DAY 5 – Friday – 9/7/16 – Free day in Cape Town – Shark Diving and Whale Watching
Jean and Whanger’s driver came for them before ours, so Louisa and I hung around the hotel anticipating our excursion. Our driver was right on time in a small 8-10 seat van. There were already six people aboard. Nobody really said anything to anybody else, except a girl up front with the driver, who chatted with him the whole way. It was going to be a 2-1/2 hour drive at least, but we went through some interesting and beautiful surroundings.
On the way out of Cape Town we encountered miles and miles of Langa Township, the closest to Cape Town. These are crudely built homes, cheek to jowl in a concentrated area. Most often, the residents of townships do not own the land on which their houses are built. In effect, these houses are built illegally. Construction is informal and unregulated by the government. This results in a lack of access to basic services such as sewerage, electricity, roads and clean water, which adversely affects residents’ quality of life. It was a sad sight, even though a lot of the structures were very brightly colored and there were satellite dishes on many of the houses – a truly paradoxical sight.
After we had gotten out of Cape Town good, we enountered more beautiful mountainous terrain. We had driven for a little over an hour when our driver told us he was going to make a pit stop at a place that had great bathrooms, a cafe and food/wine shop. If I recall correctly, it was called The Red Tractor something-or-other. There were several red tractors about the place that underscored the name. It was very clean, modern looking in a rustic way, and filled with either tourists or savvy locals. There was a bakery and coffee shop that was doing a booming business. The 
market featured gourmet foods and fine African wines. They also sported an array of patés from Impala to Zebra and Wildebeest to Osctrich Liver, Crocodile and Kudu. It was wild.
We loaded back up into the van and continued our trek toward Hermanus and Van Dyk Bay, where the shark diving was located. On the way through a small town, the driver pulled over to the side of the road and a guy hopped in. It was a seamless move, and was accomplished in about 30 seconds. Good planning on both of their parts. The new rider was in the van for about 30 minutes, then the driver whipped over into a parking lot and he jumped out. As we neared the Bay, the driver stopped at a penguin rescue and rehab center for bathroom break and a quick view of the operation. There were several of the birds in an outdoor enclosure, some in various stages of injury. It was nice, and an indication of how dedicated these people were to the wildlife and balance of nature.
Our shark cage dive was being run by Marine Dynamics, a fantastic company whose top priority was conservation and protection of the sharks. They were housed in a wood frame lodge-like building a couple of blocks from the bay, where our boat awaited us. We all checked in at the desk and they evaulated us for the size our wet suits were going to be. I told them to give me the biggest one they had. The lady at the desk assured me I’d get one.
After initial check-in they told us to go upstairs to the loft room for a light lunch and orientation – live and on video. There was no way I was gonna eat anything before having to squeeze into a wet suit. Besides, I was still a tiny bit apprehensive about the whole thing. Louisa and I were by far the oldest people in the group. The others looked like adventurous, athletic types. Uh oh. During the orientation, the lady in charge told us that there was a chance we wouldn’t see any sharks. The group in the morning hadn’t seen anything. Of course we understood that it wasn’t like Disney World, and that we were at the whim of the sharks themselves. She also told us that the previous season a couple of orcas had entered the bay and eaten a lot of the sharks, and that they were either apprehensive and staying away or simply not there in great enough numbers.
Before long, a couple of the staff came upstairs lugging duffel bags containing our wet suits. The youngsters immediately set to putting theirs on. Some of the girls went downstairs to dress, and some stayed up in the loft with the guys. I was able to get my shoes on and the legs filled easily enough. Then it was time to stretch the thing over my gigantic torso. Hoo boy. That was hard has hell. By the time I finally wriggled into it, I was puffing like a marathon runner. No matter how much I tried and sucked in, I couldn’t get the thing zipped in the front. I didn’t have the strength to operate the zipper properly. I finally asked for help from a young guy, who obliged cheerfully. He didn’t seem at all impressed that he had just clothed a genuine behemoth in an impossible wetsuit. Yeah, it was zipped up, but it felt like it was constricting my lungs, and I had to slowly breathe deeply to get everything working and avoid a panic attack.
I was one of the last to finish dressing, of course, and after gingerly descending the stairs, got in line to get my raincoat. Putting that on was also a hilarious looking process. I never could get it completely on, and Louisa had to help me complete the move. We then set off on the two block trek to the boat. All the movement had somehow made my wet suit more comfortable, and breathing became much easier. Stage one complete.
