Guest comment: “Such a great experience. Professional, knowledgable and a pleasure to be around. Thanks!” – Mark + Wendy
“An experience of a lifetime, great staff!” – Mark + Susan
“Shark-rrific!” – Eric
29/11/2016
Location: Joubertsdam
Water Temperature: 15.6’C + 15.9’C + 16.2’C
Depth: 10.0m + 10.0m + 10.0m
Visibility: 0.5m + 0.5m + 0.5m
Number of Sharks: 3 + 4 + 6
Conditions: Medium swell and wind decreasing as the day proceeded.
Trip 1
The White shark is one of those species that people travel the world to see, an elusive, wild animal that can sometimes demand patience and this is exactly what we experienced this morning. The first group of visitors waited, hoping to catch a glimpse and after just over an hour the first shark was sighted, an estimated 4.0m female appeared! This wasn’t the end and whilst activity was slow this morning with sharks coming and going, two other White sharks were also spotted during the trip. The second shark to arrive was another female, easily recognisable by the fact she is missing the upper lobe of the caudal fin or tail. We have been seeing this shark for the past couple of days and whilst the missing tail tip is obvious it has healed amazingly and she still moves through the water as gracefully as any other White shark. The sharks of this trip were finished off with a very clean 3.0m animal coming by for a visit.
Trip 2
The second trip got off to a slow start as well with a shark spotted soon after we arrived however it disappeared and we had close to a half an hour wait for the second one to show up, but it was worth the wait with “Pieter” a male just over 3.0m in length coming into view. This shark is one of our Iconic sharks and for good reason, in December 2015 he was tagged with a continuous acoustic trasmitter, was biopsied and was also the first shark spotted by Marine Dynamics after a 21 day period of no shark activity during January of this year. We were also graced with the presence of a female similar in size to “Pieter” and then “Paisley” a female White shark tagged the same day as “Pieter” but with an R-coded tag that is still attached and hopefully transmitting to our listening stations when she visits the bay.
Trip 3
The third and final trip of the day was off to a fantastic start with a shark spotted almost instantly, an average sized female that came and went throughout the entire trip. The next shark to arrive was the largest of the day measuring in at an approximate 4.0m was “Nala”, a shark seen in the bay for the last 4-6 weeks. The activity really started to heat up after this with the arrival of “Mini Rosie” and “Pieter” who turned out to be the most fascinating sharks of the trip, providing some truly awe-inspiring views! The sightings slowed down at this point and we had a little bit of a wait during our third and final cage before sharks reappeared, the good news is though that they did with a new addition of the female missing the tail tip reappearing.
