The Return of Kelly Slater

The day I created this blog I was sitting on the couch at my house in Salado, Texas flipping through South Africa travel books, trying to figure out what on Earth to pack, and just freaking out in general about the trip I was about to make. In that first post, I made a list of the Top ___ (I forgot the number now) things I wanted to do once I got here. Well ladies and gentleman, here it is...the most exciting, anticipated part of my trip thus far....SHARK CAGE DIVING!

Wyatt and I in the cage. Yikes!

Wyatt made me wake up WAY too early for our 2 hour drive to Gaansbaai, the shark cage diving capital of South Africa. Of course we arrived about an hour early, so we signed in and made ourselves at home in the "Great White House." After devouring some complimentary breakfast (don't mind if I do) and scoping out the rest of the group, we headed outside to get our life jackets, some obnoxiously large rain coats, and a few instructions on sea sickness. 

My rain-dress.

He looks like a kid who just got caught stealing candy before dinner, ha!

Wyatt, being the humble guy that he is, thinks he is immune to sea sickness. His reasoning? He has a lake house. Now I'm no hustler, but I know a money making opportunity when I see one, so I decided to make a bet. It went like this: I get to take seasickness pills because I'm a baby, but he isn't allowed to take anything. If he gets sick, he owes me the most expensive dinner he's ever laid eyes on, and if he doesn't then I owe him the same. Stay tuned for the results..

Next it was time to board the ship! It was a particularly rough day at sea (God must have known I couldn't afford dinner if I lost the bet) and the ride out to our diving spot was too much fun. When I was a little girl my favorite thing to do was get in the boat with my Uncle Dan and make him drive as crazy as possible, so it's so surprise that I was giggling like a three year old the entire time. Once we got to our destination the crew started handing out wetsuits, assigning groups to go in the cage, and baiting the sharks. Within the first 10 minutes we had already seen our first shark!

They used tuna heads to bait the sharks in, but the entire crew made a really big point to tell us that they are in no way trying to feed the sharks. If they did end up feeding them, the sharks would begin to correlate boats with food, and that's not fun for anyone involved.

These animals are so gigantic it's unbelievable. I was SO excited to get in the water!

They don't call him Jaws for nothin'..

After we got our wetsuits, Wyatt and I hustled down to the bottom deck and began sucking up to the marine biologist in charge of the cage so we could try to pull in some special privileges (none of you reading this should be surprised). He was a really cool guy and put us first in the group for the next cage. 

Wyatt climbed in before me and once he got in, turned to me and said, "Umm..Amanda, are you going to be okay?" I can get a little claustrophobic at times and apparently the cage didn't have much breathing room. Whatever, we drove two hours, took an hour long boat ride, and the sharks were going wild, so in the cage I went!

I'm not going to lie, though, it was a bit scary!

Here are a few pictures from the boat:

YIKES!

Glad I'm not you, tuna.

They were thrashing like mad men.

Dun dun...dun dun...

This one's name is Chopper. He got all of those cuts from a boat propeller, poor guy.

Here are some awesome videos that Wyatt took with his underwater camera. I think they can do a lot better job explaining what we saw than I can (probably because I was so scared I shut my eyes half of the time):

After the ridiculous shark cage diving we all boarded the boat and headed by seal island. If you've ever watched Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, and I know you all have because everyone raves about it like it's their job, this is the island they always talk about with the "ring of death." Basically, it's a ring around the island that great whites stay in because food is easier to find than a Big Mac. 

They're so cute! Right now it's only females and babies on the island; all of the males are out looking for food!

Seal Island: A Seal's Dream Vacation

Bye seals!

After seal island it was time to head back to land, but this time we were so tired I don't think anyone on the boat said a word. I actually fell asleep on Wyatt's shoulder for over half of the ride! He claims I was sleep talking about Atami, a sushi restaurant in College Station, but I'm not sure if I believe him or not.

I'm sure you're all dying to know who won the bet about sea sickness. Here it is kids..(drumroll)...WYATT! He was such a trooper and didn't even talk about getting sick once! The only problem is, we were both so exhausted that when we got home a "30 minute nap" turned into sleeping for the next 12 hours, so dinner didn't happen. I made sure to buy him breakfast, though, don't worry!