Swimming with the sharks.. and meeting some cool people along the way

So after an emotional week I decide that I would go Great White Shark cage diving. I get up a few minutes before 5:00am - the shuttle is to pick me up at 5:50am and want to be ready. Two cups of coffee later I’m waiting in front of my hotel for the short bus to pick me up for my adventure. I wait and wait. I call the company and they tell me the driver is running late. (I found out later that they forgot me and actually turned the van around to pick me up). Gansbaai Bay is two hours from Cape Town. My ipod and I take a little nap before we get there. It is so foggy and cold. After breakfast, debriefing etc. we are taken to the boat… this isn’t just any boat…. It’s been around the world in 70 days….fancy. Another hour of freezing and we arrive at Shark’s Alley. They will allow 6 people at a time in the cage. I meet lots of college kids from Semester at Sea, attending universities all over the US. I make a few new friends on the cold ride to the Alley.

Melissa and Brian are my new bff's from Chicago and Seattle. They are working in a rural clinic two hours from Durban. Melissa is in medical school and is doing a year of research. Brian is a physician and doing part of his residency here. He will be going to Boston after this… what a change of pace… Seattle to Sub-Sahara Africa to Harvard….. We wait for the sharks to come and play… The dive master takes an AHI head (so smelly) and uses this as bait… the ahi head is bigger than my head and they also use a bag of squishy brown stuff. Melissa asks what it is: shark liver. Blach. Finally the sharks come to investigate. We hop into the cage with specific instructions not to put any fingers or toes outside the cage. It's pretty cool seeing the feared great white shark just a foot or so away. The sun comes out and it turns into a fantastic day!