Shark Chronicles 062 - A brand new day

Mossel Bay had turned into a ghost town with no sharks to be seen for about one month. The Oceans Research team were starting to get worried, with the occasional 2.5m passing through Grootbrak but no sign of shark activity at the island since September 29^th; where have they gone?! Whilst watching the seals play around in ‘shark-free’ waters on a seal survey, the team suddenly jumped with joy and screams of delight could be heard everywhere as the first predation in over a month was witnessed close to the boat. Feeling desperate several other interns got up at the crack of dawn in hope to see the sharks at the island on a chumming trip with their intern manager Jonathon. With no real hope the omni directional hydrophone was lowered into the water at 6.30am and to everybody’s surprise onboard a ‘ping ping ping’ was heard, 3xe was back! Chum slick abandoned the team pursued the shark across the bay as she headed to Kleinbrak. Interns back on land were alerted and started preparing for the long tracking shifts ahead.

Jonathon’s team remained at sea for twelve hours in glorious sunshine, for what turned out to be a beautiful day for tracking. In addition to 3xe the tracking team were delighted to see several sharks circling the boat, of which two were bigger than any they have seen since September, measuring nearly 4m in length! Mid afternoon the second tracking team, skippered by Stef, came to relieve the first shift and started to chum in hope of feeding 3xe a replacement stomach tag because she had regurgitated the original one some time in September. Unfortunately she showed no interest and did not go up to the boat, so Stef decided to pull up anchor and begin to track. Shortly after the second team were forced back to harbour as the winds picked up. Not wanting to desert the tracking, Amy and her team went back out to sea as soon as the wind died down that evening. Once 3xe was relocated the third team started tracking her as she swam circles at the Kleinbrak river mouth. Being on the only stretch of coastline in Mossel bay with no lights onshore and the sun long gone, the only light available was that of the bioluminescence and the GPS.

For almost two days, 3xe remained at the river mouth and tracking continued successfully until late Thursday night when winds picked up again and a storm was brewing. With the numerous sharks viewed swimming through the breakers by the daytime tracking shift chum trip have restarted with a new hope of collecting data on the sharks that have returned to Mossel bay!

Rachel Walls and Chelsea Bradbury – OCEANS Research Mossel Bay interns

Shark Chronicles 061 - Ups and down of OCEANS daily lives

Slow week for sharks, but we are getting plenty of exercise in elasmobranch anatomy. The fact that our big buddies, the local white sharks, are moving away from Seal Island and are less frequent on chum trips is most definitely a bummer. Not to mention the weather has turned a little more unpredictable and violent which keeps us from even getting on the water some days. This aside, our time in Mossel Bay has still been exciting.

Recently Britain’s Channel 4 visited Mossel Bay to continue their work on their television series “Inside Nature’s Giants”. Their subject: the great white shark. They acquired a 4.3 meter white shark from a beach protection net in kwaZulu Natal on the east coast of South Africa for the dissection for the film crew and for the PhD project of OCEANS scientist Enrico Gennari.

They set up near the aquarium and raised the shark up on the dissection table. Channel 4 provided everyone in the show bright orange jumpsuits and little white boots. It was fascinating to see shark anatomy on this huge scale. I think the locals of Mossel Bay thought so too. The dissection turned into a town gathering with masses of locals crowded around behind the caution tape and perched up on the railings of Big Blu trying to get a good view. I didn’t blame them it was quite a spectacle.

Enrico’s elasmobranch dissections for school kids also continue to be a hit. Today he switched it up and dissected a ray instead of the standard soupfin shark.

We also were able to rescue and rerelease a green sea turtle and a penguin. The poor little turtle was not just tossed around and battered in the epic storm we had recently, but he also had a quarter of his shell removed by a shark bite. It was in sad shape. But we made sure that it was in decent shape and was healthy enough to survive on his own before releasing it into the waters of Mossel Bay.

Nate Schmidt – OCEANS Research Mossel Bay’s intern

Shark Chronicles 060 - A day at sea to remember

On October 1, 2009 a new, green lot of interns arrived at Mossel Bay eager to get to work. Wasting no time, the program leaders got us out on the boat and down to business, chumming for sharks around Seal Island.

