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| Mystical sunfish |
| 18 June 2011, 10:24 |
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I have been in love with the ocean for many years now, and I have experienced amazing meetings, creatures and made my best friends in and on the water. Human and aquatic. A couple of days ago I had the great joy of making a new magical ocean friend.
Animal Ocean Steve and I launched out of Hout Bay to take some of our friends and freediving students to freedive with the seals around Duiker Island. The Cape Fur Seals with their large saucer-eyes, underwater acrobatics and curious nature are always so much fun and you can put anybody in the water with them and you know they will come out smiling.
It was a perfectly calm day, and we decided to do the short run to Maori Bay to show the guys the eery wreck and pretty bay at the far side of the Sentinel.
I always suggest these quick rides down the cliffs as I am constantly hoping and wishing for some dolphins to come and say hello. But today the ocean had something unusual in store for me.
As we sped over the cold atlantic water, me sitting in my favourite spot in the very front of Steve's boat, I saw the ghost-like shape under the water and shouted STOP!!! just as Steve threw the boat into reverse causing kit and guests to clatter around. Steve and I shared a look, hoping.
Yes! There it was! Our fast approach and quick stop hadn't scared it away. The flat flank of the Sunfish glowed white in the green water and Steve told our guests about this incredible fish. The largest of all bony fish, this strange looking creature hangs just under the water surface, often with one fin protruding, sunning itself. Thus the name Sunfish. They are jellyfish experts and hunt deep in the cold depths for their squishy food needing to then spend hours at the surface recovering from the cold and dark, sun-worshipping. We ooh and aah, and I look at Steve. This is one very comfortable fish. We throw on fins and masks and quietly slip into the water. As I approach this funny looking new friend, I am once again overcome with gratitude for the time I get to spend on the sea. Always changing, always sharing- this vast ocean wilderness sustains me.
The sunfish looks at me with it's large dark eye, something between the eye of a horse and a human. Spooky still and so big. I expect it to dive any minute, but the beautiful animal stays at the surface with us, gently finning around, seemingly as interested in us as we are in it. We spend about ten minutes with it, the most unaffected fish I've ever met.
Magical creature more at home in a storybook than our cold and sometimes violent Atlantic ocean, happy to meet you!
All images courtesy Steve Benjamin / Animal Ocean
More about hanli at www.hanliprinsloo.com
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| Why did they bite? Red Sea shark attacks |
| 9 December 2010, 08:41 |
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This is the question everybody is trying to find an answer for. Three shark specialists are being flown from the US to Sharm el Sheikh, beaches have been closed and two sharks have been caught, killed and opened up to see if they have human in their stomachs. The global hysteria around the last weeks' shark attacks in Egypt has left ocean lovers like myself in despair.
Four tourists were injured by an Oceanic White Tip Shark in Naama Bay in the South of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. The Egyptian CDWS (Chamber of Diving and Watersports) closed beaches and reports of a 'killer shark' started circulating. After two sharks were pulled out of the water and killed without positive identification last week thursday, the coast was considered clear once again and swimming resumed. On Sunday the 5th of December an elderly German tourist was fatally injured.
Sharm el Sheikh is a popular holiday destination with hundreds of thousands of tourists visiting this barren desert peninsula for the underwater fairyland which is so easily accessible. Beautiful coral reefs, colourful fish and crystal clear water attracts thousands of snorkelers to visit the Red Sea, the home of several shark species. Tiger sharks, Oceanic White Tips, Hammerheads and Mako sharks to name a few. Many divers visit the Red Sea expressly for the opportunity to dive with these majestic predators.
The snorkelers who were injured by the sharks were in the water to experience the underwater world. Sharks do not attack people often considering the vast amounts of surfers, divers and swimmers who share the oceans with sharks every day, all over the world. According to the International Shark Attack File less than 5 people per year die from shark attacks. Sharks have been around on our blue planet earlier than dinosaurs. Humans and sharks did not evolve together, and sharks do not see us as prey or a natural part of their diet.
So there are two interesting points: Why do sharks occasionally bite a human, which I go into in some depth below. But more fascinating still is why do we feel the need to retaliate so drastically? Oceanic White Tip Sharks as a species are listed as 'vulnerable' globally and 'critically endangered' in some parts of the world. The fishing of sharks and the selling of shark products is illegal in Egypt, and yet with all this information a decision was taken to kill sharks in the hysteria following the attacks. Two sharks that were clearly not the animals in question were killed in something that resembles a witch-hunt to satisfy some inexplicable human need for 'a tooth for a tooth'. Disregarding the fact that it is the shark's environment, they are a protected species and the ocean users were doing so at their own risk.
