- Sightings: Great White Shark and Bronze whalers
- Location: Joubertsdam
- Water Temperature: Moderate
- Visibility: Poor
A lovely Wednesday out on the sea with a little bit of swell and wind lingering for the entire day but overall a pleasant day to spend on the water. The first trip headed into the Shallows and in time a shark was seen with a Bronze whaler making its' presence known to those on board Slashfin. The Bronze whalers ruled for close to 30 minutes until the larger predatory shark came on in. The first Great White of the day was the feisty little juvenile female that has kept us on our toes for nearly six weeks now as she comes speeding in out of nowhere and has a knack for launching herself up and out of the water with little warning. Another White shark also visited Slashfin this morning, with the large, clean female from yesterdays trip appearing, a new individual to the bay for the season, we are happy to be seeing new Great Whites moving into the bay. This female is a large animal, estimated at 4.0m in length, however, exhibits behaviour similar to our small female, with some fast-paced action seen around the boat when she is there.
We continued the day with our second trip launching and heading back onto anchor in the Shallows. Things were quiet for some time before a shy, juvenile White shark came up to the surface. This little shark appeared quite skittish and would not approach us closely, keeping to the outer reaches of our lines and darting quickly back into the murky depths where we could not see her, however with her arrival two more Great Whites appeared as the feisty female and larger female from first trip both reappeared and gave us some stunning sightings and activity. The Bronze whaler sharks were seen throughout this trip, yet, perhaps due to the White shark activity, they kept their distance and did not stay in view long.
To finish off the day we spent the afternoon enjoying the winter sunshine and some large shark sightings. Activity lessened as the day passed, however, we added a new sighting for the day, as this trip saw Clampy appear, an estimated 4.5m female that has associations with previous studies undertaken in this bay. Clampy was the only sighting for much of the trip, she was nice enough to visit for the first two cages, whilst only briefly, the moments we could see her were thrilling. Towards the end of the trip and day on sea, the 4.0m female returned to bid us farewell as we packed up for the day and made our way back to land.
