I am in the final days before my trip to South Africa to do a great white cage dive. This trip has taken me 2 years to plan and pay for. I have been researching cage dives for years before I decided on my final location. In researching, I wanted to make sure that I went with a company that is more about education and preserving sharks than just a deep sea fishing trip with cage dives thrown in. There was also a desire and need to go with a company that wasn't going to attract sharks in an unnatural way. I have been watching Shark Week for over 20 years and when I saw Chris Fallows and his photography of the Great White Sharks breaching - originally aired and called Air Jaws - I knew that I wanted to go to S. Africa to see the sharks jumping out of the water. Following him and seeing his love for sharks and wanting to preserve them and using more natural ways to get the sharks to breach made me look into S. Africa cage diving companies. I got lucky in my research - not for cage dives but trying to order some of his photographs - that he has a cage diving company and I KNEW that is the company I wanted to go through. Looking through the website - Apex Predators - I noticed that they do both cage diving and shark expeditions. Knowing that this is a bucket list trip and a (belated) birthday gift to myself I went big and decided to go with the Great White Trail Shark Expedition. I wish I could fully express the excitement I have for this trip.
Preparing for my very first international trip was a process for sure and took several attempts to get my passport. In addition, to lots of phone calls and research. First I had to order my birth certificate from another state. Then once it came in I went to send off for my passport I was first told that I needed to have a certified copy of my marriage license because my name didn't match the name on my birth certificate. I left feeling defeated but ordered a certified copy of it, tried again only to be the post office I went to only takes the first 22 people. This of course was no where listed anywhere. I called several other post office locations to only be told that I needed to be there at like 4-5 am to get in line to get my passport. I finally reached a location that told me to be there 7:30ish am and I should be able to get a place in line. This time I was the 9th person in line but again they only take the first 22 people. Once it was my turn I handed al...
Everyone keeps asking me what I will be doing so this post will be the itinerary that has been sent to my from Apex Sharks Expedition. As you can tell I will be spending a lot of time on the water learning about sharks. The great thing is that our time out on the water will be in the morning and I will have afternoons to do some additional activities and exploring. This is, of course, subject to change depending on weather - it's their winter. I am super thrilled about learning about the sharks, their habits, how to identify them, and learning what we can do to help protect them but I will also be in such a diverse area that I will have some opportunities to do other things and see even more wildlife. My flights are extremely long. Going to Cape Town will take about 25 hours and then coming home it will take about 28 hours. Even though I have some really cool layovers they are only about 2 hours each and so I won't get to explore some of Amsterdam or Paris. Day 1: 16 Aug...
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