Oceanic white tips in the Red Sea
Images by Jean Marie Ghislain
Regarding the encounters that have sparked this irrational killing, it will be interesting to hear what the imported panel of experts come up with upon their arrival in Egypt. Why did the sharks bite? Popular theories include: the rumour that there are cadavers being dumped at sea off live-animal transport vessels changing sharks feeding patterns in the area; sharks having been fished for their fins extensively in the Red Sea the last couple of years by illegal fishermen where baited hooks and chummed water can possibly affect their typical behaviour; overfishing forcing sharks to venture closer to shore.
Extensive research by the Save our Seas Foundation in Cape Town has come up with three theories about why Great Whites occasionally take a nip at a human ocean user. I think these well-researched theories should be kept in mind for the Egyptian incident, as Oceanics and Great Whites are similar in being large, confident sharks with no natural predators.
In summary these are: 1: Investigatory theory- White sharks are intelligent and curious apex predators with complex behaviour patterns. They sit at the top of the marine food chain, and although they are hunted by man, they have no natural predators. As a result white sharks, especially the larger individuals, are confident in nature and extremely curious. They are much more likely than other marine species to investigate unknown objects in or on the water. Unfortunately, when they are unable to identify an object they rely on an investigatory bite to gather more information. 2: Mistaken identity theory- A shark is able to sense a person in the ocean long before that person can detect a shark. White sharks have excellent senses. They can detect sound and pick up smells from hundreds of metres away. They can sense moving objects through their lateral line, which consists of pressure-sensitive receptors along their body, and their vision underwater is far better than ours. However, these senses, impressive as they are, are not perfect. A large number of attacks occur when water conditions are poor leading many scientists to believe that bad visibility, background noise from heavy surf, and other conditions can cause white sharks to mistake humans for their normal prey. 3: Social / defensive theory- White sharks defend their ‘personal space’ by communicating through body posturing and biting, and the less dominant shark is normally forced to give way to the more dominant. A surfer or swimmer at the surface, totally unaware of a shark’s presence below the water, would be unaware of a shark defending its space until bitten. A shark could even view a person as a competitor when fish or other prey is in the water.
For more on the SOSF research on 'Why White Sharks Bite People' please see: http://saveourseas.com/articles/why_do_white_sharks_bite_people.
At times like these one hopes that humans will make the better choice and act as the evolved sentient beings that we are. Keep an open mind and a cool head about this and not revert to behaviour that is unacceptable and in fact more despicable than the original perpetrators. The oceans are our last wilderness, let's try approach them with the respect and understanding they deserve.
Images of Oceanic White Tips in the Red Sea taken by Jean Marie Ghislain of Shark Revolution, November 2010.
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| Purple diving camel! |
| 15 October 2010, 11:21 |
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 It's all technical now. I love the water, I have more than enough oxygen, hardly any lactic acid in my legs and my mind is calm and relaxed. But below 50 meters it's not just about feeling good, it's about making everything work. The fine balance between being completely relaxed and completely focused. If I miss an equalisation down here it'll be over- just turn, swim back up and try again tomorrow. My mind is empty from everything but this second. Don't think about what would happen if you can't equalise and have to turn early, the disappointment, the failure...
Don't think about what would happen if you can and everything works and you dive deeper than you ever have and the fulfillment, the achievement...
STOP! Don't think about it!!
If I tell you NOT to think of a purple diving camel. What are you thinking of? A purple diving camel of course. And so it goes, playing this little game of hide and seek with my mind. Not thinking, just this breath, just this kick, just this equalisation. And when I master this, detaching from the outcome, letting go of the next moment everything works and I dive deeper. This is how it works.
I come up happy, it was deeper today than yesterday, there was no purple camel, just the majestic arch letting in the light. A big hug from Yaniv, he shares my achievement, without him I cannot do these deep dives.
Without a dedicated safety diver who waits for me at 20 meters and swims up with me making sure I am okay the dive is too dangerous. 'I have to go see a fish', I tell him and he laughs. I swim over to the far side of the Blue Hole and play with the brightly coloured little fish. Like confetti scattered on the reef they flit around above the coral. I glide between them sharing my joy- with no bubbles to disturb their silent world they let me hang with them, coming up close, circling my limbs. A deep dive and fish friends. This is what it's all about.
