2/11/2002 Cape Town, South Africa
(Phill)
Yeah, umm, GREAT WHITE SHARKS... It was totally brilliant (sorry to sound like such a tourist). So I woke up this morning nice and early (5am) and got picked up to go drop myself in a cage surrounded by the world's most dangerous predator. Actually, I really didn't know what to expect, whether they came close or not. Anyway, we load up and make the 2 hour drive again, spot of breakfast and out on the boat. The boat wasn't really that big and since we were told to expect 4 meter sharks it honestly seemed like they could do some SERIOUS damage to it.
So we anchor the boat near an island full of baby seals (don't think about what they're for) and drop in the cage. The skipper and our guide are busy dropping in a disgusting concoction of fishheads and fish livers. Ough, combine that smell with the rocking boat and you have at least two of my co-divers being sick overboard. Anyway, after aimlesssly sitting around for about an hour patiently waiting for sharks to appear we suddenly see fins approaching the decoy (rubber thing shaped like a seal). The first sight is absolutely enough to strike fear into you, this thing was massive: teeth gleeming and these tiny beedy eyes ("with his wee beady eye's, you're gonna buy my chicken" name that movie!). The power of it grabbing the decoy shook the boat!
After taking a few photo's we don our wet-suits in two's and get in the rather flimsy looking cage. You'll see the pictures of it, it didn't don confidence!
Basically the way it works is the sharks come in after smelling the blood of the fish, when they get closer they come accross either the decoy or a massive fish head on a rope. They zone in on it and at that point the skipper pulls it toward the boat and the shark chases it with it's mouth open, they pull it around the cage so the shark gets really close. When you're under the water it's insane to see this gigantic thing, you can feel the water being pushed out of his way as he goes by.
Anyway, the first time is really frightening and then your confidence goes back up and you want to do it again. Overall we saw about 5 different Great White's all between 3.5m and 5m long. Crazy crazy big.
On my last turn in the water the shark actually outsmarted the skipper and as he approached me in the cage (sitting as close to the shark side as possible to see him better in the murky water) he ignored the fact that the skipper pulled the bait out of the way. Yeah, at full speed he comes out of nowhere and suddenly I'm looking directly at a great bloody white shark, jaws wide open, just a matter of feet away. I throw myself back (which is hard to do without getting your hands outside the cage, bad idea that) and as I just push off the bloody thing smashes head first into my cage. It's really hard to explain what that feels like, a mixture of total fear and adrenalin. I'm thrown back into the cage as the skipper tries to reattract the sharks attention with the bait. Probably as fast as it happened the sharks twists around to go after the bait but in the process smashes his tail fin into the side of the cage. My hands were throbbing just from that impact. I could hear the cheers of the people on the boat, they were definately jealous!
Very cool day!
Posted by Admin at November 2, 2002 09:39 AM