Five lovely ladies gathered at 5am on a Saturday morning in January outside the Rhino Africa offices. We predicted that at least one of us would have overslept (most likely me) but the excitement of the day ahead and our underwater adventure was too much to keep us away! Naturally our conversation turned to shark documentaries and horror stories and ended up with us revealing our secret girly fantasies about being Ariel – all we were missing was a glorious tail, blue clam shell bikini and a crab sidekick named Sabastian.
We were collected by Grant from The White Shark Diving Company and he gave us a brief history of the company. Based in Gansbaai about 2 hours drive from Cape Town the company has been operating for 13 years (4 of those under current management). White Shark is their 30 ft Dive Cat and can carry up to 20 passengers, however to maximise your dive time and ensure an exclusive experience, only 10 passengers are allowed per trip.
Bookings are essential and bear in mind that wildlife doesn’t take bookings and the weather plays a huge factor. In fact the two days leading up to our dive, the seas were too rough for the boats to go out. We sat with baited breath on Friday afternoon until we received final confirmation that the trip was going ahead.
Having never been to Gansbaai myself, I was intrigued to learn exactly why the bay is a preferred hunting ground for Great Whites. Besides the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, there are 2 unique islands situated just off the coastline. Dyer Island is a breeding colony for jackass penguins while Geyser is home to a massive Cape Fur Seal colony.
Oddly enough the two species never cross over to their neighbouring islands – clearly they never got the memo about the new South Africa! Between these two islands is a passage of water which has affectionately become known as Shark Alley which is like an all you can eat buffet for Great Whites during our winter months. In summer the sharks tend to stay in the shallow waters of the bay.
We arrived to the delicious smell of breakfast and the best cup of coffee I have had in a long time. We were introduced to the crew, given a briefing and headed down to the harbour.
Skipper Greg set off into the bay and roughly 20 minutes later we dropped anchor and headed to the top viewing deck of the boat. A man set about chumming (mushing pieces of fish and sea water together and strategically throwing it out to sea) Sharks are inquisitive yet cautious but it only took 30 minutes before we got our first glimpse at a young 1.8 meter creature. This magnificent beast didn’t look menacing at all…don’t get me wrong I’m not going to try pet a Great White any time soon but watching from the deck gave us an opportunity to see how graceful and relaxed they are.
All in all, we were lucky enough to see 5 different sharks during our 4 hour trip, ranging in size from 1.8 to about 2.5 meters in length. Our viewing was amazing considering none of the other boats had the same luck that day.
Only 8 of us decided to jump in the 4 man cage to get a close encounter in their environment, due to the rough seas during the week, the water was extremely murky and visibility under the water very poor (less than ½ meter) but Greg managed to bait and angle the sharks right up to the cage! While Coenie, our dive master ensured that the sharks didn’t injure themselves by biting on the cage or boat propellers. How you may ask? Well just by giving them a little shove on the nose as you will see in our video which was filmed and pieced together by Lalo, the videographer in the crew.
As noon drew near, we bid farewell to our sleek companions and made our way back for lunch and refreshments before Grant drove us back to Cape Town, tired but happy.
Click here for a detailed itinerary of our Shark Tour!
All in all, it was an amazing day, with gorgeous creatures, colourful crew and wonderful memories! Thank you to the The White Shark Diving Company.
NB: We book shark tours with this company – contact us for more details!
