Shark Chronicles 060 - A day at sea to remember

On October 1, 2009 a new, green lot of interns arrived at Mossel Bay eager to get to work. Wasting no time, the program leaders got us out on the boat and down to business, chumming for sharks around Seal Island.

Unfortunately, we hit a fluke (no pun intended) dry spell, and after several voyages without any shark sightings, the crew, led by our fearless skipper Ryan, decided to find where the elusive great white sharks of Mossel Bay were hanging out. On October 6 we shot by Seal Island and slowly cruised down the beach, just outside of the surf line, searching for resting sharks. It didn’t take long to sight our first shark. Despite seeing it for just seconds, all of us were excited, and kept motoring down the beach looking for more. It didn’t take long—first one, then another, and soon we had spotted five. Success! Pleased with our results, we dropped anchor and got down to chumming the waters, with each intern taking up his or her position--Matt took chumming, Jeremy jumped on the bait line, Tasha was on the camera, Andy was the data man, and our skipper Ryan went up to the crow’s nest to spot incoming sharks.

Within minutes Ryan was calling out a shark sighting to our port side at 9 o’clock. It circled briefly about 6 meters off, and then came in to check out the bait line. In the distance a dark shadow began to materialize. Within seconds the shadow took the form of a great white shark and then, less than a meter away, a beautiful three meter great white shark gracefully crossed our stern and made a glance at the bait. Everyone on the boat was grinning ear to ear, but this moment was pretty special for Jeremy and Andy as this was the first great white they had ever seen in real life. For the next four hours the excitement continued as one shark after another came up to the boat and took their shots at the bait. Several times two to three sharks were circling the boat, trading off disappearing into the deep only to elegantly resurface showing off their power and beauty.

Could a day have been more perfect? No wind, calm seas, good visibility, warm weather, and abundant sea life. All in all, we saw 16 great whites; 11 approached the boat and five were spotted en route to our chumming area. And, if that was not enough, half a dozen southern right whales and a handful of dolphins had cruised by. For all the almost-no-longer-green interns on board, that was a day that we will never forget.

Jeremy Frimond - OCEANS Research Mossel Bay intern

Shark Chronicles 059 - Different fauna

During the beginning of the week two of us went at sea with Simon Elwin and Ryan Johnson, to make a whale survey offshore. During this trip we met some whales, a huge pod of dolphins, one lost penguin and a lovely sunfish chilling close to the Point. Being among dolphins, seeing them jumping here and there, is an amazing sensation and we had a fantastic day.

In contrast of this, the number of sharks met during the chumming trips has decreased compared to the previous weeks. This could be due to the weather conditions, the behaviour of the swell, the water temperature, or other reasons. Fortunately, there are currently a lot of whales in the area, and we can see many of them breaching in the bay.

We all are waiting for the big sharks to come back!

Sylvain Haldimann – White shark research intern

Shark Chronicles 053 - Cold seal survey

Nights on seal survey are amazingly interesting (counting seals, creating bioluminescence, watching Enrico do charades, looking out for sharks, and wondering if the southern hemisphere is ever going to get its seasons right). Nights on seal survey are amazingly cold, too. And having people forget to bring sleeping bags certainly does not help.

In spite of the cold, the latest seal survey was thoroughly enjoyable as the sea was calm and there was much to see. As expected, there were several groups of seals leaving the island in a hurry and heading for the sea in order to forage (or do whatever seals get up to after sunset). Their speeding through the sea, bobbing in and out of sight does make counting them rather difficult, but as one of the other interns put it: just imagine that every time you leave your house to go grab some food, a group of huge monsters is going to be sitting right next to your front door, desperate to take a big bite off you. Small surprise these seals are pretty fast.

As the first shift of seal survey was drawing to a close (as was the supply of crackers and the interns’ capability of staying awake much longer), a Southern Right Whale showed up right next to the boat, inspecting it with what probably was something akin to interest. Worried that the whale might decide on taking a closer look at the funny creatures seated within, knock the boat over in the process, and potentially hurt itself, everyone started hitting the motors since whales are known to be very sensitive to noise. The whale disappeared beneath the waves and was not seen again that night. A much smaller whale, however, was lingering near the harbor later the same night.

It might have been yet another seal though. A rather big one.

On more shark related news, some of the bigger sharks seem to have returned to Mossel Bay by now! We hope to start tagging as soon as the southern hemisphere has finally succeeded in getting its seasons right, which is to say as soon as weather conditions are good enough to find a sufficiently large shark.

Elisa Schaum - Oceans intern