Okay, people! You've waited long enough! Let's see some sharks!
First, we have to start at the beginning (I know, I'm torturing you! Sorry).
Day 1
We took a flight from Melbourne to Adelaide and from Adelaide to Port Lincoln. I think these pics are of Adelaide (hey, we've taken a lot of flights lately and they all run together):
We met up with our good buddy from Costa Rica, Mike, at the Adelaide airport and flew to Port Lincoln together. Okay, he's not actually from Costa Rica, that's just where we met him (he's Canadian, eh). Here we are getting off the tiny plane:
Ignore my weird, squinty eyes, the sun was killer and my sunglasses were deep in my backpack.
We stayed at Adventure Backpackers Hostel (it's associated with the cage-diving company we used, Adventure Bay Charters):
Aaron made friends with the hostel cat:
We made a bunch of friends on the shuttle from the airport to our hostel (because everyone staying in that hostel is going cage diving with that same company) and it turns out we were all going diving the next day, together! So, we unpacked, showered and went to dinner together:
It was so much fun! The air was electric with all our hopes and dreams of seeing sharks tomorrow. Claire (the blonde sitting next to me) looked at few different websites and found out there hadn't been any sightings the last week, so we were all nervous we came all the way out here for nothing. There are NO guarantees of seeing anything and if you don't, you only get a $100 refund, so we were all pretty freaked. Fortunately for me, I'm never too nervous to eat, so Aaron, Mike and I shared some kangaroo:
Roquette (usually spelled "rocket") is just arugula. They call it rocket in every country we've been to and it took me forever to figure out what it was (I wasn't bout to order no rocket).
Sorry this last picture was an afterthought and looks gross, but I wanted you to see the inside. It tasted similar to beef, but a bit more tender. Yum!
Then we had some drinks and hung out a few hours until it was time for bed. We walked back to the hostel around 10pm (we have to wake up early!) and fell asleep.
Day 2
We woke up at 5:30, got dressed and went across the street to a tiny store where they made the best egg sandwiches ever! We just gobbled them up! Bright and early!
We boarded the van and it took us to the harbor. Here's our boat:
We boarded the van and it took us to the harbor. Here's our boat:
The Shark Warrior!
What's different about Adventure Bay Charters is that they don't use chum or fish to attract the sharks, they use sound and vibration (basically lots of AC/DC):
I had to look this up on their website, but they're considered eco-friendly because they don't distract from the sharks natural feeding habits and they don't risk shark injury by attracting the shark to attack the cage and boat (by putting the food too close). I'll be honest, we didn't really know this stuff before we booked and we were nervous about the acoustic approach (sounds like a bunch of nonsense), but by the end we were believers because it totally worked! AND we talked to some other people who went with Calypso (the chum charter) the same day and they saw a shark for 30 seconds the ENTIRE DAY! Muahahahahaha! Winning! Duh!! Not to mention, the chum and blood make the water murky and we had such clear water, it was like a swimming pool. We are so boss.
Okay, now we're on the boat and they give us tea, coffee, juice and ham and cheese toasties (a grilled cheese with ham). It's 2 and a half hours to Neptune Island:
We're the orange dot at the top and we followed the dotted line all the way to the bottom. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ride:
At one point, dolphins appeared and swam right in front of the boat:
You could tell they were having a blast! Flipping over each other and jumping out of the water, it was adorable! A great start to a great day!
We finally arrive at Neptune Islands and they're giving us wetsuits and a short briefing, when all of a sudden 2 sharks show up and swim around the boat!!
They were huge! Like buses! I was in shock at the sheer size and girth of a great white. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and now I was scared. I heard they estimated this one was about 4.5 meters (so about 15 feet) and it was so heavy looking I'd say it weighed at least a ton. More shark.
They said it's rare to see 2 sharks together and it was hard to get a picture of both of them, but we managed to get one:
It's hard to tell, but they're both in there. Here's the video.
Shark selfies:
It had to be done, okay?
Pics of us in the most uncomfortable gear ever:
If you've never worn a wetsuit before, here are 3 things I noticed right away:
1. It's almost impossible to get on. It's like squeezing a sausage into casing without the handy machine thingy. And if it's wet or you're sweaty, ha! Just give up on life.
2. It's the most uncomfortable thing you'll ever wear (and yes, I've worn Spanx).
3. It looks terrible on everyone. It tucks into every crevice of fat you have and somehow accentuates it to look 100x worse than normal. I swear I could see the outline of an egg sandwich on the side of my tummy. Ahh, the joys of spandex.
Side note: these were the ultra thick wetsuits, I've since worn a thinner one and it was way better on all fronts.
Since it took us so long to get our wetsuits on, we were not in the first group to go under. I was still sketchy on if I even wanted to go under! Here's the first group going in:
See the shark??!
We went into the AquaSub to watch the action. The cool thing about this boat was 6 people fit into the cage at any given time and another 6 fit into the AquaSub, so 12 people out of 24 are able to see stuff at once, so the other half of the time you're relaxing, eating, tanning and freaking out at what you just saw.
