Cage diving with great white sharks in South Africa was on my bucket list when I visited South Africa because I saw it as a unique opportunity not offered in many places to which I travel. Have you watched the film Jaws ? If yes, go into the cage and think about the movie theme music when the shark is about to come… enjoy reading about the experience here.
THE EXPERIENCE
The journey and organisation
Before I arrived in South Africa, I knew there was the opportunity to go cage diving with great white sharks, and it was cheaper than what I heard was the price in Australia. It was super easy to book the tour in the hostel where I was staying. Today, I was very excited to go diving with great white sharks in Gaansbaai and, therefore, had pretty high expectations. As for the company, I booked the tour with EcoAdventures who came to pick me up at the hostel at 8am; the shuttle bus journey to Gaansbaai took around 90 minutes from Cape Town.
Post-shark diving experience
Before we headed to the speed boat, we had a very simple breakfast and the dive master briefed us about what we were going to do and how it works. Then we sailed to the best shark spot, where the prior group had been really unlucky not spotting sharks on the 9am tour. In this case, EcoAdventures gives you a voucher to come back again anytime later in the future – that’s fair but not ideal if you don’t enough time to return. I was so hoping to see some great white sharks and not have to come back – fingers crossed.
Teasing the sharks with blood
While waiting to spot sharks, the crew angled herrings and squeezed them in a basket with water to tease the great whites. After around 30-minutes, things got serious and we got into our wet suits. After we finally spotted some sharks, the guy who teased them had a kind of fishing rope in his hand that he threw out to pull the sharks in. They followed a thing that was tied on the end which served to drag them in front of the cage. The first five of our group grabbed their goggles and flippers and took their turn in the cage. Before they went in, the dive master made them aware of not holding onto the cage in the front as there were special handles inside the cage to hold onto not accessible to the sharks.
The great white shark experience in the cage
After they had the chance to see a shark a couple of times, the next five went into the cage including me. When I got in, the water was absolutely freezing, even with the wet suit on, but the sharks from before had left. After waiting for another 5-minutes, a couple of sharks turned up and the crew screamed, “Go down, down, down !” Under the water you actually had to hold your breath as long as possible and then go up and down again. The crew continued screaming “go down” because the shark was still there. At first it was quite difficult for me to breathe when I first came up because the snorkeling goggles covered my nose; therefore, you have to breathe through your mouth and hold your breath. Under the water it was actually quite difficult to see the sharks because the water was not very clear, but still good enough. The sharks also didn’t come as close to the cage as I had expected so that also made it a bit more difficult to see them close up. After about 10-15 minutes my turn was over; after I had seen a couple of sharks, it was the next group’s turn. I went to the top of the deck and observed everything with a newly made friend from Norway.
By the end of our trip we had come across around 3-4 younger sharks, which measured between 2.5 and 3.5 meters (11-13 feet) – not too long but still incredible to see. When sharks have babies, they get between 2-14 at one time, which is really impressive; but when the mother gives birth, she just leaves them behind – shocking fact, isn’t it ?
Whale watching at De Kelders
On our journey back to Cape Town, we stopped at De Kelders, a good spot to watch whales located between Hermanus and Gaansbaai – it was pretty cool but for some reason boring to me – they seemed so far away to spot properly. So I got a funny idea !
Going outside the comfort zone – again – dancing a Brasilian song in South Africa
On the bus journey to the whale watching spot, I met some guys from Brazil and once we arrived and chilled, I encouraged them to dance with me the LEPO LEPO song (a summer hit from the football world cup in Brazil in 2014), which was a riot – even though at this point I didn’t remember the lyrics – but it was nonetheless so much fun. Ha ha. I think the group of Brazilians didn’t expect to do it. Watch it, it’s hilarious !
I TRAVEL FOREVER’s VIEW & RECOMMENDATION
At the end of the day, I concluded that we were lucky to at least get to see some great white sharks even though they were the younger ones; but I think the mature ones don’t get teased so easily. Luck is what you need when going into the open water to spot great white sharks, so keep your expectation low to not be disappointed in the end. I can say that shark diving was a good experience but didn’t quite fulfill my high expectations because the great whites were not really bothered about us in the cage. For the price of 1,200 Rand (90 USD), I totally recommend doing it because, as far as I know, this is really cheap compared to the prices in Port Lincoln, Australia at about 600 USD and you have to catch a flight to get there. Whale watching might be something to combine with another trip to get close enough to see giant whales.
#TW
