Swim Meet, Techno, and SHARKS!!!

Well, we finished up the meet with two great swims for Kicker and myself. I had the 50 back and Kicker had the 50 free- as I said before, it was a day made for sprinters with no warm down and hardly any warm up. I ended up second behind my old Stanford teammate Randall Bal who edged me out by a tenth of a second or so. I was surprised at this meet to be going a 23.7 in the 50 with our training regiment, or lack thereof, so I think that it means good things further down the road in Singapore, Stockholm, and Berlin. Kicker's 50 was also a surprise for him. He went 22.6 and got 5th or so and he was happy with it. Honestly it was hard to even think about being anything but pleased with the swimming at a venue this laid back and friendly. It was the friendliest competition I have ever been a part of. I even talked to the infamous Russian backstroker who always gives you the stair down whenever he sees you (hotel, airport, beach, etc), it was a first and hopefully it broke the ice and his habit of shooting you the death stare.

After the racing was over we had a meal and headed out to meet our other friends from various countries out on the town. We first went to go help celebrate George Durant's birthday party and bought him a couple beers that you could probably only find in South Africa, a Hanza and a Black Label. We know George from swimming in the States where he swam backstroke for Tennessee. After we hung out at his place of choice we decided we'd better head off to another place and meet up with, basically, the rest of the swim meet that was out. We headed to a place called 80s and had a blast. This place was packed, hot, and blaring South Africa's best techno. I'm not much of a techno fan but when you're dancing to it with a bunch of new friends from all over the world of swimming you sure sweat a lot.

We bought a couple of the $1.20 beers (yeah, the exchange rate is perfect for Americans right now 10:1) and had a great time. We've actually been here for a week now and haven't even spent $100- not bad! Anyways, we danced until I had thoroughly sweat through everything I was wearing and then we kept at it for a little longer. It was epic to say the least. Everyone was out there having a great time, and if any of the other World Cups are like this I may just have to stay in shape for next year's circuit. This was definitely the best stop I've ever been to, and the fun was just beginning.



During the meet we had talked with Ryk Neethling about what he'd been up to and some of our plans to possibly go on a caged shark dive with Great Whites. Once Ryk heard our plans he went into his story about the time he jumped in the water with 14 eight to twelve foot tiger sharks WITH NO CAGE!!! Well, we thought that sounded pretty crazy, and he admitted it was one of the most unnatural things he's ever done- voluntarily jumping into sharky water, but he told us we had to do it. So we thought it over during the first day of the meet and came back the next day with mixed feelings; I mean, how can you really even begin to think about jumping into water with the notorious tiger shark? The idea actually kept me up a bit that night, but after Ryk figured we probably weren't going to call his shark guide friends he picked up the phone and called them himself. They said they'd be happy to take us out and that they'd do it all for free! Usually it's $200 USD but they insisted. They picked Kicker, Randall, Yolana, Sam, Chanelle, and I up from our hotel and drove us about 30 minutss to Rocky Bay. We quickly got our stuff together and got into the boat.

Now the weather wasn't exactly cooperating and while the sun was starting to break through the clouds, the wind was picking up quite a bit. There were white caps and some pretty big waves out there, but we hopped in the duckie and motored out to the baited spot about 8km off shore. On the way it was a rodeo ride as we sat on the inflated rubber sides of the boat and held onto the rope as the boat sped up the face of waves and down the other side. We were getting drenched and feeling the effects of the wavy ocean. About half way through our trip out there Sam started to feel a bit woozy and couldn't help but puke over the side of the boat. We thought it was just her at this point- little did we know almost all of us were in for that treat later.

As we got out to the dive spot the dive master, Marcus, jumped over board and quickly started baiting up the buoy while sharks were swimming all around him! As we watched him with the stationary boat and began putting on our fins, masks, and everything else, the ocean started to get to us again. Once we'd finished gearing up the sea sickness pushed us past any fear we had of hopping in the water because we figured just getting in the water would settle our stomachs- we were wrong but it was a great trick to get us in the water. We figured after the dive master jumped in and didn't get eaten it must be safe enough and after the trip out we had better not chicken out. So we jumped over the side and put all our faith in this guys word the the sharks would devour our entire bodies.

Far from it! Once you put your mask below the water line, there must have been at least 15 sharks circling within feet of your body. As we learned most were black tipped reef sharks and the others were dusky's. Now when I say only feet away from you, I mean, literally 1 foot away or touching you. In fact at one point a shark swam from behind me right between my legs, bumping me as it did so, and as it swam away I felt comfortable enough to touch just behind its dorsal fin and pass my hand down to its tail. It didn't do anything but keep on swimming. It was so smooth to the touch. I would say that the scariest moments were when you first got in that all the sharks are swimming around you and they do these very sharp turn from 15 feet below you and start swimming straight at you. You can only hold your breath and hope they don't want to taste you and you stare at them all the way until they gently turn away at the last moment to go around you. Mark, our photographer and guide, explained later that they when there's food in the water they think you're there to check it out and they figure you're just enjoying the same feeding experience that they are, so they don't want to eat us. As the sharks were on average about 6 feet in length its a good thing they didn't want to eat us because it seems they could have done a pretty good job.

It was truly amazing to be in the water with these amazing creatures and feel comfortable enough to touch them. They are such graceful swimmers and their eyes are fascinating to look at as they swim by you. They are completely gray and emotionless yet mesmerizing at the same time. we didn't see any tiger sharks, but the other boat that was out before us did. It would have been cool but nothing would have ruined the experience, not even the sea sickness that came on after about ten minutes bobbing up and down in the water.

After trying to fight the urge to throw up while watching the sharks my stomach won the battle, and I puked up almost every bit of my breakfast straight into the ocean and the water my friends were snorkeling around in- I know, I'm a good friend. While snorkeling we were essentially just alternating between puking and shark viewing- a great combination. At one point, the dive master saw I was feeling a bit funky and asked, "how are you doing?" to which I replied, "I just puked my guts out but I'm having a great time!" It truly was such an amazing experience that nothing could possibly come close to making it anything other than the experience of a life time. How many times will I ever get a chance to dive with a guy who has been on Discovery Channel's Shark Week for free in South Africa? AMAZING!

We posted the pictures from the dive and if you're ever down in South Africa you must go look up Mark and Gail for a shark dive (www.bluewilderness.co.za). They've been at it for over ten years and they never had the slightest problem- it'll be something you'll never forget.

After the dive, Mark and Gail took us over to their house and made us lunch as they finished making copies of the underwater pictures that Mark had shot. We played with their daughters, then jumped back in the cars to head to the marine park in Durban. They know everyone there so we did that for free and got a personal tour of all the sharks and fish there in the aquarium from Steven, Gail, and Mark, some of the most knowledgeable people possible. After that we were beat and extremely hungry so they dropped us off at the hotel and we ate and passed out of exhaustion. An incredible 24 hours of South African adventures and parties. What a trip and we haven't even been to Swaziland yet.

Luckily Dale just got back to us with directions to their farm, so we leave in the morning and more updates are on their way.

(way to go if you read this far...)