It might have been the 16'C water that I was immersed in, or the wobbly cage I was stuck in with 6 other strangers, but there was something quite chilling - and thrilling - to see a 4.5m great white shark swimming merely a metre or two around you.
This was our final day in South Africa.
Prior to the trip, mum signed us up for shark cage diving - yes you read that right - my mum signed us up for it.
On the cool friday morning, we woke up before 4am, got picked up at 4 something, picked up a few other tourists - including a band of hungover but chatterbox "lads" consisting of 4 kiwis and "a crazy Irishman" - drove 2 hours towards Gansbaai as the spring sun rose over the Cape. After a briefing about no peeing in the wetsuits and no sticking our hands out of the cage to try and pet the sharks, we got on the boat, got driven to the middle of the bay and waited in anticipation, with 6 or so other shark boat-load of tourists. The boatmen threw some kind of fish-gunk-soup into the water, we waited, someone yelled "sharks!", hurriedly got into wetsuits, jumped into a cage about 2.5m tall and 8m (?) wide (wide enough to fit 7 people). I couldn't stop shivering - partly from the excitement but mainly from the bone-chilling cold water.
And, we saw sharks! Casually swimming by, being totally uninterested in the contents inside the cage, 'sniffing' the fish heads that the boatmen dangled over the water trying their best (but rather unsuccessfully) to get the sharks to move quickly or come out of the water.
It's hard to describe the feeling, watching this underwater wild animal getting so close to man...quite surreal but at the same time a little familiar - maybe because we just spent the last 3 days in the safari watching other wild animals (on land) wandering around us as well. But it was still a fun and unforgettable experience (save for the waking up at 4am part and the being cold part perhaps).
And!! How could I mention sharks without mentioning my friend Kathy's amazing NGO - The Dorsal Effect, which tackles the issue of shark finning on the supply side by working with shark fishermen in Lombok to develop eco-tourism as a way of finding replacement income that would otherwise have come from hauling in dead sharks which is causing the rapid extinction of sharks. Having "hung out" with sharks myself and seen these amazing creatures up close, I definitely want to do more to support this cause.
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| Photo credit: "the crazy Irishman" on his go-pro (I literally don't know his name) |
This was our final day in South Africa.
Prior to the trip, mum signed us up for shark cage diving - yes you read that right - my mum signed us up for it.
On the cool friday morning, we woke up before 4am, got picked up at 4 something, picked up a few other tourists - including a band of hungover but chatterbox "lads" consisting of 4 kiwis and "a crazy Irishman" - drove 2 hours towards Gansbaai as the spring sun rose over the Cape. After a briefing about no peeing in the wetsuits and no sticking our hands out of the cage to try and pet the sharks, we got on the boat, got driven to the middle of the bay and waited in anticipation, with 6 or so other shark boat-load of tourists. The boatmen threw some kind of fish-gunk-soup into the water, we waited, someone yelled "sharks!", hurriedly got into wetsuits, jumped into a cage about 2.5m tall and 8m (?) wide (wide enough to fit 7 people). I couldn't stop shivering - partly from the excitement but mainly from the bone-chilling cold water.
And, we saw sharks! Casually swimming by, being totally uninterested in the contents inside the cage, 'sniffing' the fish heads that the boatmen dangled over the water trying their best (but rather unsuccessfully) to get the sharks to move quickly or come out of the water.
It's hard to describe the feeling, watching this underwater wild animal getting so close to man...quite surreal but at the same time a little familiar - maybe because we just spent the last 3 days in the safari watching other wild animals (on land) wandering around us as well. But it was still a fun and unforgettable experience (save for the waking up at 4am part and the being cold part perhaps).
And!! How could I mention sharks without mentioning my friend Kathy's amazing NGO - The Dorsal Effect, which tackles the issue of shark finning on the supply side by working with shark fishermen in Lombok to develop eco-tourism as a way of finding replacement income that would otherwise have come from hauling in dead sharks which is causing the rapid extinction of sharks. Having "hung out" with sharks myself and seen these amazing creatures up close, I definitely want to do more to support this cause.
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