01/10/09:

Rene made another appearance today exploding from the water almost every time she made an approach at the bait. I can just imagine this shark hunting around the seal colonies, the poor little seals don’t stand a chance, the sheer power and ferocity of these arial attacks is astonishing.     

02/10/09:

This shark is about 2.8 metres long and called Nibbles. I have struggled to name her for such a long period of time as it was difficult to assign her a name. The large black, arked bite wounds on her back are the first indicator that Nibbles is around the boat. This juvenile female was initially observed last year in the winter months around Dyer Island. She also made many appearances throughout the summer and winter just gone and is now back in shore. She does not come to the boat every single trip or even every week but does come around enough to suggest that she is either staying around the Gansbaai area long term or moving to other close by areas such as Struisbaai or Buffeljags to take advantage of the fish running through the bay.

03/10/09:

Kimbo was originally observed at a size of 2.3 metres on the 28/11/2008. Our first observations were made in the summer grounds known as Joubert’s Dam. The right hand side of the dorsal has a ‘√’ shaped pigmentation blemish and the left hand side has a small heart shaped pigmentation blemish. Situated just anterior to the dorsal on the left hand side there was a large +/- 20 cm long, +/-3 cm deep cut. Over November and December we were able to track the healing of this cut which was astonishingly quick. Read more: Healing powers of the Great white shark. Kimbo had become very familiar with the cage diving vessel and appeared to learn and adapt her strategy over time. We are therefore recording all behaviours around the vessel to investigate cognition, memory and learning capabilities. Over the last year I believe Kimbo has grown into the offshore island population.  She moved to the island from the inshore nursery ground and remained there till the end of the winter season into September 2009. It will be very interesting to see whether this particular individual moves back down into the nursery grounds for the summer. Since November 2008 this juvenile shark has increased in length by 20 cm.

04/10/09:

Today was a very good day at sea having 8 different sharks ranging between 2 & 3 metres. These small individuals are amazing little predators even at this size. They come out of nowhere and fully breech on the bait. We had great activity on both tours today with nearly double figures of sharks observed on both the morning and afternoon trips. The sharks have been very active at the surface recently with a lot of seemingly random breeches observed. If the water temperature stays up around 14-15˚C we can expect some very exciting behaviour in the next few weeks to come. 

Morning trip to Joubert's Dam, very calm weather, but very foggy with total cloud cover.  Seven sharks made an appearance, most of them only making one or two passes, whereas one shark, a resight from yesterday afternoon, Nibs was particularly active.  Nibs made repeated, but unsuccessful attempts at the bait, however showed interest in the props for the second day in succession.  All other sharks, apparently, don’t do Sunday mornings.

We also had some kelp gulls fishing around the boat today which is quite a rare site. One gull swooped down on the schooling mullet that congregate around the boat to eat the chum. The gull snagged a mullet and flew off with it half way down its throat. The rest of the girls continued to harass the gull in mid flight until it regurgitated the fish. The poor fish fell a good 30 foot and was then bombarded by 3 very hungry gulls from the air. I don’t think the fish made it somehow!

05/10/09:

Morning trip to Joubert's Dam, absolutely no wind at the beginning and also very unsettled current. We had to wait about an hour and half for first shark to come. He appeared when the wind picked up and then we saw about 8 different sharks total. The second shark, 3m female, visited the boat on 15 separate occasions. She was missing the tip of her caudal fin which made her very easy to identify. As the wind picked up the sharks

became more active and swam quite quickly and apart from the shark 6 they appeared only once or twice each. Two of them Ike and NotNibbs were re-sights.

At the very beginning hag fish and box jelly fish were spotted around the chumline. Later on also a southern right whale was seen spy hopping and smacking its flippers against the water – it was moving south-east.

Pm:

Afternoon trip to Joubert's Dam again, wind was quite strong and it increased from 15km/h at the beginning to 21km/h later. The sharks appeared immediately when we arrived. We have seen 6 different ones, but the second shark appeared 28 separate times and he had very well distinguished white mark at the left side of the dorsal fin. He thrashed against the cage and he come very closed to consuming the bait. We also saw a random breech at about 200m east.

06/10/09:

Initially as we headed out it seemed a calm day but as the day wore on the North Westerly wind picked up meaning there was only one outing for the day due to worsening conditions. On the journey to anchor point we stopped to observe a southern right whale pass. The visibility was not good from the outset meaning it was difficult to make accurate identifications of all sharks spotted. Ten definite sharks were recorded with some noticeably more active, resulting with the bait being replaced on three separate occasions. The sizes ranged from 2.1m – 3.5m, two being spotted at 3.5m.

07/10/09 - 09/10/09 - NO TRIPS TO SEA

10/10/09:

A slightly rough outing this morning. A southern right whale was spotted on the way to the anchor point. The visibility was disappointing resulting in only 5 different sharks being recorded. However, one of these sharks was particularly active. She was spotted on 17 separate occasions, making a bait attempt on 13 of those, also accidentally bumping nose first into the cage on 1 of those attempts. Despite her efforts, she failed to take the bait on any occasion.

11/10/09:

The sea was fairly rough this morning with big swells. It started raining after we anchored up and continued all through the trip. 9 sharks were recorded today ranging from 2m to 3.2m. There were several low angle breeches by Nibbles, shark 7 and Ike. No matter how hard we held on to the baitline, Ike managed to take the bait twice in the space of 3 minutes.

12/10/09

Those on this morning excursion to Joubert’s Dam were rewarded with choppy seas, 18 kph winds and rain.  Luckily the sharks were not put off by the weather, with four approaching the boat during the trip.  The first, a re-sight previously named Ropey made several bait attempts before the arrival of Ike, who made another appearance today.  Ike became the main presence of the morning, making energetic bait attempts on the vast majority of her 12 passes, and succeeding in 5 of them.  The remaining two sharks were only seen once each in lulls between Ike’s activity.

13/10/09

Morning outing to Joubert’s Dam. We were lucky to have pleasant weather, with slight swells and a few clouds. On the way out we saw two Southern Right Whales breaching in the distance. Our first shark came 17 minutes after arrival, and reappeared five times within the hour. Most of our sharks reappeared multiple times, with Ike in particular attempting to take the bait repeatedly. The shark that may have been Kimbo showed up nine times, attempting to take the bait almost every time. The eighth shark we saw was 3.5 meters in length, but only appeared twice and its sex is still unknown.

14/10/09

This morning was a great day to be at sea.  Fine weather, and a slight swell made the trip very pleasant, and nobody got sick, which is always nice.  The wind took a while to decide which direction to blow from, but eventually settled for a light westerly breeze.  Seven sharks were sighted over the course of the trip, but most only made a max of 5 passes.  However, the fifth shark, 2.6-metre female, made 24 passes in just under an hour and a half.  She did not succeed in attaining the bait in any of her 12 attempts, even though most of them were very swift and graceful displays, making turns just at the surface, often very close to the boat.