Aaron Gekoski's Moz blog

Diving with dinosaurs

18/06/2011

Our regular Moz blogger Aaron Gekoski travels from the warm waters of Mozambique to film and dive with broadnose sevengill sharks in Cape Town.

Just off the Cape Peninsula, close to the pretty bay of Simon’s Town lies an innocuous short stretch of ocean. Like much of the seascape here, kelp sprouts from the kryptonite green water, which laps at boulders straight out of The Flintstones. It looks a lot like the rest of this spectacular coastline. Yet this body of water harbours a prehistoric secret: just a short hop, skip and a dive away from the shore swim living, breathing dinosaurs.

The name of these astonishing creatures is the broadnose sevengill shark. Yet I prefer their more palatable, less adjective heavy name: cow shark. These fish have glided through our oceans for hundreds of million of years, unblemished by Mother Nature’s marauding fingers. All sharks originally possessed seven pairs of gill slits. A period of tweaking and refining commenced and most species drop a couple of pairs. For some reason the cow sharks kept theirs. In fact, cow sharks have very few modern adaptations, which is why they remain one of the closest links we have to dinosaurs on earth.

For some unknown reason, the cow sharks just love this tiny stretch of water and congregate here en masse, just metres offshore. I’d read about this extraordinary site, yet before now had never had the opportunity to dive here. Shore diving remains one of my favourite methods of exploring the deep blue; there are no boats with their thumping motors, no launches, no travelling out for miles to sea. A shore dive simply features you, your breathing apparatus, your buddies, and a gradual descent into an underwater world packed full of goodies.

Unfortunately, these goodies come wrapped in a bitterly cold packaging. Even 10mm of neoprene, hoodies, gloves and boots do little to mask the freezing water here. Our dive guide was free diver and photographer Jacques de Vos. Jacques has spent countless hours underwater interacting with the cow sharks. He has built up an intimate knowledge of their behaviour and habits. He stressed that whilst the cow sharks may appear docile, we must maintain eye contact and not touch them. Attacks on divers are rare, yet it’s important to remain vigilant when dealing with toothy predators like sharks. Especially ones that can grow to four metres in length and have been found with human remains in their stomachs.

Jacques, divemaster Rob, myself and my colleague – the underwater cinematographer Chris Scarffe - entered the water via the rocks. The Cape’s waters welcomed us with an icy blast, jolting our systems, priming our senses. During descents into unfamiliar (and shark infested) territories, I frequently remind myself that each year more people are killed by their Christmas tree lights, or by falling off their chairs than by sharks. However, it’s easy to lose sight of such rational thoughts in these famously murky waters.

My mind turned to the ridicule that would ensue at being chomped by a shark named after a chubby, milk-yielding herbivore. I’d never live it down. Thankfully the chances of being nibbled by a cow shark remain miniscule. My first encounter with a two metre male put me at ease. In fact, I could have sworn it was smiling at me. Much like dolphins, cow sharks’ stubby faces are etched with perma-smiles. Depending on your point of view, this is either quite cute, or freakishly sinister. Either way, it’s as unusual as it is mesmerising.

The other notable thing about these sharks is their curious, bold nature. Most sharks, despite their fearsome reputations, remain skittish when encountering humans. Cow sharks, on the other hand, will boldly check divers out, flash a wicked smile and then glide off momentarily, before returning for a second look. They move as if in slow motion, their stout bodies propelled by long, elegant sweeps of the tail. The sharks are a photographer’s dream; willing posers for the camera, unfazed by the flashes of strobes and enveloped by the most spectacular studio imaginable.

Sadly, the fate of the cow sharks may remain a familiar one. They are being fished extensively in these waters. Whilst I was diving there, reports began to surface of cow sharks being used as bait for great whites by several of the operators in Gansbaai.

Sharks, yet again are falling prey to the greatest predator to ever walk the earth, Man. Every year, we are responsible for the deaths of up to 100 million sharks. We kill sharks for their jaws and teeth which make tacky souvenirs. We kill them for the oil in their liver, their cartilage, flesh and fins. Now, unimaginably, we are killing them to feed to their own, by those who pass themselves off as shark conservationists.

I left this magical stretch of water full of wonder at the amazing smiling cow sharks of Cape Town, yet appalled at how, once again, we are changing the face of our oceans. Cow sharks have survived five mass extinctions and due to Man’s short sightedness and greed, they now face a sixth.

Aaron Gekoski is a filmmaker, writer and photographer who has just finished filming Shiver, a documentary on Africa’s shark finning crisis. For more information, please visit www.aarongekoski.com.

Please contact the excellent Mike at Pisces Divers (www.piscesdivers.co.za) for more information on diving with the cow sharks. Chris Scarffe’s work can be seen on his website: www.mozimages.com.

Killers on the loose in Tofo

03/06/2011

How many events in our lives can we count as truly unforgettable? Those magical moments we will recall to our grandchildren as we bounce them happily off our knee, deep into old age? I can probably count mine on one hand – flying over the Valley of the Kings at sunrise in a hot air balloon, scoring the winning goal in a cup final as a kid (a toe punt, but they all count), graduating from university.

