I was contacted buy Joshua Stewart from the ROLEX Our World Underwater Society, who wanted to come to Cape Town to explore the marine environment. The previous scholar, Myfanwy Rowlands, had mentioned Josh and his enthusiasm of documentary film making and diving, it was my pleasure to have him around.
Joshua Stewart and African penguins. His first day in the Cape
We managed to do a dive with the Sevengill Cowsharks were we focused on collecting photographic identification data and trying to count individuals. This data was to be used in a Masters project funded by the Save Our Seas Foundation. We did try to dive here a second time but the swell was quite large causing serious problems for our clumsy divers. I did get to witness josh being wash into a rock pool all whilst trying to protect his camera. It was quite a scene :)
Steve Benjamin capturing photo ID data
Josh films a Sevengill Cowshark
We also headed over to the Duiker Island seal colony were Josh spent some time with the playful Cape Fur Seals. The seals love to look at them selves in big dome ports and often put thier noses onto camera lenses. One even came and nuzzled Josh’s head..haha
A Cape Fur Seal having its way with Josh
Josh also got to spent time at the Universtiy of Cape Town talking to various scientists and students about thier projects and roles in research.We also joined to Baboon Research Unit for a morning of data collecting. Although this was not marine orientated it was great to observe these charasmatic primates to close range.
Josh put together a great video displaying his time here in Cape Town and Gaansbaai…have a look
