Sunday, September 15, 2013

Shark news - 15 Sep

15 Sep. 13

There is a whale shark in the bottom left of the pic with swimmers chasing hard. A rare light wind day at the beginning of the season.

Well, my turn to fly turned out to be pretty good, even if the winds were very strong. Both days yielded plenty sharks - Friday afternoon we spotted 11 individuals – but like I said the down side was the strong winds which made for very rough seas limiting the boat to access the shark infested waters. (He he, that does sound pretty sinister doesn't it? “Shark infested waters…” ;)
Our basic daily routine is a survey flight in the morning – collecting data on all sorts of things and of course where the sharks are. After the flight a decision is made; do we run the boats for a shark encounter trip or not? This season we have an abundance of sharks but rather ironically the winds have been playing havoc with the sea conditions – open water conditions for inexperienced tourists being rather on the rough side. Most days have been tottering on the just doable scale of things and David has had to do some tough calls – sometimes getting it right but rather frustratingly on other occasions the encounter trip cancelled while the weather suddenly turns peachy, like on Friday afternoon, contrary to weather forecasts. Jo and I spotted 11 sharks while the boat remained in the bay. We find solace in that we are only human – we can’t predict the future and at least decisions were made erring on the safe side.
Dirks is up flying again. Conditions are strong. Def not for the faint hearted but I believe the boat went out and they had something like 19 encounters. No doubt a couple of very weary divers are going to have a good night’s sleep tonight.
Wish you were here!

:)
Dirks first flight after a two year lay-off. We are heading out over Beau-Vallon bay with a large threatening cloud near the island. I had to accompany him in the back seat to make sure he did not get lost! ;) 

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