I had a moment last week that may have eclipsed them all. It all started regularly enough: another sweet and sunny day in Tofo, Mozambique. The ocean had been unnervingly glassy all week; flat with the potential to explode at any moment. I was diving with operator Peri Peri and we were off to Tofo’s world famous dive site, Manta Reef. We launched effortlessly, caressing our way through the puny waves. Instantly we were surrounded by a pod of humpback dolphins who seemed in an unusually playful mood. And then devil rays, everywhere, tossing themselves out of the water like pancakes from another world. The sea was in a mischievous mood, alive with life. Customers cooed and squealed in unison, not a bad place this Tofo. Little did they know what lay ahead.

An Orca passes beneath our intrepid trio

And then we saw it; the commotion in the ocean. A huge flock of birds circled above in anticipatory mood. And fins…fins all over. Dolphins? Too big. Whale sharks? Too pointy, too black. As we got closer, we realised what we were encroaching on. A pod of perhaps ten killer whales had clearly just caught something large. Chunks of flesh floated everywhere, as the killers feasted on what had probably been a humpback calf just moments before.

An excited bull shark barrels past one of the orcas.

Of any marine animal, orcas are the ones I’ve always said I’d be most reluctant to swim with. They are carnivorous, smart, fast and hunt in unison. Although no cases exist of them killing humans in the wild (perhaps because most people get the hell out of the water when confronted by an orca) they regularly hunt large mammals such as other whales and seals. And as we know, a snorkeling human can look rather like a delicious seal – only in my eyes a lot less agile and therefore easier to snarf right down.

I never actually thought I’d have to confront this hypothetical situation. Killer whales are seen here maybe once every couple of years, disappearing as quickly as they arrive. No one had ever been in the water with them. So would I snorkel with killer whales in a feeding frenzy? Not on your nelly.

A bull shark muscles in on the action

But adrenaline does funny things to you. The desire to get in the water was overwhelming. It was very unlikely I’d ever get to see this again in my lifetime. Myself, our instructor Dave and Marine Megafauna Association researcher Helen kitted up like crazy people. We slipped quietly into the water and gingerly snorkeled our way towards the buffet. The ocean was thick with offal and flesh. We could make out large black and white objects all around us. And then shouts from the boat; “sharks, to your left!”; “more, right!”; “lots of them!” We were being buzzed by bulls sharks who had joined in the feast. They were in hunting mode, fins tucked in to their sides, darting around aggressively. They would rush towards us from the deep and were repelled by thrusting a camera, or fin towards their snout. The killer whales snacked on obliviously all around us, uninterested by three mad people flapping around at the surface, fending off sharks. We’d seen enough. We grabbed a couple of photos and flopped back onto the boat, elated. I thought my heart was going to pound through my chest.

Orcas and bull sharks. Photo by Helen Mitchell

The rest of the day and the dives were a magical blur. I seem to remember a breaching giant manta, possibly a whale shark and lots more UFO pancakes. And then as we surfaced from our final dive, the giant slap of a humpback’s tail fin, maybe 100 meters from us. Was that the heartbroken mother, off to continue her migration, without the calf she has nurtured in her belly and by her side for so long? It’s an unforgiving place, the ocean. Yet it’s capable of producing moments that will be forever etched in our memories.

See below for a video clip of the event.

All images by Aaron Gekoski unless otherwise credited.

To see more of Aaron's work please visit www.aarongekoski.com
Aaron was diving with Peri Peri divers. Contact steve@peri-peridivers.com
For more information on the Marine Megafauna Foundation, please visit www.marinemegafauna.org.

Wild Talk Africa

28/04/2011

Not many people have lived deep in the Alaskan Wilderness with grizzly bears, penetrated the underwater lairs of the Nile crocodile, or dived 65 metres into the depths of our oceans on a single breath. Wild Talk Africa is the place that these extraordinary souls come together.

Wild Talk Africa is one of the world’s leading wildlife film festivals and takes place biennially in South Africa. It offers a forum for networking, debating and negotiating with commissioning editors, distributors and producers. The last Festival, held in 2009, attracted 350 delegates from 22 countries. This year the event was held from March 28th-March 31st, at picturesque Spiers - the ideal backdrop to hear tales of man’s remarkable relationship with nature.

Day one commenced with an open discussion with the leading players in the world of wildlife filmmaking. Cameraman and presenter Richard Terry amused the crowd with his stories of encounters with wild Alaskan wild bears during his filming of Stranger Amongst Bears. Roger Horrocks re-laid the sheer terror of following gigantic crocodiles deep into their underwater tunnels in Into the Dragon’s Lair. And Hanli Prinsloo spoke eloquently about free diving with vast schools of sharks.

Filmmakers and aspiring filmmakers converge here from all corners of the globe, hoping to turn their dreams into tangible products. Pitching sessions throughout the festival allowed these hopefuls the opportunity to showcase their work in front of commissioning editors from the major wildlife television networks.

