Saturday September 27th

Today we woke up at 8:00 anxious to go cage diving with great white sharks! Our group of eight was getting picked up at 9:30 to be taken to Gansbaii, two hours east of Cape Town. Driving out of Cape Town, we saw a lot of townships lining the interstates. Once out of the Cape Town area, we were able to see some of the natural beauty of South Africa. The Mountains are very tall, but do not have trees, just grass and rock. The scenery made for some great pictures. After about two hours we had one more town to pass through, the name slips my mind at this moment but it was just before Gansbaii and it had a whale festival going on. Every year at this time of year, whales come into the bay and mate and have their young.
We finally made it to Gansbaii and met our Great White Diving Co. guides at the office just off the water. There we were served mince meat pies and salad for lunch, sorted out payments, and got a briefing of what was going to happen for the day. The price was just under $200 USD including transport to and from Cape Town. We walked down to the boat after lunch and boarded ready for our adventure.
The biggest fear of everyone for the day was not the fact that we were going to be up close and personal with the world's most feared shark, but sea sickness. The waters are VERY choppy with huge swells in the Bay. When we got to the boat we were told that not many other boats were having much luck today, which put a damper on our spirits, but we did see other SAS students who had seen 4 sharks so that was some hope. We had a roller coaster of a ride out into the bay. The tiny boat was all over the place jumping the huge waves coming into shore. The plan was to take a 20 minute ride out to an island in the bay, but the waters were too choppy so we stayed further in the bay to try our luck. 75% of all the great white videos you see on TV are filmed off the island. It is home to a huge fur seal colony, which is why you see pictures of great whites jumping out of the water. That is filmed here! They are attacking the seals come straight up from under them with such speed that it takes them several meters into the air! This is what we wanted to see today.
We got out to where other boats were anchored and had another more detailed briefing while the crew set everything up for the day. I looked out over the water and saw the first shark of the day! Nobody believed me at first, but sure enough I was right. We quickly got into wetsuits as the crew put the cage in the water. They were "chumming". Chumming is throwing a mixture of fish blood, guts, and oil into the water. This is effective for up to 1 km. The shark swims slowly at the surface in and out of the scent towards the boat. We got in the cage with wetsuits and masks on. The crew tied a tuna head to a rope and threw it out directly in front of us. The shark needs something to keep it entertained to stick around so it will come up and try and grab it but the crew pulls it away so they stay interested.
Four of us are floating in the cage, careful not to have our hands on the outside bars of course, while the shark swims right in front of the cage. It was huge!! This continued for about two hours and we rotated in and out of the cage so everyone got a turn. We probably had about 6 different sharks come and go, but there was always at least one for us to see. We even had two swimming around right in front of us at one point! It was incredible to see these animals up so close. Through our goggles it looked exactly as it does on TV. They are definitely close enough to touch but even attempting to touch the tail is, well dangerous and stupid, but also the body of the shark is so strong that a quick movement of the tail could snap your arm. The high point of the day was when a shark grabbed the tuna head and started thrashing around trying to take it! I was lucky to be in the cage for this and it was so cool to watch under water!! The low point of the day was when the guy next to me puked in the water and it was all over in the cage. He was seasick even while in the water because we were getting tossed around everywhere, not a good feeling when hands and feet accidentally slip out! I had no idea he did it till afterwards because the water around us was gross when they would throw stuff out anyway, I couldn't tell the difference. But I was taking in mouth fulls of water all day long because the waves were so big that I was bound to get lots of good fishy stuff, or human stuff for that matter...
The water was very cold! We had booties on our feet, wetsuits, and hoods to keep us warm but even all that didn't do the trick. I was shivering all day. I even went in without a hood on for a dive and going under made my head sting it was so cold.
Eventually we had another boat come up next to us and start diving because we were the only ones with multiple sharks around. After this point it dies down. Like I said before, the waters were so rough that at least 4 out of 8 of us puked from sea sickness. I loaded up on Dramamine before we went out so I was okay, but if we would have stayed out any longer, I definitely would have been feeling worse. I had started to feel queasy as we started back in. All together we were only on the boat for about 3 hours.
When we got back to the office we were greeted with hot soup. We all changed into dry clothes and watched the DVD they made from the day. I got plenty of good video footage and picture with my own camera from the day so I didn't buy one but others did. We said our thanks and loaded up in the van to head home. What a great second day in Cape Town!! Now I see why this is everyone's favorite port...