3/2/2011

We'd only scraped a few hours kip but it was time for the daunting yet exciting shark dive. We kitted up and drove to the launch site on the beach at the rivermouth. We had to have lifejackets on to start as the waves are so lethal if you got knocked off, you could be in serious trouble. But it was a successful launch out of the estuary and we were out into the ocean.

Our dive instructor put sardines and fish liver oil into the water and withing seconds up came several oceanic black-tip sharks. Leaving a trail behind the boat for a few hundred metres to lure in the local sharks, he released a bait bucket into the water. The sharks were swarming in. Fins were everywhere and we had to wait 45 minutes before the dive.

If that wasn't nervy enough, the briefing was about how to try and protect yourself from a potential Tiger shark attack! Not what you want to hear!

He jumped in to quickly test the water and he said the visibility was bad but if we wanted, we could go for a reef dive instead. We wanted to get in with the sharks so we stuck to our guns.

I saw one of the sharks breach out of the water which was daunting too!

We kitted up and fell backwards off of the boat into the water infested with the black-tips.

Jack told me after how he was having a panic attack at the time but whilst he and the others were going down, I didn't have enough weight on my weight belt so I wasn't sinking! Thankfully, one of the divemasters fetched me a couple of weights so I could descend.

The three divemasters, Jack, me and the instructor were hovering in the water in a semi-circle around the bait bucket watching the sharks swoop in and nibble and curiously checking stuff out. They were swimming inbetween and around us. I have to say that I wasn't frightened. Like the Great White cage dive, they were quite graceful, apart from one shark that was trying to eat a fish a couple of yards in front of me and almost darted into my mask. But even then it wasn't too bad. You feel safe in a big group. The more worrying thing was that the guy had warned us Tigers hunt from behind so that we all need to keep checking our backs!

We were about 10-12 metres deep admiring the sharks and it was such a wonderful experience with about 20-30 probably circling and lots of other fish such as bonita, and shark remoras, which had weird flat heads from where they attach themselves to sharks.

Saying that I felt fine, the instructor keot shaking the bait bucket to try and draw in a Tiger and more sharks but one of the black-tips kept hitting his head so he pushed it away and one nibbled his foot so he kicked it. The same happened with Jack apparently as one nipped at his fin.

I had bought a £25 underwater camera to take some photos so was trying to make the most of the 27 photos I had at my disposal.

Even though they can be dangerous I was itching to see a Tiger and that was essentially what we wanted to see but again luck wasn't on our side with the shark searching (like in Mozam).

After the dive we had a full English breakfast and got dropped on the N2 motorway. We hitched a lift to Pennington with a white South African who told me his cousin Richard Stroh plays for Nottinghamshire CCC. After that we had a scorching two-hour wait for a lift to Port Shepstone. Luckily a bread lorry pulled over and charged us a couple of quid each for this long drive. Either way, it helped us out so we jumped on with some woman who had also hitched a lift.

At Port Shepstone, the most ridiculous Shoprite had so many blacks there in the biggest queue I have ever seen! I was there for about half-an-hour queuing so I drank my drink, payed for some water and left. They need a Tescos there!

We struck the jackpot as we weren't sure if we'd make it to our port-of-call at Port St Johns. A bus to Lusikisiki and then a late taxi to PSJ got us there just in time to eat the girls' pizzas and have a few drinks with Michael and play pool. They had acquired another girl from Switzerland to our little gang. I wasn't full so indulged in a hot brownie with ice-cream! We chilled in a hammock by the lit-up pool before bed.

Mosquitoes were back in full swing here as the landscape around is very much like a jungle.