What happens if you lose something while diving in the I&J Predator Exhibit? If we find it, we’ll get it back to you! Find out what happened when Two Oceans Aquarium Assistant Curator Claire Taylor and her team found an item of particular value …
The story was as follows.
I was in Cape Town with The World, which looks like a cruise ship but is actually a floating apartment block. Some 200 people have purchased apartments on the ship, some large (six bedrooms), some small. The ship travels around the world every year on a new itinerary that the residents choose annually. The residents come and go as their schedule allows.
This Christmas we (myself and my wife Ana and our two sons Lucas and Simon) spent 10 days in Cape Town staying on the ship and enjoying the best of South Africa. Among the attractions was shark diving at the Two Oceans Aquarium. Simon and I went there on Boxing Day and had a great time, however when I got back to the ship I noticed that my wedding ring had disappeared in the cold water.
Obviously my hand had shrunk and it had slipped off.
We went straight back and Claire took our problem very seriously and promised to get a diver in the water immediately after feeding time to see if it could be seen (assuming it hadn’t been eaten). No luck, although she did say that after a while, erm, digestion could take its course and it could reappear. Not attractive but nonetheless realistic.
After a few days we had left South Africa, having left a phone number but also having given up hope. How pleased we were to get a call a month later to say that they had been cleaning down the sluices and the ring had showed up! Better yet, Claire was coming to London and would deliver it personally.
Good as her word, she turned up in West London a couple of weeks later and we met in the pub and I was legal again.
I do not want to speculate about where the ring had been before it was retrieved, but I was just happy to get it back and thank Claire for taking the trouble to remember the incident and get it back to me. These days so much gets lost and is never heard of again.
I am so grateful to all those at Two Oceans Aquarium who made this such a great story to tell.
Your sharks are in good hands!
Many thanks, Colin
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