Matt's Blog Day 6: Jaws

Another early start, but this time for a very different reason. A group of players went off on a deep sea fishing trip whilst another group of us went swimming with Sharks. But this wasn't cage diving, or in an aquarium, this was out in the sea with nothing to protect us! I saw this as the perfect opportunity to hone my open water swimming skills in preparation for the London Triathlon!

With a surprising degree of foresight - and an even more surprising degree of will power - I stayed off the pop last night. With my stomach's terrible capacity for travelling in any form of transport (I even had to get off the Waltzer when I took the wife and kids to a fairground last year), I knew that a hangover would not go well with a morning on the sea.

We were going to a centre up the coast called Blue Wilderness - for an idea of what they do, check out their website www.bluewilderness.com. From here, we travelled 5km out on a worryingly choppy sea on a coastguard type boat known as a 'rubber duck'. Surprisingly, the trip out didn't cause me too much trouble. On the way out we encountered flying fish, dolphins and two humpback whales which was a massive bonus. Feeling very happy with myself for coping manfully with the journey, we turned off the outboards and drifted whilst waiting for sharks to appear. I soon realized that drifting on the waves is a whole different matter to bouncing across the top of them at 20 knots and I, and a number of other people, were treated to seeing our breakfasts again over the side of the boat! The driver obviously found this very amusing and, in his broad South African accent, said: "the sharks aren't called Ralph - they don't come to their names anyway!"

Evidently they did though (or maybe the sea in our vicinity had just got a bit tastier!) Within minutes, we were donning flippers, masks and snorkels and being briefed about keeping our hands tucked under our armpits as we didn't want the sharks thinking they were mackerel and taking a chomp. This briefing didn't totally fill us with confidence, although they did state that nobody had been bitten yet. Again, the word yet wasn't particularly reassuring!

So gingerly, we got out of the rig and started tentatively swimming about. I've never had to not look like a fish before, but I suddenly started trying my hardest to impersonate anything but a fish! After a few minutes, I decided I must be doing a good job as at least a dozen 2-3 metre grey tip sharks happily swam around me, coming up and taking a look (thankfully not taking a bite).

After a while, a big lumbering Tiger Shark (known locally as Ragged Tooths due to their vast array of razor sharp teeth) meandered its way through the smaller Grey Tips, took a look at us, snatched a mackerel (thank goodness it wasn't the other way round) and sauntered off again as if to say "I can't be bothered with you lot."

As confidence built, some of us started diving down below the surface a bit. On one occasion, I dived down, not realizing that a shark was swimming across below me and swam head first into it with a fair old clatter. I kind of felt that I should say sorry - fortunately, it didn't seem to take offence and retaliate though! On another occasion, a shark glided towards me on the surface. With a head on collision imminent, and unsure how best to move out of its way, I decided to play dead. At the last moment, it dived just enough to sail underneath me, with its dorsal fin brushing the length of my chest!

I also had a moment of sheer panic at one point. I noticed in front of me a large chunk of fish. Instinctively, I reached out and grabbed it. In hindsight, I'm not sure whether I did this out of curiosity, or whether I was moving it so as not to swim into it. As I grabbed it, ithere was a sudden realization that this was bait that had been thrown into the sea to entice sharks to come and eat - and there was me, holding it! In reaction to this realization, I tried to throw the fish away, but momentarily forgot that you can't really throw things underwater - I knew I should have paid more attention in my Science lessons at school!

After over an hour swimming about, we hauled ourselves back onto the rig, most of us promptly deposited the remains of our breakasts into the sea, and we headed back to shore excitedly chattering away like kids, recounting our personal experiences. On the way back, a huge seabird glided past us effortlessly. Our driver decided to floor the throttle and chase it before finally dropping us back on shore - just what our delicate stomachs needed!

What an amazing day!

With a barbeque planned for this evening and a golf day planned for the golfers tomorrow, it could be time for a couple of quiet days of R&R before we head North to Pretoria.

View links to all Matt's blogs here, and see the picture gallery of his tour here.