jetset1

Did anyone catch the shark shows on Discovery yesterday and Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs?
I loved it, especially the South Africa footage because I have been there and miss the accent, though I heard it recently when family was here visiting from S.A.
Anyway, I don't know about the cage submersion(a little claustrophobic).. has anyone on the forum experienced one or know someone who did?
I live around bears all year, but those sharks fascinate me. One hundred million killed every year?
Anyway, it was an informative show. J.

laurenzo

My DH and I loved it too. I would not want Mike Rowe's job!! Did you hear him mention several times how BIG the sharks were up close? The water in S. Africa looked beautiful but you wouldn't catch me swimming there! We enjoyed the autopsy part also. It was definitely an informative show.

GoTravel

I've always thought sharks were beautiful and fascinating fish.

They get a bad rap. Dolphins are meaner

Kal

Is this the new show with James Woods? :-?

laurenzo

It's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel

jetset1

GoTravel~Please don't say dolphins are mean.. I love them. Aggressive maybe? Wolverines are mean, weasels, and one employee at my p.o.:-?
One of my best memories travelwise(the other stuff is on dvd at this point) is a snorkle cruise a few years ago when many dolphins were jumping alongside our boat.
I get teary when I spot them, and have a crystal dolphin necklace that I wear every day that even greasy car mechanics notice..
I like sharks quite a bit.. remember, go to the kelp if you find yourself between them and seals at feeding time!
And kelp has those medicinal qualities for good skin, so it's a two fer,lol.
I want to go to Durban if I get to return to S.A. I drove from Capetown to Port Elizabeth and it is fantastic!

jetset1

So, how many would try the cage submersion? Any takers?

astein12

My wife and I did a cage dive in South Africa a couple of years ago (cage anchored to the side of the boat with a fixed air line).

It was great. Parked the boat, started chumming the water, waited an hour and bam! Shark hit the seal dummy in the water and destroyed it.

We and about 6 others took turns in the cage and saw about 4 great whites up to about 15 feet in length.

They were actually much scarier when you were on deck than when you were in the cage!

We went with Shark Africa out of Mossel Bay. http://www.sharkafrica.co.za/area.html

jetset1

Thanks for the link astein12.. what a thrill just to be on a boat and see them, let alone underwater.. something about those "hydrolic teeth" are mesmerising to me.

GoTravel

No, I'm just kidding jetset! I love dolphins however in some circumstances they are much more aggressive than sharks.

I see them quite often sitting on my deck.

I've also got wonderful memories boating with dolphin.

jetset1

GoTravel..lucky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Diana

I'm so jealous astein! I would DEFINITELY do the shark cage encounter.

I have done two SCUBA dives in the Bahamas with sharks, and that is on my list of the Top Ten things I've ever done.

The first time was through UNEXSO. As soon as we jumped into the water, I looked down and could see the sharks circling below us.

We went down 40' and made a semi-circle kneeling with our backs to a sunken hyperbaric chamber. We had been instructed to keep our hands close to our bodies.

The feeder wore a chain mail link suit over his wetsuit. He carried a large plastic pipe filled with frozen fish as opposed to fresh so as not to cause a feeding frenzy with blood.

Soon after we got there, the sharks - mostly Caribbean black tip reef sharks from 8 to 12 feet long with a few larger ones in the mix for excitement - began to arrive out of the gloom.

They came close enough for me to reach out and touch had I dared. I was eye to eye with one of the most amazing animals on earth, and it was just fantastic. I came up out of the water whooping at the end of the dive. I could not wait to do it again!

We have both dives on video. I love to watch them and remember the thrill of the experience.

Kal

GoT,
How do the dolphins get up to your deck? :-?

BayouGal

We saw both and enjoyed them, too. Great shows this week on Discovery.

Kal, please email [[email protected]] the Child on the Airplane thread to me if you still have it (Melissa emailed it to you). Thanks!

GoTravel

Kal you silly, by rickshaw of course!

TahitiTams

Howdy Jetset1!
A couple of years ago we went out on a Shark Dive in Moorea, Tahiti and we were all a little fuzzy from too many mai tai's the night before and we thought this would snap us out of it and boy did it..
This huge Tahitian guy had a huge chunk of tuna and we were out at the reef and we snorkeled to the guy with the tuna and we had a rope to hold on to and it was like clock work on the sharks..they came charging from all sides and the black tip reef sharks were going off on the tuna and they were skirting so fast in between us and there must of been at least 30+
6-10ft sharks in this wild frenzy and all of us couldn't believe what we got ourselves into but there was no way out until the tuna was gone and this went on for about 15 minutes..
I don't think I will do this again..

Kal

BG,
Melissa who?

GoT, Mrs Kal tells me that pulling me in a rickshaw would be good marathon training.

GoTravel

Definitely but they get all high maintenance and start asking for things like cosmos and smokes.

Kal

GoT,
Can you come and clean off my keyborard?
Full of iced green tea "nose snert"!

jetset1

I learned that the bull sharks were the most dangerous. Funny how the Great White has had the bad rap for all this time.
Scary how they get up rivers, and the N.J. stories from the early 1900's-- those poor folks must have been terrified.
I was always horrfied about the guys in the war who would perish in the So. Pacific from sharks.. surviving an attack on the boat, only to see your buddies eaten alive.
Discovery channel sure does a great job wih their locations and topics this last year.
For awhile, the Teutels on American Chopper were fun to watch, but how many more bikes can that family crank out? And Sr. and Jr. are okay, but I like Mikey and Vinnie better J.