Unfortunately, we hit a fluke (no pun intended) dry spell, and after several voyages without any shark sightings, the crew, led by our fearless skipper Ryan, decided to find where the elusive great white sharks of Mossel Bay were hanging out. On October 6 we shot by Seal Island and slowly cruised down the beach, just outside of the surf line, searching for resting sharks. It didn’t take long to sight our first shark. Despite seeing it for just seconds, all of us were excited, and kept motoring down the beach looking for more. It didn’t take long—first one, then another, and soon we had spotted five. Success! Pleased with our results, we dropped anchor and got down to chumming the waters, with each intern taking up his or her position--Matt took chumming, Jeremy jumped on the bait line, Tasha was on the camera, Andy was the data man, and our skipper Ryan went up to the crow’s nest to spot incoming sharks.

Within minutes Ryan was calling out a shark sighting to our port side at 9 o’clock. It circled briefly about 6 meters off, and then came in to check out the bait line. In the distance a dark shadow began to materialize. Within seconds the shadow took the form of a great white shark and then, less than a meter away, a beautiful three meter great white shark gracefully crossed our stern and made a glance at the bait. Everyone on the boat was grinning ear to ear, but this moment was pretty special for Jeremy and Andy as this was the first great white they had ever seen in real life. For the next four hours the excitement continued as one shark after another came up to the boat and took their shots at the bait. Several times two to three sharks were circling the boat, trading off disappearing into the deep only to elegantly resurface showing off their power and beauty.

Could a day have been more perfect? No wind, calm seas, good visibility, warm weather, and abundant sea life. All in all, we saw 16 great whites; 11 approached the boat and five were spotted en route to our chumming area. And, if that was not enough, half a dozen southern right whales and a handful of dolphins had cruised by. For all the almost-no-longer-green interns on board, that was a day that we will never forget.

Jeremy Frimond - OCEANS Research Mossel Bay intern

Shark Chronicles 059 - Different fauna

During the beginning of the week two of us went at sea with Simon Elwin and Ryan Johnson, to make a whale survey offshore. During this trip we met some whales, a huge pod of dolphins, one lost penguin and a lovely sunfish chilling close to the Point. Being among dolphins, seeing them jumping here and there, is an amazing sensation and we had a fantastic day.

In contrast of this, the number of sharks met during the chumming trips has decreased compared to the previous weeks. This could be due to the weather conditions, the behaviour of the swell, the water temperature, or other reasons. Fortunately, there are currently a lot of whales in the area, and we can see many of them breaching in the bay.

We all are waiting for the big sharks to come back!

Sylvain Haldimann – White shark research intern

Shark Chronicles 058 - Echoes in science forever

This story really begins 2 weeks ago with a crazy Italian man, a spear gun, 3 tags and one promiscuous shark.....tracking had begun! This was the first time in history that a shark had been tagged with three tags; our names, we were promised, would be “echoed in science forever”. The first tag was a depth and positional tag inserted using the tracking pole, unfortunately after being tagged, Threexe or 3Xe (our aptly named shark!), decided she had had enough of people for the day and didn’t appear again until the next day. Thursday arrived bright and full of promise, and for good reason, the last two tags were in position raring to go by 8.00 am. The second tag, a stomach tag to monitor the temperature of the shark’s stomach was put into a piece of tuna and fed to the shark and the third tag, for measuring the white muscle temperature of the shark, was inserted using a spear gun. Trixxxi was then followed round the clock, with interns undertaking 12 hour shifts onboard Cheetah (under the much needed supervision of our learned directors).

A gruelling regime, but one made worth it when the interns would catch sight of Trixxxi cruising along the surface, or when she was tracked to the cage diving boats where we might anticipate an exciting display! Tracking was not without its share of problems, big waves, howling winds, grumpy interns, damp computers and faulty engines but we persevered for 10 days with the odd break in the middle totalling 112 hours of tracking. This activity was broken up by the arrival of the new interns on Tuesday, most of whom were out tracking on the Wednesday! The new interns quickly got into the swing of life here at Oceans and have adjusted to the ‘work hard, play harder’ mentality. Chumming trips have since recommenced with many of the new arrivals getting to grips with the messy (and smelly!) art of chumming, using the bait line and taking killer photographs of the many circling sharks. All in a couple of weeks work here at Oceans Research!

Lizzy Fitzsimmons - White shark research intern

Shark Chronicles 057 - One month in Mossel Bay… Not enough!

It is the beginning of my last weekend here... I’m trying to find the words to describe the experience, seated in our lunch room, while the guys are deciding what we are going to do in the next days. Probably Bunjee jumping... Another exciting thing I’d never thought to do. ‘Cause here, at the Oceans, the adventures are everyday occurrences.

