see a shark

Me, Al & Cathy went down to Long Beach last friday and hooked up with a whale watching boat. On the way out of the harbour we were told by a weary sounding captain that 3 whales had been sighted that day and we should all keep our eyes peeled for ‘blows’. He didn’t sound confident. As we left the safety of the bay he admitted that all sightings were from dedicated whale sighting stations and there had been no actual boat sightings.
We chugged out into the foothills of the Pacific and found an oil rig. Cathy went to sleep. Me and Al kept our spirits up by counting seagulls. Then a patch of thrashing water was spotted. We motored towards it and discovered a school of common dolphins which was a bit cool. They played in the bow wave and we all frantically photographed out-of-focus water.
At this point the captain spotted something in the distance. We went to investigate and found a dead sea-lion with a seagull perched on top of it picking at the rotting flesh. Ah nature!
“What do you want to do?”, asked the captain. “Go back to the dolphins or look for a whale?” “A Whale!”, we all cried, only fractionally more enthusiastically than he beaten captain. So off we chugged, playing down the clock before returning to port. Then Stacey spotted something behind us. The boat stopped and we were all instructed to watch the surface. We all watched the surface, caught up in the naivety of the know nothing tourist. Then we saw it – a blow. How we cheered. We followed the now still waters and the mighty beasts rose again. We cheered once more and the captain chased closer still. Sitting still in the water with baited breath we waited for them to rise again. The water beside the boat parted and two magnificent hump back whales breached, their massive bodies rolling out of the sea and their flukes sliding up above the ocean before slipping beneath the waves. We were so excited. Even the captain could not contain his emotions. I wondered if it might be the first time he had actually seen one. It was time to go home and all the way back the captain told us how lucky we were to have seen them and we celebrated our good fortune by grinning inanely for several hours. I saw a whale. Brilliant.

I was in LA before xmas and went for a swim down by Venice beach. No sharks but I did see a whole heap of dolphins. I know – they’re different, but it’s all I’ve got. I’m going to have to go out and get me that shark. It’s just not going to swim up and say hello. Going back to LA at the end of february; can you go shark spotting off the coast there? Have to check that out.

I saw a documentary this weekend of a guy exploring the island of Mull, off the coast of Scotland. He was canoeing inthe sea amongst basking sharks. He had a camera on his head and when he got close to one he would roll the canoe and film them underwater (and upside down). What a cool thing to do. I might have to try that.

I’ve been watching the BBC series Blue Planet recently and it has so many fantastic sequences of sharks. There are shots of white tips feeding at night along a coral reef, swarming hammerheads in the pacific and really ugly looking salmon sharks cruising around the bays of Alaska. They are such remarkable creatures.
Closer to home there have been unsubstantiated claims of Great-White sightings off the coast of Cornwall, the south western tip of England.
It makes me very envious to think that there are people in the world who get to see these things, while I’m stuck in Dublin.

Sawin the paper today that a basking shark was washed up dead on a beach in Kerry. It was wrapped in a monofilament net. Sad.

Turns out a work colleague of mine kissed a shark in Mexico…as you do! She said it was leathery. she also said the shark was cute. When we asked how big it was, she stretched her arms out and said “this big”, which sparked a discussion about whether her arm span was greater than her hieght. We then forgot about the shark. Turns out her armspan was equal to her hieght.

Its possible to go on a basking shark research holiday off the coast of scotland. Thats something to look at. Its a bit pricey though. Quite like the idea of being in the company of people who know about them. Wont happen this year though. Loads of time to research this. Another option is South Africa. this could tie in with the World Cup in 2010.

Dont know what it is about sharks but I want to see one. A real one. And not one of those poor bastards in aquariums who swim round and round in circles. Now I’m not saying that I want to be in the water when it shows up, thats just dumb, but I would get such a buzz seeing one pass by a boat that I was on. They’re magnificent and they’re out there. I dont want to feed one, I dont want to touch one, I just wanna see one!