Let's check out the AquaSub:
Ignore these little kids (who totally got in the cage, by the way...so badass). Here's the AquaSub. Some pics from the sub:
Aside from the fact I'm peeing my wetsuit, it's quite a magnificent creature. Sub video.
Mike and Aaron got in and I took pics from the sub:
As you can see, the bars on the cage are super far apart! If I wanted, I could fit half my body through (not the egg sandwich portion, of course). It seems so crazy, but it makes for a much better viewing experience. You can sort of forget the bars are there for a second and see this giant behemoth swimming towards you, it's absolutely nuts. I should mention, that you're under water, but the top of the cage is open and you can go up for air or get out anytime you want. You're not stuck in a cage on the ocean floor or anything (although I hear you can do that too with other tours).
Aaron and Mike got to see shark, but by the time I got in it was gone, so I just did a little dance:
It was super hard to breathe with the air valve thing they give you. Aaron didn't have any problems, but I have breathing issues just breathing above sea level, so below was not the business. It took me a few minutes to calm down and slow my breathing to where it was doable, but it was still extremely uncomfortable for me. I only lasted about 5 minutes the first time. The (other) crazy thing about this charter is they don't limit your underwater time. You can do whatever you want. You can go in as many times as you want and stay under for as long as you want. It seems like it would be chaos and no one would get a fair amount of time, but it really worked out great. Everyone was considerate and even if a shark was in the water, everyone would gawk at it awhile, then get out so other people could have a turn. Humanity isn't totally doomed! Everyone also tried to make sure that people who didn't see a shark could get in if another one approached, so by the end pretty much everyone had some underwater shark time.
They had all day tea, coffee and soup to keep us warm.
Aaron bought a bucket hat (why Lord, why?):
It's almost as bad as Crocs or piano-key neckties.
I got a sweatshirt, but forgot to take a pic, sorry. It's just grey and boring with the same logo as Aaron's, but it's warm and cozy and I've already worn it every day. Man, I need new clothes.
Anyway, get ready for lots more wetsuit pics. You end up leaving your wetsuit on the whole day because it's so hard to get on and off. We were just unzipping them in the back for some breathing room and to fit food into our bulging bellies. They served us a fantastic buffet of roasted chicken, all kinds of sandwich fixings and 3 different salads. Delish! After lunch I was forced to remove the top half of my wetsuit, or I would've thrown up all over the shark.
The shark came back and I ran to get into the cage, so I did get my 10 minutes with a great white. However, I was so rushed and nervous that I didn't take Aaron's GoPro, so I have no video footage with the shark. Oops! Aaron got some good stuff when he went in though. He and Mike went back in and I took more pics from the AquaSub:
Mike got a little too excited there! He was really feeling the AC/DC!
Aaron took one of me in the AquaSub with the GoPro:
Are you ready for some GoPro shark?? Here you go:
These are from the photographer on board with her fancy GoPro:
Crazy, right??
Aaron and I got to go in together at one point, but no sharks, so we just took selfies:
There were tons of fish and they weren't scared of the shark at all:
Seriously, one the scariest, coolest days of all time. If you ever get the chance to do it, you should! And do it in Australia and do it with Adventure Bay, we had a blast!
I've actually heard Australia is a good place to do it because the water is way more clear than places like South Africa. Food for thought.
After that, we just hung out on the boat as we made our way back to Port Lincoln. The photographer took some pics:
No idea what I'm doing there.
Here we are unable to enjoy nature with our actual eyeballs:
This was Memory Cove, a private hidden beach that is almost untouched. It's actually locked and they give only 3 keys out each day, so it's never overcrowded. Stunning. Here's my picture:
We also passed a cove full of fur seals:
We got to get WAY up close and some were jumping in the water and playing with each other, like they were putting on a show for us. It was awesome!
I don't know how this sea lion got mixed in with the seals, but it was frickin adorable:
Adventure Bay actually does another tour where you swim with sea lions. Some of the people on our shark tour were doing that the next day. If we had time, I would've wanted to do it, they're too cute!
This seagull chilled with us for awhile:
We were back in Port Lincoln around 6pm and the shuttle took us back to our hostel, where we showered, changed and went to dinner one last time:
Aaron had bruschetta and I had nachos, nothing crazy, but yummy! We hung out for awhile, but we were all so tired we crashed out early. The next day we took a flight back to Adelaide and then back to Melbourne, where we bid adieu to Mike, who went back home to Toronto.
I must say, this was the only thing Aaron's ever had on his bucket list and I had no desire to do it until that nagging 5-year old voice inside me said if he was doing it then I was doing it too. He couldn't possibly go without me!! But the whole time I was just whatever about it until I saw the shark. There's really nothing like it. The most majestic, dangerous creature I've ever seen and I got to look into it's eyes underwater and see it's teeth come towards me. It was by far the most exhilarating thing I've ever done and the people we met were amazing. Adventure Bay took such great care of us and made sure we got the maximum experience. They were all SO nice and kept us well-fed the entire time. If you're going to do it, do it here and do it with them. We lucked out so big. It was all-around a fantastic experience.
Here's the short video the photographer put together for us:
Okay, that was me gushing about our shark sighting. Stay tuned for Cairns and The Great Barrier Reef adventure!
Amazing!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSo lucky what a great company
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