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Becky Bravo's Adventures
So, the day started at 4:30am when I woke up to get ready. Our shuttle came at 5:30am and it was about a 2 and a half hour drive to where we were gonna be cage diving. There were 6 people from SAS altogether with our group. We got to the place, it was this little house on the water and it was so beautiful. They had breakfast all ready for us, and we were able eat and wake up. Most of the people slept on the way there, but I rode shotgun so I stayed awake the whole time. After we ate, we paid and got on the boat. It was a 36 foot catamaran. It took about 20 minutes to the place where we viewed the sharks. There were 3 people with us explaining what we were going to do and how they attract the sharks. They put a bunch of tuna, like a "chum slick" in the water and threw big fish heads out on a line. They also had this wood figure shaped like a penguin kind of to float on the water so it looked like something was on top of the water so the sharks would smell the fish, then come to the surface. A couple times, they actually caught a baby shark. They were so cute! We were able to touch them, and you could put your finger in its mouth, and it didn't even have any teeth, so it couldn't hurt you. While we were in the cage once, one of the crew threw a baby shark in at us and scared the **** out of us. It is funny now, but we didn't think so back in the cage. Once everything was settled, it took about a half hour until the first shark came up. It was so cool. They were right by our boat. The crew would use the decoy to make the shark jump out of the water, and once they knew the shark was going to hang around, they put us in the wetsuits, and explained how the cage diving would work. I liked being in the wetsuit, I had never worn one before, and I felt like Catwoman. ;) They put weight belts around us, and we just had a face mask, no snorkel or air tube or anything. So what would happen is that we would all be cage with our heads out of the water, and when the shark would come by they would yell "down, down down!" and we'd take a breath and go down and be able to see the sharks. We had to hook our feet under this bar and hang on to a hand bar to keep us down. But holy cow, seeing the shark so close is indescribable. It was scary, but actually just more cool than scary. The shark would swim by and try and catch the bait and the crew would move it so it would swim by and kind of wriggle and it would go right our cage and would hit it with its fin or side of its body. It was so heavy! I did scream under water a couple times, I will admit. I was the very first one in the cage on the far right. And it felt like the shark was by me a lot. But this one time it swam by, I kid you not, it swam right at me and was inches from my face. It was swimming right towards me, facing me, and its nose even went in the cage a little. I swear it like stared me down. It was insane. It was only for like a second or two, but dude. I was face to face with a Great White Shark. (And all you people who were worried about me, everything was fine. The shark - who me and my group named Sparky - couldn't have cared less that we were there. And even when it was swimming towards me and touched the cage, it just swam away. I never felt like I was in danger. The people really knew what they were doing.) I know I have said this about like everything in Africa so far, but this was amazing. It was beyond words really. I was so glad I decided to do it. And it was so cheap! It was $165 US dollars for the shuttle ride to and from the location, breakfast, lunch, and all the gear. So worth it. They could have charged me triple that and I still would have done it. Altogether we saw about 9 different Great Whites, the largest being 3.5 meters. There was only one swimming around while we were in the cage though. We were done with everything at just after noon, so we ate lunch and headed back to Cape Town. Ellie, Ally and I did a little shopping, but I went to bed super early because I hadn't gotten much sleep since we arrived in Africa. Our day didn't start til 8:30 the next morning, and that felt like sleeping in at this point. But again, my next blog will tell you about that, which I will post in the next couple of days. I have got to get to bed because it is 12:30 am, I have 3 classes tomorrow, and have done no homework for them. Yuck.
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Michael Melilli Come home! Sharks rock! And so do Buffy nights...where the hell are you? :)