Saturday was our last day in South Africa, and we made the most of it. We were really glad we were able to go for an extra trip with Chris and Monique to see some more sharks. As we were staying in Cape Town it meant a transfer early on Saturday morning – leaving at 5:50am so we could get to Simon’s Town for a 6:45am start. Unfortunately some of the other people who were meant to be getting the same transport had thought they had cancelled so we sat outside their accommodation for about 15 minutes and so were a bit late.

There were two boats going out on Saturday – one was for diving, and the other was Chris and Monique’s. We decided we would rather go on Chris and Monique’s boat again and not dive as the water is a bit cold for me and I liked that better. It was interesting being able to see the cage and the shark – makes the cage look quite small! This is the same kind of cage we went in but not on this boat.

We saw lots of sharks again – Bob came back which Chris and Monique were excited about as they have seen him every year for 5 years. A couple of days later he breached on the decoy but we were back in England by then. There were three breaches near the other boat on Saturday but we only managed to see the splash!

We also saw a young great white – maybe 3 years old and about 2 metres long. She was very fiesty and we had to be a bit careful of her as she would be quite likely to throw herself against the boat and hurt herself. She was quite a brown colour. Young sharks have different shaped teeth to mature great whites – they are more grasping and are thinner so they are better for catching fish. When the shark is bigger its teeth are better for catching fish and seals. I think in total on our holiday we saw about 30 different great whites.

Too soon the trip was over and we were heading back to Cape Town with some chips from the fish and chip shop in Simon’s Town. We were glad that we were able to use our room at the guesthouse for the day – normally check out is 10am but as it was quiet we were able to stay until 8pm when we left to go to the airport.

We got a last walk along the seafront in the afternoon though, and then went and had dinner in a restaurent in a railway carriage. It described itself as “traditional African cuisine” although in a city with a long history of colonisation by English and Dutch people I’m not totally sure what that means.

Ben tried ox tongue and he did not like it. I don’t think I’ve hardly ever seen him not eat something but he really didn’t enjoy ox tongue; he said it was a bit like eating your own tongue. It looked a lot like lots of bits of tongue with all the taste buds showing. I had guinea fowl which was ok.

Our flight was at 11.30pm but we had to be there 3 hours earlier. We got to the airport and then had the longest smoothie in the world, trying to keep it going until we had to leave. By the time we boarded Ben was so tired he went to sleep even before we took off. I had some brandy to help with that. The flight back was ok but there were some very noisy old people behind us who kept shouting at each other and then they poked Ben. They also coughed a lot and very productively which made quite a breeze.

It was about 12.30pm when we got to England where it was drizzly. I am very happy that I had the chance to go and see the great white sharks in South Africa. It was even better than I had expected.

End of Day 8