We boarded the boat near the end of the group, and by the time we got there all the seats were taken. I didn’t really fancy standing up the whole time holding my camera in the light rain on a boat crashing through the waves in the bay. The lead lady mentioned that we could sit anywhere, even on the side or up top. Louisa and I decided to climb a few steps and sit on the side. I was a little nervous about balance on the wildly undulating boat, but we managed to get up there and sit down. The seagulls were going apeshit circling the boat. They made for some great pictures.
Pretty soon it started raining harder, so we headed back down to get under cover. People had begun to move around, so we found a couple of places to sit. There were all kinds of crew members on the boat, and a couple of really
pretty young girls from London who were there just as volunteers. They immediately took Louisa and me under their wings – offering us hot chocolate, hot tea, snacks, towels and anything else we would possibly need. I felt really loved and relaxed. By this time the chum master had begun chumming in earnest off the back of the boat, and they readied the cage for deployment. There had been no sharks in the water at that time, but they decided to get started anyway.
The procedure was simple. The 8 people going into the cage at the time lined up. One of the crew members took goggles out of disinfectant and put them on the divers. They then stepped across the edge of the boat backwards and down into the cage. There were no snorkels, so the only way to view underwater was to get a great big breath and then submerge, using one of the bars to hold yourself under. Each group stayed in the cage about 15 minutes, then they put another group in.
The first group didn’t see anything. The chum-master kept chumming and they continued to throw a line out with a big fish head on it. They also had a line with a brown wood cutout attached to it. It looked kinda like a gingerbread man, but it was supposed to look like a seal sitting on top of the water. It was our turn to get in the cage. The procedure was smoothly accomplished and I was the third one in. Louisa was last, and on the left side of the cage. After several minutes, we heard boisterous excitement coming from the boat. A shark had been sighted around the boat! We continued to go down to see if she would come to the cage, and finally she did. The swam right toward Louisa, then turned left to swim the length of the cage. I saw her just as she turned to swim back out into the bay. It was like we had accomplished the moon landing. Everybody was pumped. She came back around, and I was above the water just in time to see her breach. It was pretty thrilling.
We were like rock stars when we got back on board. Our volunteer girls were more solicitous than ever. Louisa was freezing and got into a ball with a volunteer-provided blanket over her. I was just glad that my wet suit hadn’t split open. My feet were cold, but that’s about it. There wasn’t a lot of room for water to get in the suit.
One more group went into the cage, but they didn’t see a great white. I believe they got a glimpse of a copper shark. The crew was super excited about our spotting, and indicated that it was a huge success. I thought it was, too. They raised the cage and we readied for the trip back to shore.
When we got off the boat, we immediately saw Jean and Whanger’s van and driver. Jean managed to get a couple of really flattering pictures of Louisa and me both as we headed back to headquarters. I was booking it, not wanting to be last. I wasn’t. There was soup and bread
in the orientation loft waiting for us. I shed my wet suit as fast as I could and sat down. Jean and Whanger had joined us up there just in time to see the obligatory video of the excursion that was for sale. We declined and enjoyed a cup of the soup.
We found our van driver waiting for us when we left the place. Jean and Whanger told us about their whale watching adventures and how many whales they saw. It was raining at Bientang’s, so they had to put plastic up to keep the food and diners dry. It hampered their viewing from the restaurant, but Jean reported that they actually saw a bunch of whales on the watch and saw more at Bientang’s before the rains came. They bought lunch for the driver, a really nice fellow who had grown up in a township and made it to college and success in life. He was very knowledgeable about history of the area, the landscape, and the complex social structure and problems in South Africa.
Whanger wanted him to take the scenic route back to the hotel, so we ponied up the extra money and took a beautiful drive through mountainous terrain and seashores galore. When the sun set, we were in a beautiful area overlooking the sea and got several gorgeous shots.
It was full night when we arrived at the hotel and we were hungry. We didn’t really feel like going out anywhere, so we ended up eating at the hotel in the bar. The food was serviceable and filled the bill quite nicely. After sitting around a little in the lobby it was time to retire to the room and assemble our stuff for the flight to Durban the next day. Of course we tried to second guess the luggage weights and shuffled things back and forth until we had no idea what was in which piece of luggage.
By this time, we had enlisted the Baggalini as another carry-on item, giving us four hefty pieces that had to go under the seat or in the overhead bin. Paranoia strikes deep when it involves luggage weight and shifting shit around at the airport.
Our luggage had to be by our hotel door at 6:30 the next morning in order to have it loaded on the bus taking us to the airport for our flight to Durban.