White Shark Trust - Field Research Assistant - December 2004

The White Shark Trust Field Research Assistantship is proud to introduce you to our assistants:

Trey SNOW (Wilmington, North Carolina, USA), Nicolas PADE (Nivaa, Denmark), Gillian Taylor (Sutton, Surrey, England) and Kate BARLEY (Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, England).

In South Africa, we might not have a snow white Christmas, but today, we certainly had a Great White Christmas Day!!! We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

	On Saturday the 25th of December 2004, Christmas Day, we found new meanings to the 'perfect, wonderful and ideal day' definition! We launched Lamnidae in the early hours of the morning... The ocean was glass flat and the sky clear of any clouds, just a light morning fog lingering around Haibaai, and a very light breeze... The water was crystal clear, and we seemed to be floating in thin air... What a Christmas gift we got!!! We observed six different White Sharks today, and two of the Sharks remained around the boat for over three hours! It was an amazing and wonderful day at sea! Plus, we had the whole bay to ourselves since none of the cage-diving operators were running trips today. The northwesterly wind picked up at noon, and the sea got a bit rough...

Below are some photographs taken by Kate Barley today...

And below are some photographs taken by Trey Snow today...

The evening was fortunately cooler than yesterday's... It was so hot last night that nobody would have felt eating the feast that Tracey cooked for us today (while we were having fun with the Sharks)...

Tracey organised the wonderful Christmas decoration and cooked leg of lamb, chickens, roast potatoes, green beans, and other vegetable dishes... While Trey made his delicious Pumpkin Pies for desert... Everything was delicious!

Thank you Alice for your very nice and handy candle holder (as you can see, Tracey had opened your present early)... Thank you John and parents for the delicious Californian wine (I had to lock this bottle away from Tracey for the past month though)...