(Retro- blogging) (Cape Town Part 2 - see here for Part 1)

On our second morning of the Cape Town trip, we woke up to find the ocean still beating away at the rocks on the coastline there in Gansbaai. Ate a hurried breakfast of leftover pizza (we had, in our infinite wisdom, saw fit to order that in addition to dinner, the night before), and then hopped into our swim gear, warm clothes over that, and off for the boat.

(It should be noted that I didn't really take one good digital picture from the boat at all, because I was either a) in the water with the waterproof camera or b) capturing everything on video from the observation deck.)

After a brief morning briefing, we loaded our plump tourist torsos onto the ship of death, and off we chugged into the surf. 15 minutes later we were a few hundred yards off the coast, albeit on the far side of the sweeping bay. You could hear the surf crashing in the distance, and there were 2-3 other boats in view, all preparing to do what we were preparing to do. The water was green and inviting - didn't look very cold at all (it wasn't).


After they maneuvered the steel cage into the water and secured it next to the boat, the portly captain gave us his final warning speech on the particulars of getting in and out, and when he got to his question of who wanted to go first, Brian and I already had our hands in the air. So we wet-suited up, grabbed some goggles, strapped weights on, and hopped in the cage. They were chumming the water all the while, and once we were in a largish (say about the size of a nerf football) chunk of tuna was tossed out, on the end of a rope with a small bouy to keep it afloat. It hovered there just below the surface, maybe 15 feet in front of the cage with 4 sacks of human meat encased in neoprene in it.

About 1/4th of the cage is above water the whole time, and they tell you to keep your head above water so that you can hear them shout at you when to go down, if they see the shark coming. Screw that, I had my face under the water the second I was in there. I tried to keep one ear above water for the most part, to hear when they did shout, but for the first few minutes I was busy swimming around the bottom of the cage, trying to see something before anyone else.


Which I did, go me. An 20' long 2,000 lb. beast from the depths, swimming non- chalantly about 15 feet under the tuna, acting like it wasn't really interested. It just kind of faded into the green haze, and then, just as I was going up for air BAM, out of nowhere she comes flying up at a 45 degree angle, honed in on the tuna. Chomp. Gone.


That was the nature of our sightings for the next few hours. You'd see them poking around from time to time, checking out the boat, the cage, the tuna, but you'd rarely see them just before they went for it. Most times they'd just come straight up from the bottom, engulf the tuna in their massive jaws (most of which had roughly 16,000 massive razor teeth), and then they were gone, as quick as they came.


After seeing at least 2 or 3 of them take multiple tuna samplings, we got out so that the next group could go in, and went up to the observation deck to take pictures / video. We went in again later in the morning, and although we didn't see as much, we did get our closest exposure, when one kind of came at the cage as it struggled to get the tuna off the line. They thrash their massive tails around and it causes a lot of bubbles/foam, but 2000 lbs. of shark muscle is hard to miss when its right next to you. So I decided to give it a little love tap, and stuck my stupid hand outside the cage to touch it, on the top of the tail, just behind and down a little bit from the dorsal fin. I'm pretty sure it didn't notice. I still have my hand.


All in all we probably saw 12-15 different sharks, most of them multiple times. Its hard to tell exactly, they look a lot a like when all you see is a flash of grey and then enough teeth to tear a cow in two.


So then we packed it in and headed back for dry land, which is safe, and where you have much more chance of seeing death by massive creature coming for you, which is rather comforting. Like the penguins, for instance, which we stopped to see, and more unfortunately smell. Except they are not massive, and they do not want to eat you. Well, they might, but they're clearly not well organized enough to be much of a threat.


We drove off to Franshoeck, one of the 2 main wine countries outside of Cape Town, and found our B&B. After unloading, we sauntered around the town a bit and then found a nice bar/restaurant that opened onto a kind of enclosed square in the artsy little shopping area. They had a massive screen put up for the rugby qualifiers so we watched that, accompanied by many beers and plates of not-very-good-for-us food.


The next morning we hit a few of the wineries, the first of which, although it was signed like a winery, in the middle of a massive vineyard, and looked for all intents and purposes like a winery, was actually a private residence on the side of the valley with an incredible view from the portico between what apparently was the house and the big building that was certainly not a winery. Maybe it was a library. Who knows. Anyway the guy, looking like a guy our age who had just woken up on a Saturday morning, politely informed us we were mistaken, but let us take some pictures of his view.


Then we went to some real wineries, the best of which was Cabriere, which I hope to get back to. They have a Pinot Noir Blanc (not a red) that was incredible, but it may have just been because it was the last one I tasted. The old dude who showed us around was pretty funny and closed his act by inviting pretty girls on stage to help him open bubbly bottles with a sabre, the old fashioned way. Their reward for success (or failure, for that matter), was a kiss from Mr. Lech.


Back to Cape Town. Found our hotel downtown, checked in, took off for Table Mountain, climbed it - about a 3 hour climb but we were hoofing it a lot faster than that. Great views of the city from the top, then on the way down in the cable car I brilliantly recorded over some of my shark footage. Idiot.


That night we headed out to Long Street with Jenny, who was also in town. Billiards, Mexican dinner, more billiards, then copious amounts of late night dancing.

