Seal Diving

Like I said in the last post, Will told Rosie and me yesterday that he bought us tickets for seal diving. We left at the same time the Will picked up Sammy and Caine to drop them off at the library. We got to the Hout Bay by about 9:30 where we met Steve. Steve, our skipper and apparently world renounced oceanographer, was a really chill and enthusiastic 30 year old who just loves what he does. He takes all the national geographic camera crews out and he's kind of a big deal according to Will.

We got our wet suits on and took the rather small boat out about 10 minutes off the coast to Duiker Island-a large breeding colony of cape fur seals. It looked a lot like Seal Island in False Bay where I did shark cage diving the first time. Steve didn't convince me that the sharks don't come over to Duiker Island and having just seen the predator it was pretty scary preparing to swim with the prey. When we got there, however, the seals were behaving very differently from the seals on Seal Island. On Seal Island, the seals stayed very close to the rocks and did not leave the shallows. On Duiker Island, the seals were frolicking everywhere and seemed to be playing with each other with nothing to worry about. They convinced me better than Steve that the sharks don't come over to Duiker Island.. 

We got a snorkel as well as wet suit gloves, (which would have been nice to have on my other aquatic excursions) and we jumped in. There were seals everywhere and they interacted with you constantly. They blew bubbles in your face and showed you their teeth and just stared at you inquisitively as if to say "what the hell are you doing here!" It was really cool, especially swimming down to the ocean bottom and interacting with them completely in their environment. 

Steve Rosie and Me completely suited up

I tried to take a picture of the seals jumping out of the water. While they did it a ton of times, they were just too fast

While it was a great thing to do, I feel as though I've jammed back this week a little too much. I feel as though I wasn't as enthused as I should have been. I don't really have the luxury of spreading these activities out but I definitely see the advantage of giving yourself time to get excited about an excursion before you do it. 

After about an hour with the seals, the water was, once again, taking its toll and we decided to head back. Before Will picked us up, Steve took us to a local fish and chips place that he claimed was the best in Cape Town. I don't know about that but it was really good. 

Apparently today was another public holiday so Rosie and I didn't miss a day of school. We did go in, however, to help out Caine and Sammy with the Library. The three other volunteers love doing it but I find the renovation it tedious and tiring. 

On the way to the Library, Will informed us that there had been a terrible fire in Masiphumelele, the township that we work in. 500 shacks as well as 5 houses had burned to the ground. 2000 people lost their homes and four people lost their lives. As we drove into the township, there were ambulances and police everywhere. We also saw children in their pajamas which are surely now the only clothes that they own. I saw it first hand and I still can imagine having so little and then loosing all of it. As far as I know there is still school tomorrow and I just pray that all of my kids show up.