We left Cape Town and returned to the southern coast of South Africa. We had set out with the vision of visiting Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa. We arose bright and early and were on the road by 8:30 (early for us anyway). We had booked in at a B&B in a little town called Kleinbaai. For those of you that know a little German or Dutch, the name is accurate. The only restaurant in town closes at 7pm or, in our case, whenever they don't have any customers. We had to drive to the neighboring hamlet to eat, with a choice of 3 whole restaurants. Fitting then, that my best meal in South Africa came at this dinner. Line fish (fish of the day) - which happened to be Angelfish, a rarity even for those parts, with a side of prawns. Mmm.
Before dinner we had arrived about noon with the thought of relaxing a bit and then taking the 1.5 hour drive down to the Cape. Our friendly, as ever, innkeep laughed at the mention of the Cape. Why would you want to go there? It's just a spot. There's nothing to see. You go there and take a picture of you next to the sign and then head back. She then went through the various whale and shark watching excursions and of course mentioned the shark-cage diving for which the area has become famous.
Some of you may remember how excited I was before we left to climb into a shark cage and see the world's perfect (in my humble) animal. Beginning with some discussion the night before and continuing through our morning drive, I realized that shark-cage diving didn't sit well with me. It seemed artificial, forced, the opposite of what our trip had been to that point. We were visitors to the land of the animals - we weren't experiencing them locked up in a zoo. I don't object to zoos. They have great aspects and give lots of people a chance to appreciate animals who might otherwise not get a chance to so do. But this was Africa (T.I.A. man, T.I.A.) and it didn't sit well. In the end, we forsook the shark-cage diving and Cape Agulhas and settled on a whale-watching tour.
Alas, the whale-watching tour sold out before we called over. Our innkeep called around for us and after a bit we wound up having to rush into town to meet a little pontoon boat as it was disembarking. I'm a bit sad to report that one of our party (not I) was a bit put out that we didn't make the trip to Agulhas, but I'm thrilled that we made the choice as we did. In any event, sorry mate.
Our 15 seater chugged out to an island covered, quite litterally covered, in 60,000 seals. Or as our captain described it in typical tounge-in-cheek Afrikaner-style: Burger King for Sharks. When the seals are at the island (during mating season) there are dozens of Great Whites prowling below, waiting for their next meal to come swimming along. We tooled around the island for a while watching the seals (up-wind, thankfully) before trolling over to the spot where the shark-cage boats ply their trade. We floated along in their wake and watched the action. I detested this part of our trip. The boats basically fish for the sharks. They chum the waters, then they cast a dummy seal head into the water and drag it in front of the cages so that a shark attacks, then they pull it out at the last minute and let that shark swim away. It felt as dirty as the not-so-subtle reference in that sentence.
Thankfully, we cut loose from those boats and puttered over to a quieter spot by our lonesomes. The captain cut the engine and his son stomped on the bottom of the boat. Great Whites, I'm told, are by nature curious creatures, and in this spot of the Indian Ocean they have no predators or natural enemies. Sensing a low vibration in the water, they swim over to see what it's all about. After approximately 30 seconds of stomping, the first Great White swam up to our boat and had a look about.
I should take a moment to describe our boat a little further. It was about 25 feet long, flat bottomed, inflated rubber on the sides and some sort of cement / metal mix on the bottom. There were 6 chairs bolted to the cement, a bench-seat for 3-4 at the back (where I sat, with the captains son and his girlfriend), and a stearing-wheel. The sides and back of the boat rose, perhaps, 18 inches from above the water and about 2 feet from the cement bottom. Each chair had a metal handle on the top and one on the back.
We saw 5 sharks as they came up to have a look. The largest of them was approx. 20 feet long. Each swam in figure-eights under the boat, having a look at us from a few angles. Each of them came within a few inches of the surface, with the big-guy breaching inches from us and dipping under the boat at the last moment. Standing up, holding onto the back of a chair, and leaning over the side I was able to watch the sharks doing their thing from less than a couple of feet away. I thought about trying to touch one, but refrained in the end.
My highlight was watching the sharks disappear, not beneath the boat but straight down into the water, and then, moments later, come back up again out of the shadows. Sublime. Stunning. The way they use the refraction of the light in the water to hide from eyes above the surface. Eerie.
I should add that the Indian Ocean was not calm. A storm was headed in from the South. They had cancelled all of the boat trips for the following day just before we departed. The boat rocked up and down on the waves as we watched the sharks, and as I moved left to right and back again along the back of the boat, tracking them as they swam, I had an awareness of how easy it would be to fall in, right on top of the shark. Shiver. Just sublime.
Don't worry mom, the captain told us beforehand that if you fell in the sharks would be more afraid of you than you were of them and would swim away giving the crew time to pull you up...
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