The seventh weekend

 

Saturday morning I could not sleep long. I was just very excited about this weekend, because together with some other exchange students we went to Hermanus for a white shark cage dive adventure. The parents of Georgina have a vacation house in Hermanus and  they arranged this interesting program for us.

Our first stop was in Stellenbosch which is located about an hour drive to the west from Cape Town. It is one of the oldest town of South Africa and it is a beautiful place with lots of green and surrounded by some Mountains – Drakenstein en Simonsberg. Its Afrikaans nickname is “Die Eikestad” which means “the town of oak trees” due to the large number of trees planted by the founder of the town. It was very pleasant to walk around on shady oak lined streets, where you could find many cafes, restaurant and little shops. We bought some souvenirs and we ate something there. It was funny that there everybody started to talk to us in Afrikaans and not in English.

Stellenbosch

The old huge houses look a bit like old Dutch buildings. It has a famous university which is more than hundred years old and it is mentioned as one of the best universities in the whole wide world. Verushka and Georgia wanted to see it, because they have plans to study here. So we walked together to the main campus of the university. It is massive! More than 30000 students study here. It has ten different faculties spread over five campuses around the Cape. You could really feel that Stellenbosch is a lovely student town such as Leiden in the Netherlands.

Fun together

Stellenbosch University

After this we headed to Hermanus and we hoped that our underwater adventure could go on Sunday, because there was very hard wind.All the exchange students slept together in the living room. It was more fun and playing board games than sleeping, but nobody minded it. Sunday morning we went to White Shark Project Company, at Kleinbaai. We were happy that the wind was not too strong and therefore our planned shark cage diving could go on. First we had a safety briefing and then we went on board. It took about half an hour to reach our shark territory. Then the shark cage was lowered into the water and strapped to the side of the boat. Our cage was famous because Leonardo DiCaprio also was diving with this cage. We had to put on wetsuits and weight belts. At the same time 7 people could be in the cage. The water was extremely cold, it was only 9°C! The cage was only partially submerged, with hand and foot rails inside. We did not wear snorkels, only masks. We kept our head above the water until shark spotters yelled “DOWN!”. At that moment we took a deep breath and pushed our feet under the bottom rail, holding ourselves underwater to watch the sharks. We watched several great white sharks and some of them were 4 meters long! The crew used different methods to attract the sharks. They dumped  fish blood into the ocean so the sharks can smell it from a miles away. Next to that a line with a huge fish head was thrown in. This way we got an amazing close-up view of these elegant and huge animals. It was a bit scary that sometimes the shark fin touched the cage. They told us that when white sharks are busy attacking prey their eyes roll into the back of their heads for protection. It was a fantastic underwater adventure which I am never going to forget.



On the boat

 

The famous cage

Shark cage diving



It was a fantastic weekend together

Unfortunately we did not have enough time to look around in Hermanus, but it is a lovely “Fisherman’s Village” and it is world famous about its whales. The whales can be seen from the cliffs in the town center when they are leaving and coming back. The biggest party of this village is “Calf Festival” to welcome the first whales usually in August. So cute!

Hermanus
 

We were quite late back in Cape Town on Sunday evening. Elise was already at home, but Steff’s plane was delayed due to strong wind. She was back late in the night and she was exhausted after the national waterpolo tournament. We can be very proud of the Herschel team! They played very well!