As Adams phone alarm blares through the morning I struggle to remember where I am and why I am up. It all hits me in a rush Great Whites!! Carcharodon carcharias, the biggest meanest fish in the sea; and we are going to be jumping in the water with them albeit in a cage. I shake Adam awake and we stumble into the car. Some quick navigating and he passes out and I floor it as we left kind of late. 2hours and 15 min later we cruise into the one horse town of Gansbaai. We meet the tour operator, Unreal Dive Expeditions, in a little restaurant and have some breakfast. Our group is fairly varied some German tourists, some Americans and some Hells Angels. Apparently there is a big rally in Cape Town this weekend as the Angels have been everywhere. This group is sporting patches from Germany and Finland. We load onto the boat and head in the the biggest seas either Adam or I have ever been in. We have a 2 story boat and when we are in the bottom of a wave the next wave is about 10 ft above us. That means at least 30 ft seas. The crew brief us on what is going on and let us know that the rough seas may mean the captain may have to turn the boat around. More importantly it means people start getting seasick right away. I took some anti nausea medicine and Adam is just tough, but people were dropping like flies. After a 1 hr boat ride past Danger Point, we get out to Dire Island and Shark Alley, where we are going to start chumming the water. Anything you have seen on the Discovery channel about sharks breaching has been filmed here, in Shark Alley. At this point they ask if any of the seasick people (2 girls, 1 german, 1 American, and 3 Hells Angels) want to get off. Apparently for an additional $50 they will send out a smaller boat and you can end your trip early. The 2 girls and 2 guys take the smaller boat in, but all the Hells Angels stay and tough it out. We anchor and start dumping fish heads and blood into the water. At this point we take a nap expecting the call for Great Whites at any time. Waking up, we find that after 3 hours of chumming the crew has decided that there are no sharks out today, and we are headed back into shore. The mood is decidedly ugly, and we all curse nature for not sending us any sharks. When we get back to shore we dont get our money back we just get vouchers that have no expiration and are transferable. So if anyone is going to South Africa and wants to go cage diving with Great Whites let me know, I can get you a deal. Unreal Tours were top notch; the crew and boat were super nice, but when the seasons are changing I guess it can be a little hard to find the sharks.
We were super depressed heading back to Cape Town. When we meet up with Vinnie at HOH within 10 minutes he cheers us up by chugging some floor cleaner. I guess the maid put her floor cleaner in a water bottle and Vinnie thought it was some sort of flavored water. A solid hour of rolling on the floor laughing at him while he gags and spits put us into a much better mood.
We shower up and head out for a restaurant on the waterfront that Vinnie has scoped out earlier called Balthazar. This is a top notch fine dining steak and seafood restaurant with a 600 bottle wine list. They serve Karan beef and obviously super fresh seafood. Our server is right on helping us pick out a great bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from the Western Cape, and assisting Vinnie and Adam in choosing a great surf and turf of calimari, tiger prawns and a sirloin. I have the fillet and it was melt in you mouth tender. Some rice and green beans round out a superb meal, and we head back down to Long St to check out some places recommended by our server. The first place is a kind of lounge with a super sweet porch that overlooks Long St. After a couple of beers we head down the road to a more clubby type place, but here we also end up just hanging out on the porch/deck overlooking Long St. After that we tried to head to some famous club on the 13th floor of the ABSA bank building but Vinnies skate sneakers got us all neg'd at the door. Thus another night in Cape Town ended...it would have been great to seen some sharks though....Disclaimer
Ok so I found that picture from the shark cage on the internet. All we got pictures of were seasick people puking and Vinnie puking. The USB card reader adaptor I took with me wasnt compatible with Adams Fuji memory card. We took a ton of pictures and I will get them published as soon as Adam sends them to me which hopefully will be soon. I will make a separate picture post as well as go back and upload some relevant pix to each post. Im very sorry I know these stories would be way better with all the pictures. Mea Culpa
EDIT : First Round of Pictures is Up Here
No comments:
Post a Comment