shark 'diving'

hello hello.. it is saturday, the 23rd, but i wanted to put gansbaai on my little map thing on here so I had to keep it seperate. well on the 22nd I went shark 'diving'.

Shark diving or watching i should say was different to what i expected, but nonetheless cool... not much diving per say (the bubbles scare them away), but it was a beautiful day and we did see a shark which is awesome because this time of year you're not really guaranteed to see one. It was a perfect day, we could have sat out there in the washing machine of an ocean and it could have been pouring rain and miserable but it was the complete opposite, bright and sunny, blue seas, a few people were seasick but other than that it was awesome. And seeing the shark was really cool. No 'jaws' music to really put you in the mood but you sort of just see this dark shadow moving in the water, then every so often maybe a fin. Sadly because we only saw one and i was too busy gawking at it, nobody got photographs (my pictures of seagulls, cormorants and fish will have to suffice... sorry but i thought she was going to come back!) but i can tell you she was beeaaautiful. Really slick and shiny, just like a big fish but really beautiful and clean. Really a lot darker on top than I thought they would be and bright bright white below (well, from what I could see of her). But really, she was there for a split second, and then she was gone. She circled the boat about 50m out for a little while before, but when she came up she had a feel of the bait and then vanished. The other boats around us I think had more luck but I was pretty chuffed just to see one in low season and for it to have been such a nice day.

Hermanus is absolutely stunning, we went out on the boat from Gansbaai but we did stop in Hermanus to look for whales and saw a southern right whale with a calf. Pretty cool. Down here in the western cape the mountains go right up to the ocean front. It's really spectacular. The sunset on the way back is probably... no, I take that back, its hands down the best sunset I have ever seen. And that's saying alot since I live in Australia (where I think we have some of the most awesome sunsets) AND since I have been in Africa for about two months now. Yep, that one was the best, we were sort of coming down a road from the mountains and the view just opened out to this big, beautiful bay. The sky was all sorts of pastel colours, and there was a slight fog on the water and still more mountains on the other side of the bay. Really, it was something special. South Africa (or what i've seen of it, so, the western cape) is probably the most beautiful country I have seen. It's like being in a postcard!