We  continued to work in the Joubert’s Dam area for the earlier part of March, getting good shark activity, but as we edge closer to the winter season we have started to move over to areas in and around shark alley. The seals on Geyser rock, a colony comprising of somewhere between 50 to 60,000  Cape fur seals have just finished their breeding season and the seal pups are just starting to get to grips with entering the water.

The highlight for this month has to be the 4.5m female shark that we were lucky enough to see on the 10^th of March. The weather wasn’t great, it was foggy and overcast but as soon as this beautiful female arrived she put a huge smile on everybody’s face and silenced the majority of us on board. A very quiet “wow” was all that most of us could muster. It is truly breathtaking to see sharks of this size, it isn’t the length of the shark that stands out it is the sheer depth and girth of the animal, it is truly amazing. Sadly due to the fact the majority of our larger sharks have been fished out for their jaws (which still retail on the black market for between $50-100,000) or their fins (100-200 million sharks are killed each year to end up in shark fin soup) it is a sight that we don’t see often enough. She arrived from the depths breaking the surface with her huge dorsal fin and behaved as most of our sharks do in a calm and inquisitive manner, coming in close to the cage to allow those inside it to observe her in awe! We were lucky enough to see her again a few days later again in Joubert’s Dam and two of our white shark project volunteers were lucky enough to cage dive with her! She has not been seen since, let’s hope she can avoid every hook and net in the ocean and get to breeding size >5m.

As we have moved over to the island so have a number of sharks that we have been seeing during the summer months at Joubert’s dam. For example:

 Mickey (2.5m Male) - the shark described in Februarys shark activity has moved across and continues to be as feisty as ever!

Compass-(2.0 Male) who has a mark that looks like a compass on his left flank- Thanks to Julia our videographer for naming him!!

Jagger (3.0m Male) Incredibly distinct dorsal fin the tip looks like a curved can opener and on the left side of the dorsal there is what looks like a letter “T” inside a circle.

Mini-Notch-(2.5m Female) Again very distinct dorsal fin with a triangular notch missing from the top of the trailing edge of its dorsal fin.

We were also lucky enough to have two days were the visibility was in excess of 15m, the water was blue meaning that the usual diatoms (phytoplankton) had been flushed out of the area. This resulted in the cage divers being able to see the rocky sea floor over at the Geldsteen area near the island. On days like this the clients were sometimes able to see sharks before the crew often helping us out by coming to the surface and making comments such as “she’s coming under the boat”, or “There are 3 of them circling on the bottom”. From the cage it was also possible to observe much smaller bottom dwelling catsharks and other various species of fish that were moving through the reef system.

Another highlight of this month has been the fact that on a number of occasions as we have been lucky enough to encounter South African common dolphins. On the 28^th as we were leaving the harbour a group of +/- 50 dolphins were porpoising right across the harbour mouth! As we moved slowly out the pod came within 3m of the boat giving everybody on board the chance to get some beautiful photos and observe these animals closely. This was the start of a very good trip. Thanks to our skipper who has 10 years experience we were able to anchor in a good spot and chum over Geldsteen. Within 15 minutes we had our first shark a 2.8 m male. We were able to observe 5 sharks in total, of sizes ranging from 2.6m-3.2m. After the trip was finished we were able to make a pass through shark alley to observe (and smell!) the seal colony on Geyser rock. The large male bull seals are still present dominating the landscape. It never ceases to amaze me the underwater agility and acrobatics that mature seals have at their disposal, they change direction so quickly it is no wonder the white shark has evolved its hunting tactics to utilise an ambush strategy.