27th February – Day 24
Today was the day of all days! The absolute highlight of our trip so far – our SHARK CAGE DIVE!
We had to be up early, and be at the Marina by 6.30am. I was so nervous that I hadn’t slept very well, Carl slept like a top!
The boat is a pretty state of the arts type of one, can have up to 39 people (even had hot showers on board) we had 9 on our trip, so plenty of room! It was a pretty good trip out, had a pod of dolphins follow us out for a short time, playing in the wake of the boat.
We arrived at the Neptune Islands at about 9:30 and did a tour of the seal colony, then finally dropped anchor at around 10am.
Carl was pretty cool, me, I was having heart palpitations and feeling very in denial about going in – at this point I had already stated that I didn’t think that I could do it. The crew were so fantastic, the deckhand went out of his way (knowing that I was having second thoughts) to talk to me and explain the whole process and answered all my ‘dumb’ questions, like – ‘if I panic and want to come to the surface, can I?’ – ‘what if I want to get out?’ etc, etc, etc. He was so good, that in the end, not only did I want to go in; I wanted to jump the queue as there was a shark swimming around the cage and I thought I was going to miss out and Carl was taking too long to get in!
It was brilliant! We had one small 2.5 metre shark attack the cage, he was an aggressive one. They are enormous – one was up to 4.5 metres. They seemed to come from out of nowhere and eye ball you as they swim past! That was unnerving seeing them do that, their eyes, feeling as though they were locked in on you!
Carl had an underwater camera that Bomber lent to us, but the crew made sure that everyone had a camera, some on movie, some taking pics. Whilst we were under water, they were also filming above, so when they dragged the bait across to the cage, we could see the shark swimming towards it and attacking it, as they were filming from on top – they combined everyones pics, we have a great DVD and CD of pics from the whole day. There were only 2 dives for the day, 5 in one, 4 in the other, Carl & I were in the 4 with a young English couple, he is an experienced diver, she was nervous and unsure like me, we gave each other encouragement to go in!
All I can say is, if you get the opportunity to experience it, ‘Just do it!’
Until tomorrow xx
New Zealand Fur Seal Colony, thats what the Sharks come to have for Dinner
Especially the Cubs who are born in November
Our First Sighting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Exiting The Cage at the end of our dive.
26th February – Day 23
Today was quite over cast so we decided to head into town and go to the Information place and maybe head to the National Park to see what it’s like and find a place that we can take our van to. We found a gorgeous place, “September Beach” a couple of people had mentioned it to us when we were in Marion Bay, they are Port Lincoln locals, so take the locals advice I say!
The road in is pretty good until the last 15km, which then becomes dirt, which is also fine, but then there is some really bad dirt road – I’ve left it with Carl. Worst comes to worst, we can just do some day trips in.
We went to a place called Cape Donington Lighthouse, and there was a pod of dolphins swimming along – spectacular!
I think I have mentioned before that we have met some great and varied people along the way. The recent ones are Kathryn & Perry – we first met them in Whyalla, he has a Triton and so started the boy conversation, nice people, about our age, second time round and just decided they needed to do the trip – rented their house out for 12 months – Qld (Billie, he reminds me of your Stephen ) And then there’s Gail & Dave, I’ve just taken to her, she’s great - 18 months older than me, she’s had breast cancer and they decided, it was now or never – put the house on the market and off they went! Eva & David, she’s a teacher, about my age, threw in the towel and went on the road, never had or towed a van before, they have an 11 year old dog that has arthritis, after a month on the road he did a tendon, $1300 later they are doing visits individually whilst the other stays home to look after the dog? Then there are the ones who got on the road and found out that their dog was in pup! Due to drop them any day, so she was just going to lock her in the shower recess, no room elsewhere! I love all their stories, it’s wonderful. I guess the one that we both love the most is the young girl & her friend who are on the road to raise money, she had Hodgkinsons Disease. The stubby holder says, “ONE GIRL, ONE YEAR, ONE MOTORHOME, $1M TARGET” - her website is – www.cruisin4acure.org.au - we donated of course, and have a stubby holder! All donations will be accepted!!
As I have been sitting here typing there has been a pod of Dolphins swimming in our little beach, they are having so much fun!
We got our days and dates confused, knew we were do the shark dive on the 27th, but thought it was Tuesday, only realised late last night that it is tomorrow!!! Eeeeeeh! Eeeeeeeh! Eeeeeeh! OMG!!!!
4wd track to Woodcutters Beach in Lincoln National Park
Donnington Beach and Cottage in Lincoln National Park
The Cottage is available to rent from Parks SA.
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