel (as in pub downstairs, rooms upstairs), met at the docks at 6:30am, did a hi and hello among participants and crew, and boarded. How could I describe the boat? Um, I can't, just look at the Facebook photos. It wasn't big, it wasn't small, but it comfortably housed about 16 participants and 5 crew. We traveled south for nearly two and a half hours before we arrived at a cluster of islands inhabited by seemingly nothing else other than birds and seals. The engine was cut, the cage thrown in, and a safety briefing commenced. Basically, don't be a dumbass when you're in the water and keep your hands and legs INSIDE the cage at all times. Dually noted. However there was one considerable and justified concern with everyone onboard and it wasn't about being in the water with the sharks. It was about being in the water and not seeing a shark at all. Simply put, their wild animals and can do pretty much whatever they want, whenever they want. And if that includes not showing up at all, that's their decision. Luckily, for our party, this wasn't the case at all. Two crew members proceeded to douse the water with fish blood and massive chunks of frozen tuna suspended by large Styrofoam balls strung along rope lines off the back of the boat. FYI, this is known as "chumming" the water. Sure enough, within about 20 minutes, one Great White was spotted within yards of our boat.
"Alright, who's in the first group?" our captain asked. My hand shot up, I hastily threw my wetsuit on, and proceeded to lower myself over the back end of the boat into the cage.
I have to be honest, the cage wasn't the most comfortable of places to be in but I'll never forget staring at the profile of that shark the first time it gracefully passed by our cage, maybe two yards away from me. It's so surreal, it's like you don't even comprehend what you're looking at. And while I was in total awe of this creature I didn't feel scared at any time. I suppose if it had rammed the cage (or broken through the bars) my feelings may have quickly changed, but that wasn't the case at all. Besides, I was most focused on just looking for them as they would do one circle around the cage, pass on by, and then disappear into the vibrant blue water.
My only real fear was getting seasick. When I was on the boat, no problem. Once I got into that cage though and was at the mercy of the choppy water, different story. After about 15 minutes of being knocked around by the water, and the cage, my stomach decided the lite breakfast I'd so cautiously eaten was not welcome. So up I came, and up it went. Just to clarify something real quick, the cage isn't completely submerged and you're only about 4 feet underwater. So coming up for a quick breath of fresh air, or to puke in my case, is easily accomplished. I recomposed myself, put the regulator back in, and went back down. The shark passed us about 4 times in total and while the first couple of times it was a slow, inquisitive swim around the perimeter of the cage, it's demeanor changed very quickly when approaching a cross section of tuna, thoughtfully placed right next to the cage by our crew on board. Once the shark is within a foot or two of the tuna it's massive gums explode out of it's mouth to reveal a set of teeth I wouldn't want to be anywhere near in open water. The tuna chunk, roughly the size of a human head, is swallowed within one or two gulps. Comforting, eh?
I spent about a total of about 35 minutes in the cage with the shark, eventually popped on out, and watched the remaining 4 groups go in one after another. While being in the water with them was amazing to say the least the view from the deck was quite good as well. Since the cage and food were all near the top of the water, the sharks remained within easy viewing range. A little too visible sometimes as one of them came bursting out of the water at one point, literally flying towards the back of the boat. No joke, another two feet and this thing's head would have been on the back of our boat's platform. I'm still kicking myself for not having the camera rolling at that moment.
All in all I think we had a good five or six hours of "shark time". We saw a total of six sharks in that period, but never more than two at a time.
Saying something like "I had an amazing time" is trite at best when trying to describe an experience like this. It's like my brain it still swirling it around, trying to comprehend exactly what I'd done and recollect every little detail. Two things I do know though: I loved this, and will be doing it again at some point in my life.
I've got a decent bit of video footage but considering it takes an insane amount of time to upload videos onto YouTube, and I'm sick of paying for overpriced internet, viewing may have to wait until I get home. Until then, check out the Facebook stuff. All the photos you see taken from the boat I took and the most excellent underwater stuff was taken by one of the crew members.