On Monday we had the best chumming trip of the month, definitely. We saw 11 sharks, one of them bigger than 4 meters and... A “sneaky” one that breached just near our boat! Amazing!

The weather wasn’t so good but this doesn’t keep us from surfing and exploring caves and have a lot of fun, as usual.

But the best news of the week is that Cheetah was finally fixed, so we could have seal survey this night. It was fantastic to eat Dros’s pizzas at sea, with the stars surrounding us and the seals swimming near the boat leaving behind a trail of bioluminescence .

My month here flew away quickly... I lived through a lot of experiences and emotions. It was not just for the beautiful landscapes and for the beautiful context in which we lived all together, but also for the people I met. Some of the most “creapy, sneaky, stinky, crazy” and... Wonderful people I have ever met. It was one of the best experiences of my life, for all that I learned and for all that I did. And all the staff is simply perfect...

One month is really not enough...

Piera Carpi -OCEANS intern

Shark Chronicles 056 - 80% more Science

Here in Mossel Bay we have 80% more Science!

Monday morning arrives with a beautiful Women’s Day. To celebrate this public holiday, Rob baked a cake chocolate truffle cake. The beauty of this cake was somewhat detracted from by the fact that we had to retrieve Cheetah from its watery habitat to get serviced. But Science continued unabated through a Dolphin survey at the lighthouse! We saw more than 70 dolphins! Later on, shark Scientist Enrico Gennari gave the new interns a brief glance into the Science of tracking.

Chumming continued on Tuesday through Thursday on Lamnidae, a smaller boat than Cheetah but with many of its own appeals, like the ability to feel closer to the sharks. There were several fantastic chum trips, where the afternoon trip on Tuesday had one 4.5 meter shark, a breach, and a predation.

Wednesday morning dawned with more wind, but yielded an equally fantastic chum trip in the morning, but bad weather prevented an afternoon chum trip. Instead, we rotated marine life stocks in the aquarium. This included removing all the rocks, water, fish, and a mollus[c]k from the large pelagic tank. Thoroughly exhausted, we retired back to the intern house to watch the documentary Ultimate Shark, featuring South African Shark Expert Stephan Swanson wrangling a 5 meter shark.

Despite wailing winds and rain the Science interns headed out to see on Lamnidae Thursday morning to test their luck with the Great Whites. They were disappointed, however, because in the wake of the stormy Wednesday the sharks were timid. However, we look forward to more playful sharks in the coming days, leading up to a special tagging and tracking session coming up next week.

Gavin Morrison and Erin Moran – OCEANS interns

Shark Chronicles 055 - A Swiss in SA

There are a lot of things to discover and to learn when you arrive for an internship at Oceans. On Monday we had our first chumming session. We were particularly lucky for this trip: 3 sharks came towards the bait, and we saw 4 predations near to Seal Island. One of the sharks, which was particularly active and dynamic, made jumps here and there to catch the bait. Sometimes the waiting time is quite long, but what a reward when you can see the shark approaching the bait! The Great White Sharks are really impressive animals. The first experience with the ones of Mossel Bay was great and prepared us for some very interesting things to come for the next months.

Seal survey took place on Thursday night. The main task during that exercise consisted of counting the seals who arrived or left the island, in order to analyse the dynamics of the seal populations. Other events like sharks attacks, the presence of other marine animals, as well as the environmental conditions, are also taken into account. This week, the moon was bright and the night was not too dark, so the bioluminescence was not very strong. But despite this fact we could see the movement of the seals which approached the boat, and those movements are amazing and very beautiful to see.

In addition to the learning of all the tasks to do and how to do them, the first week in Mossel Bay allowed us to discover the marine biodiversity of this region, which is spectacular. Within the small area of Mossel Bay sharks, whales, dolphins, seals, and so on can be found. And that is one of the reasons why that region is amazing.

Sylvain Haldimann - Oceans Intern

Shark Chronicles 055 - Ponta Mamoli

Bom dia e bem vindo a Ponta Mamoli, Moçambique!

Good afternoon, and welcome to Ponta Mamoli, Mozambique! Or more specifically welcome to Ponta Laboratorio Maritimo and Oceans Research Project Bull Shark! As an intern at the Oceans Research Project White Shark in Mossel Bay, I happened upon the opportunity to travel to Mozambique with the staff to help set up the place and get things going, and I couldn’t be more pleased that I was able to come. I am extremely jealous of the incoming interns and most certainly plan to get back here at some point or another. The weather is beautiful, the reefs are fantastic, and the people are wonderful, add that to the unprecedented research that will be taking place here and you have the set up for what could certainly be a life changing experience. With opportunities to assist in cetacean, reef, and, of course, shark research, interns here at the Ponta Marine Lab will leave this place better scientists having assisted with manual acoustic tracking, stable isotope analysis, photographic identification, standardized reef check transect surveys, and user group surveys, among others.

