On the 4^th of July, I boarded the final 3 out of the 5 planes it took me to get to Port Lincoln from Tahiti over a 48 hour period, and joined the legend that is Rodney and Andrew Fox on their beautiful boat the MV Princess II. Andrew and Rodney run Rodney Fox Shark Expeditions (RFSE), and have hosted many scholars in previous years, so I’d been looking forward for my chance to dive with those prehistoric giants that roam the oceans; the great white shark.

My first trip aboard the boat was with Rodney Fox, and I couldn’t think of a better way to start my time there. Being in the presence of the man that not only survived an attack from a great white, but instigated an entire movement to protect and understand them was incredibly humbling. Rodney is one of the sweetest and most generous people I have ever met, with an endless amount of patience, and everyone was absolutely delighted to have him around to not only pester him with a million questions, but to hear the incredible stories that he had to tell about his life. We also enjoyed drinking his signature cocktail that he made for us all, ‘Jack meets the Great White’, which was complete with little shark teeth dangling off the stem of the glass.

 

It’s funny how you can live in a country your entire life and think you know it, then fly a few hours south and feel like you’re in a completely different world. The pure wilderness that surrounded the coastline of Port Lincoln took my breath away every single minute of every single day. The coastlines of the islands we cruised past were spotted with seals and sea lions, dramatically framed by sandstone cliffs or rocky shores with tufts of green scrub and wild, wild waves that incessantly stroked the edges of the islands. It was an entirely new world, and entirely new part of Australia that I didn’t know existed. The landscape was so foreign, yet so familiar, reminiscent of the coastline I called home, yet somehow inspiring and fostering an entirely new love for this sunburnt country within me. Port Lincoln and The Neptune Islands are complete magic.

 

The abundance and diversity of life in these dark blue waters absolutely blew my mind. On my first day I was checked out by a curious dolphin whilst I was freediving with the sea lions, then on the next dive someone else was lucky enough to see a mola mola, or sunfish as they’re often called, and the amount of fish that darted in and out of the rocky sea floor was completely mesmerising. Then came my first shark encounter, which involved a sub adult male around 3.5m long named Charlie.

Charlie approached the boat slowly, gracefully, with an investigative nature I wasn’t expecting. The first thing I noticed was the colour. His tawny coloured body piercing through the surface as he approached us wasn’t what I had expected; I’d been waiting for a giant silver shape to burst through the water ‘Jaws’ style. As he got closer though I realised just how big he was, and after doing some amazingly close passes on our surface cage, I jumped in sans wetsuit to get a better glimpse; there was simply no time to put on my gear in-case I missed this gorgeous boy passing the cage again. I braved the cold in my bikini for about 15-20 minutes to get a good look at him, and as he came back time and time again to eye off the group of gawking divers who appeared to be having a spa bath inside the cage due to their excited exhale bubbles, I realised how truly small I really was.

Throughout my stay on the MV Princess II I was fortunate enough to encounter two particular sharks multiple times. Their names were Curly Sue and Chihuahua. These sharks were spotted together earlier this year, and through the shark ID catalogue that was created by the RFSE team, we were able to correctly identify these individuals each time they came to visit whilst I was there. This was quite a big deal, and caused a lot of excitement amongst the crew, as it appeared to be further evidence towards the ‘clan’ theory. Sharks are often assumed to be solitary creatures, however data that is being collected on-board RFSE sheds light on the secret life of sharks. Some sharks appear to be forming ‘clans’ of maybe 2-4 individuals, and it appears that they are travelling together to the same environmental and ecological events. Why they’re doing this nobody is really certain, but the behaviour is fascinating.

Curly Sue and Chihuahua showed a tolerance for each other when around the cages. At times, Curly Sue would be the one checking us out while Chihuahua watched from the outskirts of our visibility, and at other times Chihuahua was the more inquisitive one. We realised the true extent of their tolerance for each other when another male shark showed up on a bottom dive. During my dive, Curly Sue was investigating the divers in the cage the most, however, she appeared to have briefly disappeared for a while when the new male approached us. This new boy had massive damage to his gill plate, and as he swam closer I was excited to try and get a good photo of him to ID who he might be. Curly Sue had other plans. She reappeared out of nowhere, not only ruining the photo I was hoping to get, but bumped the unknown male out of the way, then proceeded to try and bite him. With two quick flicks of his tail the new boy vanished into the depths of the sea.

I’ve always had an immense interest in ethology, the study of animal behaviour, so witnessing these small but significant exchanges between species that haven’t been extensively studied in regards to their behaviour was completely thrilling for me. I learnt a lot on the boat, especially about shark behaviour, however one thing I learnt that I will treasure forever was how to tie knots. Whenever asked to tie a knot on something I would always joke ‘if you can’t tie knots, tie lots’ because I had no idea what I was doing. Now, I am a changed woman, and not only can I tie knots, I can tie knots that actually work. Working on the MV Princess II opened my eyes to a lot of new things, and I’ll always treasure my time aboard the boat, I can’t thank all the beautiful new friends I made there enough for literally showing me the ropes and sharing the sharks with me. Port Lincoln has stolen a little piece of my heart and I can’t wait to go back.