Snapped a picture of the sunrise... it's not often we're up for it.
We got to the White House, the preparation building for the cage diving, and grabbed a quick breakfast. After a short tutorial about how to avoid getting eaten by the sharks, we headed to the boat.
Within minutes we were out on the water. Each boat on the water seemed to have it's own flock of gulls following it.
After the short ride to Shark Alley, the crew started "chumming". Basically, they throw out fish guts and what-not to put out a scent trail which the sharks are attracted by. Some people aren't really a fan of this practice (though you're unlikely to see a shark otherwise), because they don't know whether it changes the behavior of the sharks. No cage-diving operation is EVER allowed to give the sharks real food, since it's probably not a good idea for sharks to associate boats with food. The cage-diving operation was quick to stress that these sharks only pass through Shark Alley, and there are only rarely repeat sharks. The way I figure it, any eco-tourism operation that puts the human in the cage rather than the animal is a step up. Within minutes, the first shark swam by.
The little seal decoy draws the sharks close to the cage. They also use a gigantic fish head as bait.
Cage diving isn't nearly as scary as it sounds. The cage is next to the boat the entire time, and you're not wearing scuba gear or anything (the sharks don't like the bubbles). Just a snorkel mask and a wetsuit. As long as all your body parts stay inside the cage you're safe.
We probably saw 5 or 6 different sharks over the course of a couple of hours. They are surprisingly slow on the attack... but then again, I guess they don't have to be very fast because their pray is probably not paying attention to what's going on below the surface of the water.
Even the guy handling the fish head wasn't always quick enough on the line to keep the shark from taking a chunk of it (so much for not feeding the shark). Though they are huge, they have a knack for popping out of nowhere.
Pretty impressive animals.
Ming and I went in the cage together for about 10 minutes. The most shocking part of the experience was the cold, cold water. After a while, though, the thin layer of ice cold water trapped next to me by the wetsuit warmed up, and all was well. The crew would shout "DOWN" every time a shark swam by the cage. A snorkel would have been nice, so that we didn't have to keep coming up for air, but then again, coming up after a close encounter added to the experience because all five people in the cage would say things like "woah, did you see that!" It was pretty amazing watching these gigantic fish swim by us. One or two even knocked the cage a little while chasing after the bait.
Once we got out we watched the sharks for another hour from the surface before making our way back to land. On the ride back we swung through the shark's "drive-thru" dining area:
So many seals. It's a wonder the sharks don't stay here all year round and feast. In any case, it was time for us to leave, as we wanted to get back before the cable car to table mountain closed. Yeah... apparently you can hike it too, but it's hard to resist the comfort of a cable car. That is, until you realize that it's taking you on a tour of the clouds rather than of the mountain and surrounding vistas:
Once at the top, it was mostly a gray haze.
But every once in a while, the clouds would part, and you could see the ocean... or even a faint hint of Robben Island in the distance.
On the plus side, we finally got our "end-of-the-earth" shot:
From the cable car, we rushed back to our honeymoon suite at 30 Fiskaal to catch the sunset from our balcony.
The sun set around 6:30, by which point we were starving. We drove into town to try out "The Africa Cafe." It turns out that The Africa Cafe is more of and experience than just a place to get grub. All the waiters and waitresses wear face-paint... which they then put on you:
There is a set menu with about 20 different dishes on it.
They bring you 3 or 4 dishes at once. Then they ask you which ones were your favorites, and you can order more of those dishes in particular.
To top it all off, the service staff also double as singers/dancers. Every once in a while they dance from room to room singing African songs.
After stuffing ourselves, we headed back to the guesthouse.
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