| The White Shark Trust Field Research Assistantship is proud to introduce you to our assistants:
Anna PEZALLA (Oak Park, Illinois, USA), Benjamin WESTROPE (Wilmington, North Carolina, USA), and Richard P.A. ATKINSON (Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England). On the 3rd of March 2004, we welcomed Benjamin De RIDDER from Schotten, Belgium. Benjamin has spent the last two month volunteering for the Baboon Project in Pringle Bay. |
| On Saturday the 6th of March 2004, we managed to go to sea again. Another storm hit our coastline on Thursday morning and the sea was just way too rough to go to sea yesterday. The ocean was still unsettled today with some big SWesterly swell and a near gale force SEeasterly wind blowing some heavy wind chop our way. Opposite direction seas are not comfortable at all! We observed between 3 and 30 different White Sharks... One of those very annoying days when the Sharks just do not want to come to the surface, hence it was impossible to identify their swift bursts at the bait from deep. We probably only saw three different White Sharks. Benjamin (the one from Belgium) was unfortunately not feeling too well... |  |
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Sunday the 7th of March 2004 was a beautiful day... Flat sea and no wind...
Andy joined us on our excursion and he entertained us (and the cage diving boats anchored around Lamnidae) with his "Great White Shark" and "Poacher" songs... and he managed to attract some great Sharks! We observed six different White Sharks today! |
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| But six different White Sharks was not all the excitement today... Our third Shark was just amazing! HUGE! BEAUTIFUL! AMAZING!
Our third Shark was a 520-550 cm longt White Shark! One of the largest, if not The largest White Shark I have seen during the seven years I have been working here... She stayed around the boat for about 20 minutes and she was very curious around the boat, swimming past the boat really close... Look at the photographs below and compare the size of that Shark with the ones from the pictures above, and be amazed by the size difference! |
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| My friend Robert Cope, who works for White Shark Ecoventure, was trying to catch one of the many Yellowtails while waiting for the Sharks... and he managed to catch a beautiful and large Yellowtail, which he very generousely offered to us. What a delicious gift!!! Thank you very much Robert!!! Pictures of the braai will follow... |  |
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| What a fantastic day!!! We were all highly charged following the visit of this huge and amazing White Shark...
Today, Shark Diving Unlimited's new 40ft boat, Barracuda, arrives in Kleinbaai... Michael Rutzen and Morne Hardenberg drove the boat from Port Alfred on the East Coast where it was custom built for the company... More pictures later... |
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| And here are some larger photographs (after all, such a large White Sharks should really be displayed on large pictures) of the 520-550 cm TL (around 18 feet long) White Shark who visited us today... |
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| On Tuesday the 9th of March, we had a delicious Yellowtail braai... hmmmmm! That was really good!!! |
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