On the 10th of February 2004, we welcomed the following Field Research Assistants to the White Shark Trust:

Anna PEZALLA from Oak Park Illinois, USA

Benjamin WESTROPE from Wilmington, North Carolina, USA

and

Richard P.A. ATKINSON from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England

Chris MILNES (Grantham, Lincolnshire, England) is still with us and has been a comeback guest of the program since the end of December 2003, following his assistantship from September through November 2003.

Adam SANDERSON (Beckenham, Kent, England) joined us again for a few days after his trip along the Garden Route.
I came back from New York and Switzerland with the flue... and the first couple of days after our new assistants arrived, the weather was quite bad with a lot of rain. Finally, on Friday the 13th of February 2004, we managed to go to sea again after nearly a month break. Stan (Shark Diving Unlimited) anchored next to us for a while, and Morne gave us some good photos...
At first the sky was overcast, but the weather soon turned out to be a beautiful day... We observed three White Sharks on this first day at Dyer Island, after nearly six months of field work in Holbaai. Three very active and large Sharks! This was definitely a great day to start with, and everyone was excited (including the seasick guys: Adam, Ben and Richard)!
On Saturday the 14th of February, Valentine's Day, unfortunately, the Sharks seemed to have their own dates somewhere else... We only observed one Shark for a couple of minutes. Strong contrast compared to yesterday's fantastic day! We even had some drizzle cooling the general bored atmosphere... Cannot get lucky everyday I guess!