Shark Chronicles 065- We love you Pasella

Working with Oceans here in Mossel Bay is an amazing experience. We are currently a group of four interns, Rodney, Rachel, Jethro and myself, Nick. I flew directly from my cold country to the warm and more attractive climate of South Africa. I have only been here for two weeks and I already made a lot of wonderful experiences.

On my very first day I had the opportunity to assist to a shark dissection performed by Enrico Gennari for school kids. Enrico is one of our Directors and a friend of Michael Scholl, which is the person who told me about Oceans in the first place. (Thank you Michael)

Apart from that, Rachel, Rodney, Jedi and I have been working quite a lot at the aquarium. We got a little Smooth-hound shark a couple of weeks ago and Adam is really taking good care of her. Adam is a great guy, he is so involved with the aquarium. He is usually spending most of his time down there trying to fix the pumps or what ever else goes wrong. He also saved a lost pinguin a few days ago. This little guy probably wanted to be an explorer or something, who knows. At least he is safe know. And so is our lovely Smooth-hound shark.

Another highlight of my time here was the first time I caught sight of the most impressive and probably beautiful creature I have ever met before, the Great White. These creatures are breath taking and they really inspire you respect. The other day, Rodney was on the bait rope while Jedi, Rach and I were on data and pictures. We were all talking together and enjoying this unique moment when a great white suddenly emerged from nowhere and slapped our boat with its caudal fin. That was a little remainder so we keep in mind that we are actually studying one of the most efficient apex predators ever. These animals are just perfect.

The shark you can see on the article’s photo is called Pasella and she’s a real warrior. She got these huge scars on her body and she is also incredibly smart.

As you can see we have a lot of work but being here is also a lot of fun. And waking up at 6 o’clock in the morning to go out at sea is not really a burden. Everyone is just really nice and I met a lot of really cool people.