Sunday after packing everything up we hit the waterfront for some light shopping and lunch before heading back to the airport. Met some other US / UK consultants in the airport headed back to JNB as well, Brian and Jenny got to know them better over the next month or so, but I was a little busy for follow-up at the time.


The best part about Cape Town was the sharks, hands down. I won't say its the best part of my time in Africa so far, because there's been a lot of incredible things, but seeing those things up close vaulted right up there next to skydiving, for me. It made you feel your humanity, it reminded me that I am just food, albeit with a soul. But the shark neither knows nor cares about the second part.

(Retro- blogging) (Cape Town Part 1)

The weekend after Madikwe, Brian and I took off for Cape Town. I mis-booked my flight originally for a day later, so I had a minor fiasco at the airport securing a flight on another airline (SAA was less-than-not-very-helpful, thank you less-than-not-very-much). Then that other airline did something I was simply shocked by. I was near the front of the queue to board, since I was very early for that flight, seeing as I had arrived thinking I would be on another flight. So I was one of the lucky 30 people they asked to switch to another airplane (as this one was overbooked), "departing Joburg and arriving Cape Town" at the exact same time (right, like they have parallel runways here like its O'hare or something, I later realized). So I say "sure, why not" and they move 30 of us to the gate right next door. And then they board the other flight, the one I was originally on. And they don't board us. And they don't tell us anything. And our departure time comes and goes, and still they tell us nothing. A couple hours later they finally board us and fly us to CT, without so much as an apology from anyone. They lied to my face. Worst customer service experience ever.

But, the trip was not to be darkened by that nightmare. We got into Cape Town and drove to our first hotel on the waterfront in Simon's Town, near where we would go on a shark-breach viewing cruise early the next morning. Except the next morning I couldn't drag Brian out of his bed, even after pouring water on him (that pissed him right off!). So I drove to the docks alone, in the dark. Met up with the other folk there for the cruise and then met our boat operators, and then we were off. It was about a 20 minute ride out to Seal Island.

Seal Island is pretty much the only place in the entire world that you can go and watch the great whites actually breach (read: jump fully out of the water). Its due to the nature of the shallow waters around the island, the color on the bottom of the sea floor and the color of the sharks themselves, and the sheer numbers of endless seals that like to use this island when they're not off swimming around the world. There's anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand seals coming in from or going back out to sea from the island on a given day.

The way the sharks work is that they come straight from underneath their prey, and when they hit it (usually swimming along the surface), they are propelled by their momentum into the air, where they hang for a brief second before disappearing to the deep again, hopefully with a blubbery little snack in their maw.

I didn't really get many pictures of this trip because I was working the video camera more than anything, as there's a much better chance of catching a breaching on video than on the digital cam. I did get one breaching on tape, albeit far off, but it was truly awesome to see, as you can hear in the video when I start freaking out about it (when I get some time off at home this month, I'll try to get clips up on youtube).

We did a little trolling around the island with our fake carpet seal behind us but didn't get much response there, nor to the chum in the water later - had a couple big ones come by briefly but none that stayed around, so no one bothered going in the cage. After that we poked around the bay and saw some whales, and then back to port. Brian had woken up and did a later-departing whale-watching cruise, so I waited for him to get back and then we kind of off-handedly decided to drive down and see Cape Point.



The park was pretty interesting, I'd like to go back and spend a little more time at the beaches there some time. The point itself is actually pretty hilly, so once you leave your car in the parking lot and dodge a few baboons there, you start either the hike up or can take a tram half the way. We opted for the tram, for time's sake, which was a good idea - there's still a pretty significant hike out towards the point from the top of the tram. So yeah - this is me, at the end of the earth.





























We hiked back down (all the way), saw some more baboons, and then drove out of the park, stopping for Mr. Turtle, who was leisurely crossing the street. It was cool to see so many cars casually stopped for him, like this was what you did here, I wish I could have gotten a shot of the scene.


















Upon picking up our gear back at the hotel, we were off to Gansbaai - it was a beautiful couple of hours drive down there, mostly along the the water, although not with a clear view of it the whole time. Coming through one mountain pass, I was zipping along at probably 140kms and BAM there goes a baboon shooting across the road like a bullet. We missed him by no more than a meter. It was just like in the states where you almost hit a deer, except it was a freakin baboon - yep, you're in Africa.


We arrived late afternoon in Gansbaai, to another hotel on the waterfront, dropped off our stuff and headed into town to get some internet, so I could send off my status report for work, and then find dinner at a local bar/restaurant joint where we were clearly the only sore thumbs in the place. The food was terrible and we were smart enough to get a pizza to help tide us over back at the hotel. When we got back we decided to trek down onto the rocks by the water in the dark, and no sooner had we got out there than we saw a couple of sets of headlights careening around the bay towards us. Turned out to be local cops trying to catch poachers (of what we didn't find out), but they looked pretty relieved to see two stupid tourists with a small flashlight, and we were relieved to see them relieved. Hung out on the rocks a little after that, then back to the hotel, for night 2 of going to sleep to the sound of waves crashing, which is pretty much the second best thing ever.

The first best thing ever would happen the next morning, and that will be Cape Town, part deux.