In my few days here at Ponta Mamoli I have snorkelled at Paradise City Reef with a squadron of Mantas, helped design the final touches on the research station, cleared a path to the cetacean and whale shark survey lookout point, and set up the beginnings of what promise to be very busy wet and dry laboratories. Things are falling in to place nicely and before the end of August Ponta Laboratorio Maritimo promises to be a fully functional addition to the Oceans Research network of marine research stations. I highly recommend applying and interning at Ponta, for it will truly be an enriching and worthwhile experience. I admit, I am already working on my application for next year, so hurry, spaces are limited and internships at Ponta will certainly become some of the most sought after in the realm of marine science.

Ty Medaris – Oceans interns

Shark Chronicles 054 - Tracking week

The week began with an introduction to tracking from Oli for those of us who hadn't done it before. We were introduced to a piece of kit called the 'Trackbox' but known to some as the VR100. This unit displays a reading indicating the strength a signal received from the radio tag and emits a beep each time a signal is detected. Readings of about 30-40 are normal if the shark is some distance away and around 80 is more normal when the boat is pretty much over the shark. The tag that we would be using also sends information about the depth and temperature of the tagged shark, and this is recorded along with the GPS coordinates of the shark each time a signal is received by the VR100. In order to follow the tagged shark we would use a uni-directional hydrophone to determine the direction from which signals were originating and allow us to move towards the shark as it goes through its sharky routine. We were also to record GPS coordinates manually every ten minutes during tracking as backup data, as well as bottom depth; and note environmental conditions every hour.

Monday morning dawned cold and rainy with large swell and a brisk wind. Those of us who were on the early chumming trip were not enthused by the conditions and our only glimmer of hope came from the possibility that Enrico would call the trip off or postpone it due to the weather. Predictably, our hopes were not realised and we just headed out regardless wrapped up in many layers of clothing. We chummed away stoically until lunchtime but despite seeing 5 sharks, we were unable to bring any within range of Enrico's tagging spear. This spear was a pole tipped with a spike onto which the barbed cone that would hold the tag in the flesh of the shark was threaded.

The weather on Tuesday was somewhat better but there was still a large swell running and the morning chum trip again failed to tag a shark. In the afternoon, an impromptu chum trip on Lamnidae was led by Oli with just 4 of us on the boat. Lamnidae did very well in the big seas and we surfed a few waves over to the island where we immediately picked up the sharks that had been around the departing cage-dive boat 'Shark Warrior'. The chum trip was great fun and our favourite shark of the day was a 3m female we called Wolfgang who managed to take bait off the line and then try to eat the buoy.

On Wednesday, good weather and 'Sharkville' celebrity skipper Ryan sent us on the morning chum trip in high spirits. Within 45 minutes of anchoring, a shark that we dubbed 'Warrior' was spending enough time around the boat for us to think about tagging it. We inspected its underside using the 'Sex-cam' (a pole-mounted waterproofed camera with viewing screen on the boat) and established, through intimate images of its nether bits, that Warrior was certainly female as she lacked the claspers of a male shark. Ryan then stepped up to the edge of the boat and stabbed her at the base of the dorsal fin with the tracking-spear and successfully attached the tag.

From 09:50 on Wednesday onwards, Warrior was tracked non-stop by a rotating crew on Cheetah with fresh trackers brought out on Lamnidae every 8 hours or so. At around 15:30, she was seen taking a seal right by seal island from close to the rocks, and after this successful predation, she headed of towards Hartenbos where she rested and then headed up towards Groot Brak. In their excitement, the crew at the time forgot to take the tracking pole out of the water when she was moving at speed and managed to shear it in half as the boat sped up. This left out shift with the task of cobbling a new pole together from duct tape, small metal tubes and a broom-handle.

On Friday at 13:00, tracking was ended and the crew of Lamnidae chummed to attract Warrior to the boat. Repeated and valiant efforts by Enrico and Tom to allow to remove the tag.

So ended the week of tracking and began the weekend of disturbing cave-camping and horseback Rhino-gazing…

Niels D Ernst-Williams – Oceans intern