After a couple of leisurely days of touring the wineyards and sampling their product quite effectively, it was high time to get some adrenaline pumping again and booked ourselves a full day trip to see the Great Whites up close and personal. So we went to do a "cage dive" some 2 hours by bus outside of Cape Town to "Shark Alley" outside
Gaanbai, a place known for its largest white shark concentration in the world. Now, this activity has nothing to do with actual diving; you put on a wet suit and stand in a cage while the boat staff chums the waters around the cage and try to lure the white sharks to the surface using a bait (heads of yellowfin tunas, in our case). End result is that you get to view these animals made famous by the movie Jaws from a distance of under half a meter - and occasionally they'd even brush against the cage, extracting a nice cheer of "HOOLY F*CK! SH*T!" etc from the people occupying the cage ;)
The water was rather chilly at 15C but the long hooded wetsuit would work wonders and we didn't get cold at all during the adrenaline filled 15 minute time windows you got in the cage. I was really hoping to get nice underwater shots of these magnificent hunters, but the water was really murky with viz under 1.5-2 meters, and none turned out proper. I had a few chances for a nice headshot of an approaching shark, but missed both shots. Luckily the sharks would show themselves on the surface a lot, a couple of them jumping half out of the water a couple of times, smacking the cage and the boat around a bit. Quite a sight to see. We had 5 distinct sharks around the boat, largest of them being about 3.5 meters long.
We went with a company called White Shark Ecoventures, a pioneer bunch that have done a good job advocating the need to protect these creatures. Based in Gaanbai, they've been in the industry since the early 90s. They seemed to be pretty good in luring the sharks to pass the cage several times with every bait and had very accurate information about the area and the animals. One funny thing was that the seas around the Shark Alley seem to have a peculiar wave pattern, and 2/3 of the people on the boat were throwing up over the side. And they said sometimes it is everyone. But not us! All in all, what a day, money well spent!
See all the South Africa pictures here!
After a couple of leisurely days of touring the wineyards and sampling their product quite effectively, it was high time to get some adrenaline pumping again and booked ourselves a full day trip to see the Great Whites up close and personal. So we went to do a "cage dive" some 2 hours by bus outside of Cape Town to "Shark Alley" outside Gaanbai, a place known for its largest white shark concentration in the world. Now, this activity has nothing to do with actual diving; you put on a wet suit and stand in a cage while the boat staff chums the waters around the cage and try to lure the white sharks to the surface using a bait (heads of yellowfin tunas, in our case). End result is that you get to view these animals made famous by the movie Jaws from a distance of under half a meter - and occasionally they'd even brush against the cage, extracting a nice cheer of "HOOLY F*CK! SH*T!" etc from the people occupying the cage ;)
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