Shark Experience

Today was a bit cloudy but less windy. After breakfast we were met by a mini bus that took us across the island to the bay of the lemon sharks. The excursion was led by the organisation of Explore Cape Verde, an organisation consisted by biologist and marine biologist. Our guide was German biologist Eileen. She explained natural phenomenon when we travelled across the island. For example the green bush I talked about in earlier foot print. Eileen explained that it was a human planted Acacia, brought to the island because they were draught persistent. Unfortunately it turned out to be true and they thrived so well in the cape Verdian nature that it pushed back indigenous plants. Every now and then the locals burn the acacias and their roots to limit the spreading on the island.

The shark bay is a shallow bay with water to the knees where baby lemon sharks and where older sharks use as a playground. Eileen showed us corals, cleaning shrimps, star fish and zebra fish. The ground was rocky and everyone had to have covered shoes that we were able rent at the beech. Our company headed straight out in the shallow water and after fifty meters or so Eileen had us lined up and not long after we saw out first shark. These are 50 cm to 1 meter baby sharks. They stay these shallow water until they have grown bigger. Outside the bay we saw bigger lemon sharks that wouldn't mind eat one of these babies if they strayed into deeper water. Lemon sharks aren't dangerous to humans. There are a couple of known attacks but it has never been initiated by the sharks, it's always on human initiative.

The sharks were curious and had some sort of holes on their sides that helped them detect electric waves. Eileen splashed the water to trigger their curiosity and the sharks swam up to our feet to explore. Viggo was initially a bit afraid but he soon discovered that the sharks were quite friendly. I took some videos with my under water camera and I think the images are quite sharp but I need to wait to upload them until I get home as we need to transfer them to a program we only have on the iPad.

And that's about it! We can highly recommend to see the lemon sharks at Cape Verde. The afternoon was spent at the pool. Viggo made a new record and swam 260 swim. He is really proud of the progress!

After doing some packing we ended the evening at the grill restaurant where we ate some really well cooked fish. Only thing we think the cape Verdian cuisine misses are the sauces. Ketchup and HP doesn't count. And no matter what you say, mayonnaise isn't sauce! Czytaj więcej