Shark Cage Diving and More (Day 74)
We were really surprised that Ashley’s parents wanted to go shark cage diving with us! We got the chance at our last stop in South Africa, a small coastal town called Gansbaai. It was full of fun ways to learn about nature, both on and off the water.
On our first full day, we boarded a ship in search of sharks. Upon finding a school of 15 sharks, we did the natural thing and got into a submerged cage to get a closer look…
Sharks are really prehistoric looking up close. This makes sense since they have been around for over 400 million years, making them way older than dinosaurs. They are tough, too — they survived the mass extinction that killed all the dinosaurs.
The sharks were aggressive and often banged into our cage!
Despite their ferocious look, statistics show that sharks only kill about 6 people a year, fewer than deer or toasters. On the other hand, humans kill about 11,000 sharks every hour of every day. Around half is for shark fin soup, and some types of sharks could actually face extinction. The sharks should be scared of us!
Here is Jamie with the Chum Master, stirring a pot of fish blood and guts to get the sharks excited. A possible second career?
Maybe the craziest thing about the whole day was that Grantastic (Ashley’s dad) went shark cage diving day after he turned 74. We want to be this adventuresome in our 70s. Happy birthday to Grantastic!!
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CAVES
We also had fun exploring local caves along the coast. The first one had been occupied by humans as far back as 70,000 years ago! That is about 65,000 years before humans developed writing and by far the oldest human settlement we have found on this trip.
Our second cave had a bunch of bats and an underground pond you could swim in. The water was chilly!!
One neat thing we learned: it takes a stalactite about 100 years to grow an inch. That means that a stalactite as tall as Hazel probably started around the time of the Egyptian pyramids.
Huey had lots of time to climb rocks along the coast. He would yell, “You have to find your adventure spirit!” as he ran off over the rocks.
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FYNBOS
We also spent time in a protected reserve learning about special local plants called fynbos, which are found no where else on earth. Our “plant safari” was beautiful and surprisingly fascinating! Much more on fynbos (and our related bug safari and more) in the African Classroom post.
Hazel and Hugh decided they wanted to plant trees to help the local environment. They named them “Junior Huey” and “Excitement.”
