Great White

Does any creature on earth induce more fear than the great white shark?  Thirty years after Jaws and swimmers can still hear a tuba in the back of their minds when swimming in the ocean, despite the best efforts of scientists to de-demonize the big fish.  So of course it's natural that sitting in a cage in the ocean face to face with great white has become a very popular activity over the past few years, and is something that I have wanted to do.  There is no better place in the world to see these sharks than South Africa, so I immediately penciled in cage diving when I knew we'd be spending time in Cape Town.

Magge and I signed up with White Shark Projects along with three other volunteers from our house - Will, Maddie and Zoe.  We were picked up at the unholy hour of 4:30am and drove 100 miles to Gansbaai.  This little town is the gateway to "Shark Alley", a channel between two islands that are home to over 50,000 Cape fur seals, one of the great white's favorite meals.  After a breakfast that included some of the best sausage I've ever eaten, we got on a boat with about ten other shark enthusiasts and rode the choppy waters out to the alley.  We had packed seasickness tablets but didn't bother to take any because neither of us had ever been seasick.  However, once the boat stopped to anchor, we immediately felt queasy and decided to pop them.  Will and Zoe felt the same and took our tablets as well.  I thought it was probably too late, but I was hoping for a placebo affect.

The boat attracts the sharks by releasing chum (fish oil and mashed up fish parts) into the water.  It can sometimes take an hour or two before a shark shows up, but we were lucky and we had a sighting almost immediately after we anchored.  Our group of five was first in line so we suited up in 7mm wetsuits (the water temperature was around sixty degrees Fahrenheit) and all got in a narrow cage tied to the side of the boat.  We all practiced holding our breath and submerging ourselves to the bottom of the cave while waiting for the shark to reveal itself again.  Meanwhile, one of the crew threw some fish heads tied to a rope into the water to provide the shark with a visual target.

After five minutes of bobbing the water, I heard Will say, "I'm pretty sure I'm going to throw up."  The crew told him to just go ahead and try to puke outside of the cage, so he crawled over Magge, stuck his head out the top of the cage and let her rip.  We all couldn't stop laughing as he tried to push the debris away so the ocean swell wouldn't throw it back in our faces (maybe this doesn't sound funny to you, but remember that we're sitting in frigid water waiting to come face to face with an animal that could easily bite our heads off).  I was concentrating on not throwing up myself when the bait-man yelled out the command to submerge.  We all took a deep breath and lowered ourselves and tried to find the shark.  Out of nowhere, this massive shark glided towards us and then veered off into the murky distance.  It's difficult to describe the feeling of being that close to the shark.  There wasn't an adrenaline rush like you might expect.  It was more of a sense of wonderment at being close to something that big, that powerful, and that gracefully deadly.  For the next twenty minutes the bait-man worked his magic and we got a number of more close encounters, including one where the shark's pectoral fin was inside our cage.

Once we were out of the water and the excitement died down, my body reminded me that I didn't feel well.  I sat with my head hanging over the side of the boat and wondered why I had to eat so many delicious sausages that morning.  I looked over at Will on the other side of the boat and saw him battling in round two, and my stomach decided to join in the fun.  With a lightened load, I felt better and went back into the boat, where I saw Magge looking miserable.  I told her to just let herself go and she'd feel better, but that just annoyed her until she finally lost her struggle as well.  I looked at Zoe and asked her how she felt, and she responded, "I've already puked three times" - or at least that's what I think she said.  She's Scottish and I only understand about a third of the words that come out of her mouth.

Even though we all felt better, none of us were in the mood to get back in the water, so we continued our shark viewing from the deck.  At one point, Magge spotted a seal splashing in the distance and pointed it out. As everyone turned their heads, we saw a great white leap from the water to attack the seal, just like they do on Discovery Channel's Shark Week.  Magge and I yelled like our football team just scored a touchdown (which I haven't actually been able to do much this year), scaring most of the people around us.  Even though it's difficult to not feel sorry for the seal, watching a predator hunt in the wild in a spectacular sight.

It was tough to get good pictures of the sharks since they breach so quickly and the best views are from underwater.  We bought a DVD and I'll try to upload that at some point, if this country's brutally slow internet allows me.

The bait-man and the cage

Close encounter

Not feeling so hot

The beautiful coastline