I left Agulhas for
Gansbaai to do the only thing Gansbaai is known for- shark cage diving. I
thought Mossel Bay was lame, but it’s Disneyland compared to Gansbaai. It was
pretty bleak, not even a beach. The hostel I was staying at, Gansbaai
Backpackers (R150/night in a dorm), seemed really disorganized- they didn’t
answer my emails, the owner was only there for a few minutes, and the people
actually there, the cleaning women, didn’t seem to know much. But the owner
booked a shark cage dive for me and the dreadlock sisters staying in my dorm.
They were two girls, one Australian and one English, traveling around working
at equestrian places. They had no car, so they loaded up all their stuff into
my tiny rental and we all went to the boat launch site a short drive from the
hostel. The dive cost around R1000, and I think it would have been pretty easy
to book it ourselves, as there are about 8 companies that operate in the same
place.
The boat. Before they put it in the water, of course
We had breakfast at
the office, then got on the boat. On our way out, we saw some whales in the
bay. We got our wetsuits on and waited for our turn to get in the cage. But
before we could do that, we had to find and attract the sharks toward the boat.
There was a lot of waiting around as the deckhands chummed the water with fishy chunks.
It took so long because there was very little wind or current to carry the
scent of the chum beyond our boat. Unless the shark swims directly through the
scent, it can’t detect it, so we moved the boat to a few different spots to try
to find the sharkies. We finally found some, and you could see them pretty well
from the top deck of the boat. Soon enough it was my turn to get in the cage. The
wetsuits were very necessary, because the water was absolutely freezing. There
was a guy with a fish head on a rope throwing it toward the shark trying to get
it to come close to the cage. When it did get close, he yelled, “Down, down!”
and we put our heads underwater to get some better views. The water had pretty
bad visibility, so it was like you saw nothing at all or a shark right in front
of you. It seemed like it was all over pretty quickly, and we got out of the
cage and back on the boat. It was totally worth it, though, and the boat rides
out and back also added to the fun.
Getting ready with the fish head
Here sharkie sharkie
The dreadlock
sisters got some other transportation to Cape Town, and I went to Hermanus, a
very short drive westward. Hermanus was so much lovelier and brighter than grim
Gansbaai. A lot of people stay there and just get some transport to Gansbaai
to go diving, then come back. Maybe I should have done that instead. I arrived
at Hermanus Backpackers (R160/night for a dorm) where, once again, I found
Vacation Friend George. This would make the third place we coincided. The day was spent just
killing some time wandering around town, and Hermanus was a great wandering town
indeed. There were lots of shops and restaurants, as well as lots of art and
paths along the shoreline with great views, and a few little spots to climb
among rocks to just watch the waves crash into them.
Somehow I also ran into a penguin sanctuary on the way out of the dive site
There are penguins somewhere in this photo...
Art in Hermanus
Sitting on the rocks
Hellooo
Beautiful views of the mountains right up next to the ocean
As
George was also going to Cape Town the next day, I convinced him to keep me
company in the car and drive with me to Cape Town. He was going to take the Baz
Bus, but he would have had to leave late in the afternoon and get into Cape
Town even later, so he opted to come with me instead. Hooray for not being
alone in my car for once! Read the next post to hear about my adventures in
Cape Town, which quickly became my favorite place in South Africa.
Good morning, how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because through them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately, it is impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are very small countries with very few population, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this, I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Lesotho? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Lesotho in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Avenida Juan de la Cierva, 44
28902 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally, I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez