We woke up and a taxi was waiting to take us to Prins and Prins Jewelry store. They were having a 25% off sale, so of course I had to buy something! I bought a tanzanite pendant! It is a .8 carrat stone set in a white gold setting. It is so pretty! At first I wasn’t going to get anymore jewelry since I bought the ring, but I really wanted to buy tanzanite, because it is only mined in Mount Kilimanjaro and within 10-12 years there will be no more stone to mine, so it is a very rare and precious stone. I was very excited to find a necklace for a cheaper price, so I spoiled myself again! We came back to Dale Court right at 10:00am to be picked up by our driver to drive 3 hours to go…SHARK CAGE DIVING!!! Nine of us (Carrie, Ashley, Katherine, Alex, Kasy, Brenna, Laura, Tonya, and I) all piled into the van to go to Gansbaai to where the Sharklady is located. On the drive to Gansbaai, we stopped in Hermanus to pick up to more people and we were able to watch more whales and we saw a mom and baby right whale breaching along the shore line! They kept jumping and splashing along the shore. It was such an amazing thing to watch, I got goosebumps and every time they would jump we would point or grab the person next to you and just be excited to see something like that happening in nature! We continued to Gansbaai and had tea and biscuits while we watched a video on Great White Sharks. We met Lance our dive master and he did an educational bit about the anatomy of the sharks we would be seeing as well as went through information about the cages and safety while on the boat. We all climbed onto the Lady T1 and set sail in the Atlantic. We rode 15 minutes on the boat to where the cage was, through large crashing waves. We almost lost our videographer when we hit a big wave, he wasn’t holding on, and got jostled around at the end of the boat! When we got to our destination and were anchored, we changed into full wetsuits and I was in the second group to go into the cage. I was in there with Ashley, Laura, and Katherine, but Laura started having a panic attack because she is scared of water and she climbed out and Alex joined us in the cage. I also had a mini-panic attack because you can’t feel the bottom of the cage and it feels that you are just floating in the ocean and sharks are around you. But after putting my face underwater I could see how the cage looked and where your feet were supposed to go when you held your breath to go under to look at the shark and I relaxed. The openings in the cage are about 5x7” for you to look out and view the shark as it swims by. Lance would toss the bait out in front of the cage to lure it in and then the shark would swim right past the front of the cage, and sometimes if you were lucky it would come straight at you so you could see their open mouths! There were a few times when the shark came within an arms length away from the cage! In between shark sightings we would just hold onto the handle bar in he cage and float and when Lance or the crew saw a shark they would yell of us to go down and in what direction to look. We were on the water for 3 ½ hours, and we all had about an hour each in the cage! We had the opportunity see three different sharks a baby, and two others, one of which was quite large (over 15 feet!) and we got to see the sharks breach and come out of the water to grab the bait! After my second time in the cage, I came out and I wasn’t feeling very well from the rocking of the boat and not eating anything for a long time…so I joined Katherine and got a little seasick! Lets just say that I was extremely happy to be back on solid ground when we made is safely to shore! We changed and the crew had vegetable soup and bread ready for us to eat as we watched our video. It was fun watching us in the cage, but the video wasn’t the best quality, so I didn’t buy it. A few things that are really cool about the company that we dove with is 1.) Sharklady is the only company in the business run by a female and she is one o the pioneers of shark cage diving in South Africa and her company was founded in 1992, 2.) Brad Pitt has dove with this company and his picture is in the office, and 3.) Prince Harry also has dove with Sharklady and his picture is in the office as well as Prince William’s (although he never dove there) Prince Harry did buy Prince William a beanie hat and Prince William wore it and made the beanie famous! Diving with the sharks was such a thrill! My adrenalin was pumping and I would be so darn close to the sharks and the only thing separating me from them was a metal cage! Whenever we would go under and it would come up close we would all come up for air giddy with screams and we would look at each other and say, “Holy Cow! Did you see that?!?” I highly recommend this to anyone who ever has the opportunity to cage dive, especially those who are going in the spring! It was definitely worth the money that we paid to do it! After warming up we piled back in the van and drove the three hours home. By the time we got back to Dale Court it was 9:00 and we were ready to just fall asleep!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
September 26, 2007
We woke up and a taxi was waiting to take us to Prins and Prins Jewelry store. They were having a 25% off sale, so of course I had to buy something! I bought a tanzanite pendant! It is a .8 carrat stone set in a white gold setting. It is so pretty! At first I wasn’t going to get anymore jewelry since I bought the ring, but I really wanted to buy tanzanite, because it is only mined in Mount Kilimanjaro and within 10-12 years there will be no more stone to mine, so it is a very rare and precious stone. I was very excited to find a necklace for a cheaper price, so I spoiled myself again! We came back to Dale Court right at 10:00am to be picked up by our driver to drive 3 hours to go…SHARK CAGE DIVING!!! Nine of us (Carrie, Ashley, Katherine, Alex, Kasy, Brenna, Laura, Tonya, and I) all piled into the van to go to Gansbaai to where the Sharklady is located. On the drive to Gansbaai, we stopped in Hermanus to pick up to more people and we were able to watch more whales and we saw a mom and baby right whale breaching along the shore line! They kept jumping and splashing along the shore. It was such an amazing thing to watch, I got goosebumps and every time they would jump we would point or grab the person next to you and just be excited to see something like that happening in nature! We continued to Gansbaai and had tea and biscuits while we watched a video on Great White Sharks. We met Lance our dive master and he did an educational bit about the anatomy of the sharks we would be seeing as well as went through information about the cages and safety while on the boat. We all climbed onto the Lady T1 and set sail in the Atlantic. We rode 15 minutes on the boat to where the cage was, through large crashing waves. We almost lost our videographer when we hit a big wave, he wasn’t holding on, and got jostled around at the end of the boat! When we got to our destination and were anchored, we changed into full wetsuits and I was in the second group to go into the cage. I was in there with Ashley, Laura, and Katherine, but Laura started having a panic attack because she is scared of water and she climbed out and Alex joined us in the cage. I also had a mini-panic attack because you can’t feel the bottom of the cage and it feels that you are just floating in the ocean and sharks are around you. But after putting my face underwater I could see how the cage looked and where your feet were supposed to go when you held your breath to go under to look at the shark and I relaxed. The openings in the cage are about 5x7” for you to look out and view the shark as it swims by. Lance would toss the bait out in front of the cage to lure it in and then the shark would swim right past the front of the cage, and sometimes if you were lucky it would come straight at you so you could see their open mouths! There were a few times when the shark came within an arms length away from the cage! In between shark sightings we would just hold onto the handle bar in he cage and float and when Lance or the crew saw a shark they would yell of us to go down and in what direction to look. We were on the water for 3 ½ hours, and we all had about an hour each in the cage! We had the opportunity see three different sharks a baby, and two others, one of which was quite large (over 15 feet!) and we got to see the sharks breach and come out of the water to grab the bait! After my second time in the cage, I came out and I wasn’t feeling very well from the rocking of the boat and not eating anything for a long time…so I joined Katherine and got a little seasick! Lets just say that I was extremely happy to be back on solid ground when we made is safely to shore! We changed and the crew had vegetable soup and bread ready for us to eat as we watched our video. It was fun watching us in the cage, but the video wasn’t the best quality, so I didn’t buy it. A few things that are really cool about the company that we dove with is 1.) Sharklady is the only company in the business run by a female and she is one o the pioneers of shark cage diving in South Africa and her company was founded in 1992, 2.) Brad Pitt has dove with this company and his picture is in the office, and 3.) Prince Harry also has dove with Sharklady and his picture is in the office as well as Prince William’s (although he never dove there) Prince Harry did buy Prince William a beanie hat and Prince William wore it and made the beanie famous! Diving with the sharks was such a thrill! My adrenalin was pumping and I would be so darn close to the sharks and the only thing separating me from them was a metal cage! Whenever we would go under and it would come up close we would all come up for air giddy with screams and we would look at each other and say, “Holy Cow! Did you see that?!?” I highly recommend this to anyone who ever has the opportunity to cage dive, especially those who are going in the spring! It was definitely worth the money that we paid to do it! After warming up we piled back in the van and drove the three hours home. By the time we got back to Dale Court it was 9:00 and we were ready to just fall asleep!
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