Busy busy busy

Sorry it’s been so long! And it’s not that nothing has happened here, just that we had a super-busy week last week followed by a super-fun weekend, and I just really haven’t had any time. So… highlights. Last week we saw a natural predation that was seriously about ten meters off the boat. This one was pretty graphic, actually, with a giant bubble of blood coming up around the seal. We were all shouting, because it was really dramatic (and pretty cool, to be honest) as the shark went after the seal again and again. I was holding the bait rope (the ball of fish attacked to a rope that we attempt to keep away from the sharks) but was watching the seal. All of a sudden, the shark abandoned the seal, grabbed my bait, and started swimming straight downwards. I attempted to hold the line, but obviously the shark had the advantage, so I let go to avoid losing fingers. The shark kept swimming down, and the rope, which was tied to the boat, began to pull the starboard side of the boat down into the water. It was very Jaws. Eventually, the shark let go to return to its seal, but it was a pretty intense experience.

What else? We did another 24-hour seal survey, which was cold, but always kind of fun. It also meant that I got very little sleep Thursday night, which I followed up with very little sleep Friday, and Saturday nights. The weekend was nuts, we had a barbecue on Friday because Sophie was leaving us, which means we ate around 10:30-11 pm. After that, we hit the bars. We ended up clubbing until about 4:30 in the morning, and I might have had more to drink than I have since college, or at least Australia. The next morning was beach volleyball with the whole intern crew. I was pretty hung over, but managed to be on the winning team for three out of four games. We learned that English people are absolutely miserable volleyball players, which was pretty hilarious. Adam managed to fall over into the sand on seriously every hit, whether or not he actually had to dive. He also wore short running shorts and Converse sneakers, and got soaking wet by running into the water over and over again, even when he didn’t have to.

Saturday night everyone ended up being pretty tired, so we watched a couple of movies and hung out. At about 3 in the morning, Justin and I decided that we were tired of just sitting around, so Justin, Adam and I headed back over to Vibrations, the dance club. On the way there, we realized that our stamps from the previous night had not entirely faded, so we got to use the same stamp and avoid paying 20 rand cover. Which is less than three dollars, but still. We were proud. After the bar shut down, we all hung out, and got to bed around six am.

So Sunday we were all wrecked, but I still managed to get in a six-plus mile run in the morning, then we had presentations on sharks for several hours. After that, we hit the bar to watch soccer. We returned home, and Stef started cooking dinner. I fell asleep on the couch, and decided to go to bed at 8 pm. So… that’s why I haven’t written.

Other than that, things are good. Chumming yesterday, we had fun throwing fish eyes at the small fish that come around the boat. Had one shark sort of around all day, which eventually ripped one of our chum bags off the boat, but nothing too crazy. They just decided on a surprise chum trip today, so we’re about to head out. They like messing with the schedule at the last minute, it’s actually really annoying.

One other really exciting thing—I’m going to be working on writing up a scientific paper that I can hopefully get published. I met with Ryan this morning to talk about ideas, and we will be working together to get this paper written. He’ll be guiding me, but I’ll be doing the bulk of the work on it. In return, I will get to be the second author on the paper. So not only will it be a great learning experience, but I also have the opportunity to get a publication, which is a big deal. So that’s awesome, the paper is on sharks that we have observed resting (basically sleeping) in the shallows during our tracking periods. I will keep y’all posted.

If you just can’t get enough of what I’m doing, you can always check out SAMPLA’s blog. I actually wrote the update on tagging/tracking (it hasn’t been posted yet) and will probably write another this week. I think writing for that is why I’m in full-sentence mode today. Sorry about that. So… yeah. Off to chum!

ps- CHOMP.