Left: The team
Right: Hanli plays with the fishes
For more pics and news from Hanli's adventures, see www.hanliprinsloo.com
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| Depth! |
| 7 October 2010, 21:17 |
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It's been two weeks of dust and camels and blue water. 2 SA records and many great dives. This is what Dahab is all about. Freedivers from all over the world congregate here, like those small stripey fish under anything that floats. You know the ones? Well, that's us. If you're a freediver and you want to increase your depth, sooner or later you will find yourself in Dahab. I have been training with Bertrand from Holland, an IT project manager who ran away from his team and added over 10m to his personal best in only ten days. Yaniv from Israel who knows a lot about meditation and wants to go deeper than his 40m, Nanja from Holland who has a pitbull inside her and does whatever depth she puts her mind to, Petr from Czech who I've known for years, diving deeper every year, smiling every day, Julia from Argentina who loves the way down but is nervous on her ascent, she is working with her mind! And then there is me, the African from the South, who swops her beloved sharks and seals for a brighter shade of blue, and the perfect dive.
What is the perfect dive? Is it the deepest dive? The longest dive? The dive where you break your own, your country's or the world's record. No, one thing that all of us from all the different continents, countries and cultures can agree on, it's more than that.
For me it is the dive where time slows down, where every breath before I leave the surface feels like it lasts for minutes, where I am aware of my heartrate slowing down with every conscious exhalation, where my mind becomes completely empty of everything but the dive. That last breath in, deep in the stomach, more air than yesterday, less than tomorrow-my lungs are still growing! One small kick forward, one strong kick down and I leave the surface and everything goes quiet. Every kick must be strong and efficient, here we don't waste energy. Around 20m I stop swimming and start falling, I surrender to the freefall, the water gets darker, the pressure against my chest grows as my lungs get compressed. The whole ocean is hugging me. I take a big big pull of air into my mouth, lock my throat and use the air... tap tap tap equalising my ears carefully, my lungs are so compressed now if I lose this air out of my mouth I will not get it back up again, won't be able to equalise more... so I hold it, focus Hanli. Just the ears. Fall fall fall... relax. Past 50... fall fall fall. Stop. Look. I see the arch, the majestic opening from the Blue Hole out into the open sea. Light streams through it, calling me. But not today. One pull on the rope... and kick. Kick. Kick... up up... it's not goodbye, I'll be back. A little deeper. Even bluer... Tomorrow. I promise.
Air. Surface. Sounds. Faces. The quiet blue world feels like a dream already. A dream to dream again tomorrow. I smile at Nanja. She knows. We all know. We all come here to dream the same dream.
For more pics and news from Hanli's adventures, see www.hanliprinsloo.com |
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| Blue Hole |
| 30 September 2010, 12:35 |
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Hanli blogs from Dahab, the freediving mecca of Africa.
 It's ten o'clock and Abdul is at the gate. I have eaten my fruit salad, done my yoga, stretched my lungs. I grab my monofin and hurry out the door. Abdul has fixed his radio and a cheesy eighties love-song blares as the goats stare at us blankly from the other side of the street. Scruffy children watch us load the jeep and we pull off in a cloud of dust.
Leaving Dahab we go north, on a rutted dusty road we bump and bounce and wince our way past camels and palm trees.
I love the Sinai. Rugged, jagged mountains rear up in layers. Some days I count up to six facades of mountains, like a bad stage design they recede into the distance, each layer a different shade ranging from brown to midnight blue. The mountains stand watch over the crystal sea like a guardian watching his prize. The deep blue of the ocean meets the shore in a blaze of turquoise, you start to imagine the coral fairyland that creates this shallower, lighter water. We drive past bright blue patches where sandy bottoms reflect the light.
A rise in the road, snaking up this last hill, and there it is. The Blue Hole. A natural phenomenon that beckons you, calls you, demands of you to 'Come, come now! Swim! Dive!' It is so easy- one, two, three steps across, and the suddenly it is just blue. The coral falls away below you, steep walls drop down to 90m. The visibility varies between 15 and 30m, and a quiet envelops me as I stare down into the depths. Here I can dive deep.
Here I can visit my long-nosed favourite little fish, the bird wrasse that flaps it's little fins and gliiiides, fin and gliiiiide... his long snout and dark blue body making him the most comical and lovely fish on the reef. He does not know this. He is shy and solitary and I find him where I left him over a year ago.
Let the diving begin! |
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