I was at Wild Talk to pitch our new film on the shark finning industry, Shiver, which you will read about in the Autumn issue of Divesite magazine. Every year 100 million sharks are butchered for their fins. At this rate, our oceans will be empty of sharks within 10-20 years. Our plan is to get deeper into this brutal trade than any film crew has ever gone in a bid to cease the demand for shark fins from South East Asia.

Other pitches focused on wild dogs of the Transkei, a sanctuary for rescued lions, the adventures of two crazy pilots, and rhino poaching. The session was held in front of an esteemed panel of judges that included Andrew Jackson from the BBC, Michael Mavretic from National Geographic and Vyv Simpson from NHU Africa.

Nerves in the room were frayed; five minutes to summarise years of hard work seemed an impossible task. Thankfully it went as well as we could have hoped, with our pitch receiving unanimous support from the judges. Since then, major distributors have shown interest in funding Shiver. Fingers crossed we will commence shooting very soon.

Along with nerve-wracking pitching sessions, delegates attended workshops on everything wildlife – from scriptwriting and story telling, through to camera work and marketing your film. The latest filming technology was showcased, with a lot of hype surrounding 3D cinema and television. The crowd even got to meet a tame cheetah during one of the evening functions and eat their way through lavish banquets.

With the networking over, the industry had the rare chance to scrub up and let their hair down for the prestigious ROSCAR’s awards ceremony, the wildlife equivalent of the Oscars. It is our hope, our dream that the next ROSCAR’s will feature a certain film on shark finning. And then it will be us up on stage, smiling proudly as we cradle an award.

To see the pitch for Shiver, please visit www.aarongekoski.com.

Films, sharks, and Mozambique

10/02/2011

Hello, bom dia and welcome to my first blog for Divesite. For those of you wondering why you should listen to me spout off on a regular basis, I’ll start with an introduction. My name is Aaron Gekoski and I’m a photographer, writer and marine filmmaker. I have just been involved with filming a documentary on Mozambique’s shark finning crisis, Shiver which you may have read about in the summer issue of Divesite. A shiver, for those of you who don’t know, is actually the collective noun for sharks. Other ‘interesting’ collective nouns include a “troubling” of goldfish, a “crash” of rhinos, and my personal favourite, a “Parliament” of owls. If you like pointless trivia such as this, I hope you will enjoy reading my regular posts.

The documentary saw myself and the team from Moz Images and Sangue Bom in Mozambique follow Carlos Macuacua – the country’s first dive instructor - as he embarked on a campaign to save Mozambique’s sharks. The aim of the film was to lobby government and educate Mozambicans on why we need to protect our apex predators. We also wanted to alert fishing communities on the dangers of eating shark meat laden with the toxin Methylmercury. Stay posted for Divesite’s autumn issue, which will contain a follow up article on the impact the film has had, as well as our plans to shoot a groundbreaking follow up, for a worldwide audience. The article will document our proposed presenter of the English version, Dave Charley living in a remote shark finning camp, with the rest of the crew. Shark fishermen are vilified by divers the world over. However, many fishermen have been forced to target sharks, given that traditional catch has plummeted. These waters are hammered daily by industrial vessels who operate illegally, far out at sea, relentlessly hoovering up everything in their way.

This piece will show the human side of these small communities and paint a picture of people with very little money, living difficult lives, braving rough seas (armed only with small rowing boats) in order to put food on their tables.

Don’t worry though, not every blog will be this depressing. I’ll also give regular updates on the work of the Marine Megafauna Foundation, run by Dr. Simon Pierce and Dr. Andrea Marshall, two of the most dedicated, selfless individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. The pair – and their lovely team of researchers - are doing great work protecting the species they love. Congratulations to them for attaching their second satellite tag to a juvenile male whale shark yesterday (nicknamed Gene), in poor conditions. Stay posted to see the depths this jolly blue giant dives plunges to and where he heads on his merry journey.

I love Mozambique and don’t need an excuse to write about it. The people here are simply beautiful (though it often disgusts me to see how the locals are treated by visitors to these wonderous stretches of golden perfection. Show some respect, or get the hell out). So expect many updates on all things Mozambican and wet; the problems with overfishing, what is being targeted, new legislations, diving hotspots and answers to the most important questions such as whether Laurentina is a preferable beer to Manica. But I will mainly try and keep it related to diving (Laurentina gets my vote). I will also keep readers posted with the latest shark finning developments around the world, as well as updates on our new film, which we believe will be the biggest on sharks since Sharkwater.

I promise to keep shameful plugs to a minimum…though rumours have it that conservational clothing brand www.marine-madness.com have just released a hilarious fish dictator t-shirt, featuring such gems as Sardine Hussein, Robert Mugobie, Kim Jong Eel and Osalmon Bin Laden. Although this company is in no way associated with this blogger - :) - I would love to hear your fish dictator suggestions: info@marine-madness.com or add your comment at the bottom of this page.

Até-logo.

To view Aaron’s work visit www.aarongekoski.com, email info@aarongekoski.com. To watch Shiver, please visit www.vimeo.com/17295966