The Great White

 

We saved the best for last.

(Actually, there are several “bests”, but this one is definitely in the top 5.)

Great. White. Shark. Cage. Diving.

The Round House B&B

We were supposed to do this last week, but weather was too rough (and HOW!  We saw the tides coming in as we drove through Hermanus and we were NOT disappointed that they cancelled the diving.), so Matt and I decided to drive from George to Gansbaai (pronounced, “Hans-bay”), roughly a 4 hour drive, to participate in a little cage diving.  We arrived into Gansbaai on Tuesday afternoon, to a wonderful B&B called the Roundhouse (aptly named, it was literally a round building).  We had the afternoon to walk around this ocean town, and made our way to the shore to climb rocks and do a little whale watching.  And we were not disappointed: several Southern Rights showed their topsides to us as we climbed the rocks.  It was simply beautiful. 

Crawling around rocks and watching whales

We were to report to at 7am to the Shark Lady, the company who was taking us out for the day, so we made an early night of it-I took a bubble bath while Matt watched Rugby-and slept in a glorious king sized bed.  6am came waaay too early and I awoke with butterflies in my stomach.  I was a wee bit nervous.  The boat wasn’t the issue, I’m used to those.  The sharks weren’t even really the issue; at least, not the biggest reason for my nerves.

I was absolutely, positively, 100% dreading the cold water.

4 years ago, after I completed my PADI Instructor’s certification in 64-degree water (55 degree ambient temperature too), I swore I was finished with cold water diving.  It’s just not my favorite thing.  Seriously, what can be so fantastic in cold water??  When you spend your whole time shivering??  And here I am, willingly doing this again just to see some sharks?

I must be crazy.

But here I am, going for it.  I know if I don’t, I’ll regret it later.  I mean, I’m a dive instructor.  How can I teach innocents all about diving if I don’t test the waters first??  I should know all about what is in the waters all over the world, right?  I should experience every opportunity of dives presented to me, right?  Even if that means I have to put myself in cold water again, right?

So it’s for my students, really, why I’m doing this.

Yeah, that’s it!

Sigh…alright, if I have to.

So off we went, nerves aside, and met the rest of the group at the shop, where we were greeted with fresh baked muffins, cereal, salami, toast, tea, juice and coffee.  After about an hour of waking up, eating breakfast and getting our safety briefing (I really hate those things.  They make every nerve shoot straight to my stomach and make me want to vomit when I hear all the details of how this is all going to work.), we headed to the boat.  It was here I finally started to feel normal again; I guess I can thank 7 years of living on the water for this one. 

Anyway, we motored about 15 minutes to a place called Shark’s Bay, just off Dyer Island where we would begin the chumming process (if you watch “Shark Week” on the Discovery Channel, you’ll know the place as “Seal Island.”).  This was the part I was the most skeptical about: chumming the water for great whites to approach seems a little unnatural for me.  Not to mention, against the norm ecologically speaking.  But from what I saw on the boat, the “chumming” wasn’t as ensnaring as I had thought.  First, they take all the delicious pieces of chum and blend it up into liquid (lucky the one who gets that job!), which they then dilute with water, so that it becomes very thin and it “slicks” the ocean surface.  This creates a scent to attract the sharks, but doesn’t lure them into false pretenses as I had thought (here sharky sharky, come see all the blood with no guts!!).  Then the captain throws a line of 4-5 fish heads to further entice the shark to coming close.  Now, according to the staff and the woman who began this business-the Shark Lady-the fish that is attached to the line is not even enough to be considered a meal for these guys.  And, since sharks are not migratory, the sharks that come on a daily basis to these boats are not the same ones day in and day out looking to score a free meal. 

Okay.  I guess I can buy that.  Hopefully that’s the truth and that this isn’t like the Stingray City in Cayman where they are 100% dependent upon humans to feed them.  These are wild creatures, and they aren’t tamed at all.  Ergo, the need for the cage.

The cage is big enough to fit 5 people.  Here’s how it works: you gear up in a 7mm wetsuit, boots and hoodie.  You climb into the cage and slowly sink yourself into your “slot.”  And wait for the cold water to sink in through the wetsuit (that's such a fantastic sensation...not!).  The cage bars are double sided; meaning the bar you hang onto with your hands is inside the outer bar, so you’re not “sticking out” for the shark to investigate.  And since it’s salt water, we naturally float a little more than in fresh water.  We hang onto the bar at the surface, waiting for a shark to come around to check out the fish heads.  When the shark comes around, the captain tells us to go under water to watch him swim by.  We don’t use a snorkel or dive tank, as bubbles scare off sharks quicker than you can say, “there’s a shark out there!”  And a snorkel doesn’t work so well either as you dip your head pretty far down in the water to watch the action, so you couldn’t breath through the tube anyway.  So when a shark comes around, you take a deep breath and push yourself underwater and hang out as long as your lungs can handle it.  Since you’re in 7mm of neoprene, you need a little extra assistance in being able to pull yourself under water, so they strap on a weight belt to your suit so going under water is a lot easier.

Anyway, after we got the hang of going underwater to watch for sharks, we sat (or hung, rather) around waiting for one to come by.  And sure enough, they started to come around.  At first, a shark would swim past the cage one way, then come back the other way.  Never very close to cage; usually 10-15 feet away.  Until the one decided to come say hi to me, face to face.

I don’t think you can ever prepare yourself for a 9’ Great White propelling itself straight toward you with its mouth wide open, showing you his teeth and all their glory.  So naturally, when this happened, I screamed.  Underwater.  Loud enough for everyone on the boat to hear me.  But it was absolutely AWESOME.

And maybe a little bit scary.

Obviously, this was the highlight of the trip.  And happily, Matt captured it on video (at an angle though; he was 3 people down from me in the cage).  There was another moment where a shark (maybe the same one?) breached up out of the water to catch the fish heads...and managed to successfully bite them off the line.  Of course, this happened so quickly that we weren't able to capture it on film, but the visual was pretty spectacular.  After re-tying more fish heads onto the line and about 20 minutes later, we got out of the cage to let the next group have their chance.  This  actually gave us a better visual perspective of the Great Whites from the boat.  It was pretty cool to watch their fins cut through the water as they swam around the boat.  There was even one moment where we saw a shark about 100 yards away, swimming toward us.  The only thing we could see was his fin (tailfin, not dorsal fin) pop up occasionally out of the water, and because it was so calm, we could see his movement cut through the water, causing a "wave" as he swam toward us.  It was absolutely amazing.

But once the 2^nd group finished their time in the cage, we were in line to hop in again.  ‘Cause we wanted MORE shark time, baby!!

After another 15 minutes in the cage, way less shark activity than the first time, and another snap of the fish heads off the line from a shark, we crawled out of the cage and headed back toward land.  After the second round in the water, I found myself shivering a lot more than I had the first time.  Strangely enough, I didn't care too much!  I guess it was the adrenaline working.  :)  Once we got back on the boat and headed toward shore, we started to warm up, and soon found ourselves back at the Shark Lady storefront and was greeted with homemade vegetable lentil soup and fresh bread.  Perfect end to a cold, shark-infested morning!

(I will admit, the water was a balmy 60 degrees, which, surprisingly, was actually tolerable.  And since the water was tolerable, I can now brag that I went cage diving with Great Whites, whether or not I certify a new scuba diver. :)