Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25037
1'1/ 'f t I Cape Town, the pre-spring sun shines deathly bright on a 30-foot catamaran in a channel near Dyer Island. On the nearby coast is Klein Baai, a desolate one-restaurant town whose claim to fame is its relative proximity to those prehistoric denizens of the deep-great white sharks. Entrepreneurs-mainly unscrupulous-have settled in the area, hung out their shingles and now collect loads of cash from weirdly obsessed humans whose dream it is to dive, see some blood-drenched jaws up close and return to the suburbs to spew some night marish tales to their terrified but rapt progeny. There is only one serious researcher in Klein Baai and that is the intrepid, weathered, 29-year-old Craig Ferreira who heads the South African White Shark Research Institute which tags and protects sharks as mothers would coddle their babies. He per mits only 70 people to travel with him each year and it is in his hands that Oily and Suzi place their trust. As Ferreira anchors his tiny catamaran in a calm ---- near Dyer Island, thousands of seals make frightening sounds. They bleat like sheep being butchered, argue like lunatics, sing nasally like the brothers Gallagher of Oasis and sometimes, it seems, mourn the former Princess of Wales who died just days ago. It's a pas sionate soundtrack to the search for the most perfect predators of the sea. It's 9AM and Oily and Suzi mix paints. Louw, the boat's captain, throws an iron cage overboard and ladles chum-a stinky slop of fish blood and heads into the sea to lure sharks. While Oily and Suzi strug gle into seven-millimeter-thick wetsuits and fasten their weight belts, the eagle-eyed Louw stares out onto the horizon, spies a wispy cloud and announces, "We're going back. Storm ahead." Oily throws off his weights in disgust. Suzi stares at the cloud as if to curse it. They can't believe a storm is anywhere near: The ocean is calm as a broker on Prozac. But by the time we're halfway back to shore, the swells are huge and splash over the catamaran's hull. We're heading up waves at 6S-degree angles and crashing down the other side. It feels like the boat is free-falling from an airplane. While Oily and his brother Greg, a photographer, appear energized-they make pirate jokes and sing sea chanties all the way in-it's a way to hide Oily's dismay. "We might not be able to get back out there to dive for the beasts," he finally says. On the rocky shore, two youngish salts try to scare Suzi. "They'll come up to you, those white sharks," says one as he takes a drag of reeking tobac co, "leap inches from the boat, hang there, like, in mid air, leering." "They've an evil smile," says the other, "like a monstrous Cheshire cat." Suzi's having none of it. With grim Joan of Arc intensity, she says to me, "We've been in tough situa tions before." As the storm intensifies, the pair huddles around Ferreira's oil heater telling tales of art and adventure. Two years ago Oily and Suzi trudged deep into the Alaskan interior via dog team and snowshoes. On their way north, they stopped to buy a gun in Anchorage, just in case a bear came too close. "No guns here," said the store owner, tossing a can of pepper spray at the quizzical artists. "It's better than a grin," he shrugged. In northern Alaska, they lived in an unheated cabin, cutting their own wood and melting snow for water. They worked in utter seclusion. "The tempera ture was sometimes -40°F. It was so cold you could hardly breathe," says Oily. Adds Suzi, "I first thought it would be like Northern Exposure, but it wasn't. I real ly thought I'd get frostbite because I had to take my gloves off to paint."